What BMX brands should be avoided?

Four wrote:

Those parts aren't in my taste which if you read originally I said the tires specifically looked wack.

Stevie left a few years ago, you do realize companies make a run of parts and just because a rider leaves their team doesn't mean they're just going to throw thousands of dollars of merchandise in the trash right? they still sell it until the inventory is cleared.

As I've said I'm not a fanboy to any brand, if federal makes a budget company and entry level completes I'll think it's lame. So dissecting a company doesn't really matter to me lol. If you think Federal is lame, cool. Idrc.

I'm not blowing smoke up anyones ass or claiming to have an inside track. If i think a company is wack they're wack to me and I don't want their parts on my bike. Simple. Bmx is different to everyone. You may be into youtube bmx vloggers, budget parts and 300 dollar complete bikes but to me it's wack.

If you read I said fly was wack for their quality going down and starting "trebol" which indeed is lame.

I also like how your arguments are " but it sells" lmao like that means it's cool. A lot of wack shit sells because people follow trends. Brands like animal or T1 have a loyal fanbase maybe not the most money but they've stayed pretty true to the brand and image vs making whatever bullshit sells.

I get it man you're a kink fanboy and are triggered because I think the companies you like are wack. You can ride a jetfuel hyper with all kink and mission parts it doesn't effect me nor do I care about your bike.

pnfdog wrote:

I bought a Fly top of the line complete with Trebol parts before I knew better. I'm interested in their magneto hub but that's about it. I will give them the credit though for having the best photography on their parts. They make their parts look fantastic in pics...

Four wrote:

Out of the budget brands Trebol is one of the nicer ones to be fair. Their edits and photos were always good. They were actually one of the best companies in the mid 2000s. I’ve had lots of their parts and my first bike was a fly.

They're ok but don't belong on an $800 complete...

Four wrote:

Frontload always looked better. I switched to topload when my back got worse. Riding a frontload now feels like an 18” bike lol. I had a bunch of the fly potencias, solid stem, fit DLD, animal jump off, mutiny lifted (idk where it went lol), profile etc the colony stems always looked cool.

As to your other post about fly as we discussed before I relate to that. Still run the chain and pedals. I rode the headset cap with the integrated shim for like 7 years. Maybe one day they’ll make good parts again. They sold those Tierra’s so fast when they did the limited sale you’d think with KP on the team they’d bring a modern Tierra out (I think the v1 fit a 2.1 max lol). None of the frame, bars or forks interests me atm.

Oh yeah they should definitely bring out a new Tierra with updated/modern geo, I'd be pretty confident in betting it would probably sell better than what they currently have for their frame line up.

Razor bmx bikes.

pnfdog wrote:

They're ok but don't belong on an $800 complete...

Yup that's why I always say to try to buy used. You can get a top of the line custom that's a few years old for like 450-600 and trade up from there or have a good start for a custom build. Completes are good for people trying bmx but not long term.

Cellmember wrote:

Oh yeah they should definitely bring out a new Tierra with updated/modern geo, I'd be pretty confident in betting it would probably sell better than what they currently have for their frame line up.

Yup make it a little more responsive, more of today's features and strengthen it up a bit. It was one of the most popular frames and still relevant today. Unfortunately they seem more focused on really stable flowly trail frames or twitchy generic street geo atm. Also interesting their prices are so high for a company not exactly known for high durability parts maybe they're better now though but most of what I've seen from 2010 hasn't been very strong.

so do we have a list or something? maybe like a bullet point list or top 10?

ghostrider920 wrote:

so do we have a list or something? maybe like a bullet point list or top 10?

There’s plenty of other brands that hype up their bikes as being “pro level” when they’re mostly hi ten.

There’s loads I’d avoid personally for being on the greedy side. Any brand that follows trends a bit too closely puts me off. Trends seem to be pushed by certain brands, even if they’re not actually good. Tall bars are a good example, brands tried to out do each other but it got to a point it was silly. I could point out a few more, where people buy into a trend without really thinking about how it affects the geometry of their bike, or their riding

jboozer4 wrote:

I’m with these other two dudes on cult, but that’s more from a business side from how the company started, it rubbed me the wrong way.
I would avoid big company’s sister part brands, they’re typically made lower cost/lower quality as oem parts for completes (Except Madera their shit is still solid just less fancy than profile):
Wise
Rant
Mission
Revenge
Probably missed a lot here but you catch my drift

Also wouldn’t ride a handful of companies just based on reputation, also the fact that they’re in and out of the game and not big players speaks about their parts to me personally:
Stolen
Eastern
Premium

Wouldn’t ride kink personally only because their oem bars on completes bent very quickly for my buddies who got full chromoly completes, one back in 2009 and one this year for my other friend. Shit breaks but neither of them went hard, both sides just slowly started sagging and that bummed me out that they had to deal with that within a couple months after I advised them to shell out 500+ for full chromoly everything. I’m sure their aftermarket stuff is nicer but they rubbed me the wrong way and now I could care less about them and helping keep their sales up.

