The RideNow tubes were delivered while I was at my parents this morning but luckily the postie put them in my dustbin for me to get when I got home so I took the front wheel off of the Black Market Contraband 24″ and put in one of the new tubes in and pumped the wheel up and the bike is now fully ride-able 🙂
The RideNow tubes feel really good and are super light (Lighter than the Tubolitos even!) and feel a bit more like a normal tube than the tubolitos do when full of air so they don’t feel quite as hard at 60-80 psi as Tubolitos do which I like. This may be due to the 2.10″ wide tyres compared to the 1.75″ but I’m not sure. I am super happy with the way the Black Market Contraband 24″ looks and feels too!
This afternoon about 15:00 I went to the track and met up with my friend and his son for a bit of a ride and I have to say that the Black Market Contraband 24″ is a keeper that’s for sure! It really feels more like a BMX than a jump bike which I like and it manuals and pumps really well too 🙂 I am not super happy with the way the forks are so high as they make the front end feel too high. Also the stem feels a bit short so I will look for a 52mm stem for the bike as well.
I have the forks that came with the bike (NS rigid forks) so I will fit them for now and try the bike again in the morning to see if I like them more than the big forks and make a decision from there!
As you an see from the photo above, I took my obligatory photo for FaceBook of the bike at the track before I rode the bike and got it dusty and dirty 🙂 Then I rode it for a couple hours on the 3rd and 4th straights and it felt really good and I really enjoyed riding the bike! The brake is really harsh on the track so I may swap it out for a cable actuated disk brake at some point but I will live with it for now at least!
My other option is to use a 50mm bmx stem and the Gusset OpenPrison bars that came with the bike for now to see if the bike feels better or not.
I really loved the Halo DJD Supadrive hub its really fast and smooth and sounds really loud too 🙂 It was also a bargain as well so I may well get a BMX one for my OS20 when I build it as its way cheaper than the Profile elite or Onyx hubs so I can keep the cost of the build down for now!
I also picked up my Shimano Saint 170mm cranks that I swapped with my friend for my 175mm Shimano DXR’s and he left in the container at the track for me to grab when I was at the track next 🙂 So I will fit them onto the Curtis at some point and then I will save the Amazon cranks for the OS20 Build as well 🙂 Monday I also need to clean up my DXR cranks, Halo 26″ DJ wheels and the DXR Sect DJ Frame and take photos and get them on the internet to sell to recoup some money! As I am struggling for cash at the moment 🙁 I am not in any hurry to build the OS20 so its all good!
The Curtis 24″ is going back on the wall for a while while I concentrate on learning to jump again this month and change my focus to weight training and riding the rollers again instead of riding every lunch time! Other than Tuesdays so that’s all good.
I am really liking the chrome paint on the frame so if I need to get it powder coated I will try and get it chrome look again for sure! I want to go to a pump track tomorrow morning early to test the Black Market Contraband 24″ on the pump track on the way to my parent’s house tomorrow morning to see how it is on the pump track before I mess with the bars, stem and forks to see how it rides in it’s current setup before messing again!