Hey everyone and welcome back to another Tuesday tip and also welcome to the very first video in my BMX explain series
this is a series going in-depth on different geometry of BMX parts as well as
in-depth on certain concepts and tricks to learn while riding your bike this video the very first video we're going to be covering the
Terminology of an entire BMX bike starting from the top to the bottom from the front to the back
We're gonna go over every single
part and what it's called and some of the different terms in regards to geometry and I will also point you to
Videos that I have going very in-depth about the parts when I have them. So first, let's start at the very top here
let's talk about the bar ends and
some of these things might be very obvious to some of you but other people don't know these things so we have to cover the
entire bike the bar ends can be either metal or
plastic and they go in the end of the bars to protect you in case of a fall or
Protect the turf that you're riding on then we move in and we've got the grips everybody knows what a grip is
So let's not spend any more time on that moving in from there. Some people have brakes on their bike
So here I've got my brake lever in my upper gyro cables because I'm using a gyro
Setup, some people have different setups, but that's a little more in-depth than we want to get for this video
So let's move over a little bit further and we've got the handlebars when it comes to the handlebars
We've got four different geometric
terms to know and I've got two in depth the video about this which is linked in the description with every other video that I
Mentioned just to get that out of the way. These terms are the rise the width the up sweep in the back sweep
Check that video out
If you want to know what those things mean
Then we move a little bit further down and we've got the stem
The stem has a few different geometric terms to cover as well
Which I do have a specific
In-depth video about but the two main ones that you might hear are the rise and the reach of the stem
moving downward on my bike
I have a gyro a gyro is what allows me to spin my handlebars all
The way around and still have brakes without tangling up a brake cable. There's not a ton to know there
So let's move on from there after that. We've got the gyro tabs
These are holes in our frame that allow abs to be drilled in in order to put these little barrel adjusters
This is what these are called
Into the tabs and allow us to use our gyro brakes from there. We can move down to the forks
I do have a very very
In-depth video about BMX or geometry which is kind of crazy and it gets a lot more technical than it might appear
But the main thing that you're going to hear about when it comes to BMX Forks is the offset
Underneath our stem and above our fork. We also have our headset bearings
These are just bearings that press into the top and bottom of the fork and allow our bars to turn the way that they do
There's really not anything to talk about
Geometrically when it comes to the headset because the bearings are both exactly the same that is called campi spec
Which is something you'll never need to know. You ever need to know anything about your headset
Just know that it's an integrated headset if it's built into the frame if it's not built into the frame
It means that you have a pressing Cup headset and if you have any issues with that or you need to replace
anything with that I would just personally recommend taking it to your local bike shop because they're going to know exactly what you need and
Exactly how to fix it on top of the stem. We have our headset cap
It's also known as a compression cap
And it's just how we keep compression on our headset bearings and keep our bearings and all of our front assembly
Tight moving on from there talking about something that is directly connected to the fork
We have a peg a peg can be made of metal or it can be metal with a plastic sleeve or it can be solid
plastic and the main geometric things that we hear about when it comes to pegs is the width and
Sometimes the circumference and how big around the peg is itself
It's pretty self-explanatory and pegs can go on either side of the bike both front or rear or both and people ride
Varying amounts of pegs from one to three and sometimes even four moving on from there
We've got the front wheel starting at the top of the front wheel. We have our tires when it comes to tires
There's one huge geometric thing that people care about and that is the size of the tire
this is something that is very greatly throughout years of BMX and can go anywhere from
1.75 all the way up to 2.5 and this is a number in inches
Let's talk about rims next there's a few different geometric terms when it comes to the rim
We have the ER D the width and the sidewall height of the rim
And I'm going to make an in-depth video about this
So if you're watching in the future chances are I probably have it linked in the description below
These things don't matter a ton in
Everyday use but they do have an effect and they can matter so you should know what they are moving from there
We've got the nipples
The nipples are something that there's not alot to talk about they can be made of
Alloy, or they can be made of brass. The brass are much more durable just for everyone's information
Then we've got the spokes the spokes can be different lengths depending upon the rim and hug that you have
They can be different
thicknesses and spokes can have different amounts of Budig which literally just means that they're thicker and skinnier in different areas along the length of
The spoke to keep weight down while also keeping strength in mind moving down from there at the end of my spokes
You'll see this disc looking thing