I’m a little picky and really only would buy from s&m/fit/profile/odyssey, and then some select parts from Eclat/shadow, that’s about it. But a lot of people don’t like some of those brands either, I’ve just loved those companies and every part I’ve had from them. Never really had a bad experience sticking to those guys.

You’re going to find some huge s&m haters, profile is overpriced and their hubs wobble guys, big cult fanboys, people saying kink has the best complete for the money, etc so prepare to not learn much from this thread other than people have their own preferences. Lol.

S&M/FIT for the win

RadToast wrote:

S&M/FIT for the win

Even though they’re American made they still aren’t as good as other brands since their frames are weak cuz I know at least 2 dudes who snapped their daggers in less than a week

PastaIsLitty wrote:

Even though they’re American made they still aren’t as good as other brands since their frames are weak cuz I know at least 2 dudes who snapped their daggers in less than a week

So, what happened when S&M replaced those two frames free of charge?

jboozer4 wrote:

I’m with these other two dudes on cult, but that’s more from a business side from how the company started, it rubbed me the wrong way.
I would avoid big company’s sister part brands, they’re typically made lower cost/lower quality as oem parts for completes (Except Madera their shit is still solid just less fancy than profile):
Wise
Rant
Mission
Revenge
Probably missed a lot here but you catch my drift

Also wouldn’t ride a handful of companies just based on reputation, also the fact that they’re in and out of the game and not big players speaks about their parts to me personally:
Stolen
Eastern
Premium

Wouldn’t ride kink personally only because their oem bars on completes bent very quickly for my buddies who got full chromoly completes, one back in 2009 and one this year for my other friend. Shit breaks but neither of them went hard, both sides just slowly started sagging and that bummed me out that they had to deal with that within a couple months after I advised them to shell out 500+ for full chromoly everything. I’m sure their aftermarket stuff is nicer but they rubbed me the wrong way and now I could care less about them and helping keep their sales up.

I’m a little picky and really only would buy from s&m/fit/profile/odyssey, and then some select parts from Eclat/shadow, that’s about it. But a lot of people don’t like some of those brands either, I’ve just loved those companies and every part I’ve had from them. Never really had a bad experience sticking to those guys.

You’re going to find some huge s&m haters, profile is overpriced and their hubs wobble guys, big cult fanboys, people saying kink has the best complete for the money, etc so prepare to not learn much from this thread other than people have their own preferences. Lol.

RadToast wrote:

S&M/FIT for the win

PastaIsLitty wrote:

Even though they’re American made they still aren’t as good as other brands since their frames are weak cuz I know at least 2 dudes who snapped their daggers in less than a week

There’s probably standard frames out there older than you still not broke , you want to endorse communist China to bash America , tell me again how odyssey has a lifetime warranty ?

eskimojay wrote:

There’s probably standard frames out there older than you still not broke , you want to endorse communist China to bash America , tell me again how odyssey has a lifetime warranty ?

I’d rather be free to buy from whoever I want than only support businesses from America. I’d rather support a brand that I like with frames that I like than support a company because it’s American made.

Bryan91 wrote:

So, what happened when S&M replaced those two frames free of charge?

He broke another one in a month and gave up on s&m

PastaIsLitty wrote:

He broke another one in a month and gave up on s&m

Well hopefully he made them replace it again, so he could get some of his money back... I"d almost think he could arrange something with S&M and the place he bought it from to get a full refund?

With S&M constantly selling out of everything they make in the past couple of years, you'd almost think we'd see more actual accounts from the owners of the above happening (on here, or some other bmx forum).

Four wrote:

Frontload always looked better. I switched to topload when my back got worse. Riding a frontload now feels like an 18” bike lol. I had a bunch of the fly potencias, solid stem, fit DLD, animal jump off, mutiny lifted (idk where it went lol), profile etc the colony stems always looked cool.

As to your other post about fly as we discussed before I relate to that. Still run the chain and pedals. I rode the headset cap with the integrated shim for like 7 years. Maybe one day they’ll make good parts again. They sold those Tierra’s so fast when they did the limited sale you’d think with KP on the team they’d bring a modern Tierra out (I think the v1 fit a 2.1 max lol). None of the frame, bars or forks interests me atm.

