So after mulling things over this week I have decided that I am going to get rid of all of my BMX bikes apart from the Yess and the Supercross frame and maybe the Dialled 20″ frame and I will be riding and if I can race, racing a jump bike next year! I figure that it makes more sense as I can have one bike and ride it for everything. I can use a Jump bike on the track, pump track, riding to work or anything else I want to do as well. I can even put the seat up and go for a long ride if I want to 🙂
I have been thinking about getting an Airdrop Fade for a few years and decided now was the time to bite the bullet and do it as they actually have stock at the moment, which they haven’t done for ages. I was actually going to get an Airdrop frame when I built up by jump bike earlier in the year but the container never arrived so I bought the Zircus instead. I really like the Zircus but there is something missing from the way that it rides that I can’t put my finger on so I decided to get an Airdrop as my friend has had one for years and it is the one bike that he has said that he will never sell at any price so that is good enough for me!
I initially thought about getting a frame and then putting the bits off of my Zircus on it but then I thought I want some better forks so started looking at getting some forks as well and then I wanted to swap out my bars and stem as well so then the price was almost the same as getting a complete bike so I decided to do that instead as it made more sense.
So tonight I bit the bullet and bought an Airdrop Fade Works as it was the only complete that they do that has Halo wheels so I had to buy it as I have used and loved Halo wheels for years and I already have the tool to remove freewheels so it just makes sense. It also has Rockshox Pike DJ forks which are supposed to be bullet proof and I have always wanted a set of them!
I went with the matt black frame and grey stickers to match my old Curtis Colours and also the stickers on the forks. So it should look something like this:
The only parts on the Airdrop Fade Works that I need to change is the cranks and the gearing. The 170mm cranks and 28×11 gearing will be fine for normal use but will be too hard for the track so I have bought a set of 175mm Truvativ Descendant DUB 6K cranks with a 32t Sprocket so that I can run 32×16 so that the bike will have almost identical gearing to a 36×16 on the cruiser.
As the Airdrop Fade will not be here until at least the middle of next month (not that I can ride at the moment anyway!) I am going to fit the cranks to my Octane One Zircus for now as I need the cranks that are on the Zircus to go onto my Inspyre 20″ so that I can sell it. I have also bought a new Halo 20″ front wheel to go on the Inspyre so that I can keep my Onyx front wheel.
This also gives me time to test the 32×16 gearing before the Airdrop arrives.
**** UPDATE****
I was looking on the Airdrop site and I saw that they had a cheap frame Airdrop Fade frame that was a cosmetic second so I just bought it for my Son as I’m a bit annoyed with the Octane One Zircus fiasco so I’m going to build up the Blue Zircus with the parts off of my Son’s GT Chucker and sell it as a complete bike and send the other Frame back as it is borked. The good thing is that the Airdrop Frame has the same colour scheme as the new Octane One Zircus so he will not really notice the difference 🙂 and it means that I will have 2 bikes that are essentially the same to play with 🙂 I will use my son’s bike to ride around on normally and also use in the skatepark and then I will only use mine for riding the track and pump tracks to keep it in a bit better condition 🙂 I am also thinking of leaving my son’s bike with the standard 170mm cranks and Airdrop 28×11 gearing and setting mine up with the 175mm cranks and the 32×16 gearing to make it like a race cruiser then I can have the best of both worlds. I will also set my Airdrop up with the race seat from the Octane One and put the Gusset padded seat on my Son’s bike as I don’t like padded seats when I ride tracks and pump tracks as they get in the way.