Cellmember wrote:

Oh yeah they should definitely bring out a new Tierra with updated/modern geo, I'd be pretty confident in betting it would probably sell better than what they currently have for their frame line up.

Four wrote:

Yup make it a little more responsive, more of today's features and strengthen it up a bit. It was one of the most popular frames and still relevant today. Unfortunately they seem more focused on really stable flowly trail frames or twitchy generic street geo atm. Also interesting their prices are so high for a company not exactly known for high durability parts maybe they're better now though but most of what I've seen from 2010 hasn't been very strong.

Yep, they seem to have gone backwards imo.

RadToast wrote:

S&M/FIT for the win

Everytime I see this reminds me of this S&M Mod frame, not saying they're bad or anything.

eskimojay wrote:

There’s probably standard frames out there older than you still not broke , you want to endorse communist China to bash America , tell me again how odyssey has a lifetime warranty ?

Aftermarket BMX frames and parts are not made in China.

Xxohioanxx wrote:

Aftermarket BMX frames and parts are not made in China.

Aren’t they made in Taiwan mostly?

Xxohioanxx wrote:

Aftermarket BMX frames and parts are not made in China.

Good luck telling mainland China that...

Technically, Taiwan is the "Republic of China", but not China (People's Republic of China). The "sourced material" that made in Taiwan frames/ parts use could be from Mainland China, though... That's why I have no problem paying the extra $40-80 for an S&M production frame.

Also, that M.O.D. frame definitely looks like shit, but S&M isn't the only company to put out wonky welds like that from time to time:

Bryan91 wrote:

Good luck telling mainland China that...

Technically, Taiwan is the "Republic of China", but not China (People's Republic of China). The "sourced material" that made in Taiwan frames/ parts use could be from Mainland China, though... That's why I have no problem paying the extra $40-80 for an S&M production frame.

Also, that M.O.D. frame definitely looks like shit, but S&M isn't the only company to put out wonky welds like that from time to time:

You couldn't criticize someone for "endorsing communist China" while claiming Taiwan is part of China tho.

Any manufacturer is going to have bad welds occasionally but S&M was quite consistently shipping poorly made products for a long time. One photo of a slightly questionable FBM weld just isn't very convincing compared to the many photos of absolute shit S&M welds.

Xxohioanxx wrote:

You couldn't criticize someone for "endorsing communist China" while claiming Taiwan is part of China tho.

Any manufacturer is going to have bad welds occasionally but S&M was quite consistently shipping poorly made products for a long time. One photo of a slightly questionable FBM weld just isn't very convincing compared to the many photos of absolute shit S&M welds.

You are correct on both counts.

I wasn't the one who made the "endorsing communist China" comment and I do think S&M fucks themselves over by not doing better QC work. They still sell out of everything they make, so maybe it isn't as big of a deal for them, because of the quantity they put out?

I've never got welds like the above (M.O.D. frame) from any S&M product and if I did I'd be asking for a replacement. I've also seen a lot of S&M shit online that never looks that bad. Yet, I have seen plenty of shit where I ask myself "Why did S&M put that out the door?". I've also seen plenty of made in Taiwan frames with the same rushed weld jobs.

Here we go again on the s&m/fit is overrated vs they’re the best company

I’ve said it a lot already but I’ll say it again:

S&m/fit frames retail 50-80 dollars more than overseas frames. The fit mixtape being a prime example at 400+
For a generic frame that looks no different than anything else out there and no superior quality that’s a lot of money.

Just off the top of my head they’ve put out a bunch of parts that I’ve seen break lots

Fit s3.5s
Fit daks
Fit shiv 1s
S&m ltfs
I’ve seen a lot of the btms break
I’ve seen a bunch of the bars break (breaking two pairs myself one bent and one snapped at the weld)

I don’t strongly dislike the company or anything but what they’re charging for the their parts is way overpriced for the quality I’ve seen. They’re lacking a lot of features that wtp or Sunday offer and they’re the same price or more.

Cellmember wrote:

Yep, they seem to have gone backwards imo.

Yup I probably won’t be buying anything from them soon.

Four wrote:

Here we go again on the s&m/fit is overrated vs they’re the best company

I’ve said it a lot already but I’ll say it again:

S&m/fit frames retail 50-80 dollars more than overseas frames. The fit mixtape being a prime example at 400+
For a generic frame that looks no different than anything else out there and no superior quality that’s a lot of money.

Just off the top of my head they’ve put out a bunch of parts that I’ve seen break lots

Fit s3.5s
Fit daks
Fit shiv 1s
S&m ltfs
I’ve seen a lot of the btms break
I’ve seen a bunch of the bars break (breaking two pairs myself one bent and one snapped at the weld)

I don’t strongly dislike the company or anything but what they’re charging for the their parts is way overpriced for the quality I’ve seen. They’re lacking a lot of features that wtp or Sunday offer and they’re the same price or more.

Again, that extra $50-80 for the "generic" S&M/ Fit frame is basically split in half for "Made in USA" and the other half for "materials sourced from the USA".

If those two things do nothing for you then of course you'd be better off getting a "generic" Taiwan frame for less. Or, a more expensive Taiwan frame that has features that make it stronger, because those brands said, so...

Also, WTP/ Sunday still refuse to make a frame over 21.25" even though it's 2020 and literally every other brand has a 21.5"+ option. That's tall people discrimination! lol

Bryan91 wrote:

Again, that extra $50-80 for the "generic" S&M/ Fit frame is basically split in half for "Made in USA" and the other half for "materials sourced from the USA".

If those two things do nothing for you then of course you'd be better off getting a "generic" Taiwan frame for less. Or, a more expensive Taiwan frame that has features that make it stronger, because those brands said, so...

Also, WTP/ Sunday still refuse to make a frame over 21.25" even though it's 2020 and literally every other brand has a 21.5"+ option. That's tall people discrimination! lol

Yeah I don’t really care where it’s made lol. But to each their own. I think for the price they’re charging they should be stronger and welded better. As far as being stronger the tubing used on most fit/s&m frames is thin and weak compared to things like wave tubing.

Yeah that’s true lol Sunday and WTP don’t make any geo I’m interested in. But not many people ride 21.5 or bigger unless you’re riding trails. When I was riding 20.6 I couldn’t find any either lol. 20.5 20.75 and 21 seem to be what everyone makes.

I’ve cracked 3 of the 5 (maybe 6?) s&m frames I’ve had. And every s&m I’ve seen in the past few years has had very questionable looking welds. The barcodes they made a few years back were a complete mess.

I’ve had 5 fbm frames, not cracked any and no dodgy looking welds. I’ve had plenty of Taiwanese made frames, not cracked any and no dodgy looking welds.......

S&m use good quality tubing. Probably better quality than most Taiwanese made frames. But it’s not just the tubing that makes a good frame.

I’m not joining either side in an argument, just saying everyone should not fan boy over a brand, especially when it comes to quality. If you want to buy murican made because you’re patriotic or whatever, go ahead. If you want to buy from a brand because you like the image, that’s cool. And if you want to buy a brand because they’re cheaper than everyone else, that’s cool too. But quality of the end product isn’t enough for the vast majority of riders (including pro’s) to notice.

Bryan91 wrote:

You are correct on both counts.

I wasn't the one who made the "endorsing communist China" comment and I do think S&M fucks themselves over by not doing better QC work. They still sell out of everything they make, so maybe it isn't as big of a deal for them, because of the quantity they put out?

I've never got welds like the above (M.O.D. frame) from any S&M product and if I did I'd be asking for a replacement. I've also seen a lot of S&M shit online that never looks that bad. Yet, I have seen plenty of shit where I ask myself "Why did S&M put that out the door?". I've also seen plenty of made in Taiwan frames with the same rushed weld jobs.

They may be selling out, but I would bet the following is likely:

A. Lower production numbers. Put out 500 frames and have 150 laying around at the end of the year VS put out 350 and sell out. When people hear a brand is selling out of stuff, they are more likely to buy it now in case the brand tanks and they become collector's items OR just to have before they gotta wait.

B. Most of those frames are much more local to S&M HQ and/or bought by older guys getting a bike again to relive their youth. S&M frames aren't super common locally. A few older guys have em, and like ONE kid. Everyone else is on the "popular/trendy" brand stuff or whatever local shops carry.

dave lawrence wrote:

They may be selling out, but I would bet the following is likely:

A. Lower production numbers. Put out 500 frames and have 150 laying around at the end of the year VS put out 350 and sell out. When people hear a brand is selling out of stuff, they are more likely to buy it now in case the brand tanks and they become collector's items OR just to have before they gotta wait.

B. Most of those frames are much more local to S&M HQ and/or bought by older guys getting a bike again to relive their youth. S&M frames aren't super common locally. A few older guys have em, and like ONE kid. Everyone else is on the "popular/trendy" brand stuff or whatever local shops carry.

Could very well be either one... I grew up about an hour north of S&M, so that definitely plays a roll in my brand loyalty for them.

I just wish that they would focus more on making their frame welds look like an 8/10 at worst vs. what we see on that M.O.D., or even those Barcodes that Steve mentioned. Then again, I guess you get into the whole "weld penetration" vs. "weld aesthetic" thing, or the argument that they should be delivering on both.