This is called a hub guard and literally it's just there to guard the hub and the spokes and make them last longer
So you can have those on any
spot that you can have a peg and it will extend the life of your
BMX hub and since we're talking about hubs so much. Let's talk about the hub
The hub is in the center of the rim
and it's literally just the center point of the rim with bearings in an axle so that your wheel can spin and
Let you move when it comes to BMX hubs
There's not a ton to talk about as far as geometry goes there is something called flange distance which has an effect on the length
Of the spokes that you need for the rim that you have
But it's not something that you need to consider in day to day riding
Just whenever you're buying a new hub or a new rim for that matter and while we're on the topic of BMX hubs we can
Talk about the fact that there are female and male
axles on the hub's this literally just means that there's either bolts then go into the hub to bolt it on to the bike or
there's a stud that goes through the hub that axle nuts go onto which you tighten onto the bike that way now to cover a
Few different nuances when it comes to BMX wheels and all of the things that make them up one
I will answer a question that I get all the time. What's the tennis ball for literally? It doesn't do anything
I just found it one day while I was riding my bike
And then after that we've got tubes inside our tires
Which come in varying sizes for different sized wheels as well as different sized
tires
So you can get a very skinny tube that's not made for a bigger tire or you can get a very big wide tube
that's not made for a very skinny tire like the difference between racing and
freestyle tires racing tires are much thinner and skinnier and
BMX tires for freestyle are much thicker generally after that we've got the valve stem which is on the tube
Itself and then a valve stem cap moving on
Let's talk about the central part of the bike the frame. I do have a very in-depth video about frame geometry
Explaining all of the different dimensions and measurements and what they mean
So let's just run through the terms and what these things are called right now at the front. We've got the head tube
It's the tube that goes up and down
attached to that
We've got the top tube and the bottom tube the top tube has a length and that is the length that you will hear whenever
You hear people talking about frame size on a BMX bike moving back from here
We've got the seat tube
The seat tube also has a height to it, which is something you will hear about then
We've got the bottom bracket tube
Which is connected to the bottom tube and the seat tube within the bottom bracket tube on our frame
We also have our bottom bracket, which is just two bearings and a spacer that go inside this tube right here
There is a geometric thing that goes with that in that bottom bracket tubes come in different lengths
So the length of the spacer that you need between your bearings could vary between different frames then moving backward
We've got our seat and chainstay tubes
We can have brakes attached to either of these I've got seat stay brakes and whenever you have brakes on the bottom
They're called chainstay brakes. Then in the middle of our seat. Stay tubes. We've got a tube that goes across here
This is called the seat stay bridge and then there's also different aspects
How a chain stay is attached to the bike
It can be attached with the tubes or it can be attached with a wishbone
Which is just another tube that these chainstay tubes are attached to then moving backward on the frame
We can talk about our dropouts the dropouts are where the seat and chainstay tubes come together in meet at a point
That is welded on where the wheel slides in and that is your dropout moving back forward
Let's talk about the parts in the middle of the bike. First. We've got our seat in seat post very self-explanatory
This is the seat
This is the seat post there have been a few different designs for the way that seats and seat posts have worked throughout the years
But they're all pretty similar and self-explanatory to understand moving down from there
We've got our seat post clamp quite literally it clamps the seat post in place onto the frame moving down from there
We've got our cranks and our cranking system first. Let's talk about the pedals
These can be metal or plastic or plastic with metal pins in them
They can be sealed bearings or unsealed bearings but in general pedals or pedals and you know, what pedals are then?
We've got the cranks pretty much on
99% of modern BMX bikes the cranks are called three-piece cranks
and I have a very very very
in-depth video about the length of BMX cranks in the geometry and different aspects that they can't
affect to put it very simply all BMX cranks have the length to them in that crank length is really the only
Geometric term that you're ever going to have to think or worry about whenever you're talking about cranks on your BMX bike
Moving across the bike to the side that you really can't see that well
But we've got our sprocket over here sprocket can come in varying different
sizes and that can have an effect on the way that your bike feels when it's
pedaling and this is something that you probably have heard about a little bit but it does matter and it can have a
Huge change or effect on the bike in the way that it feels it
Also can have different designs as far as it can be a guard sprocket or an on guard sprocket
and these are just
simple things that mean the sprocket has a guard on it to protect your chain while doing different grinds or stalls or
it doesn't it can also be spline drive or
Drive or socket drive
the soccer drive is proprietary to very
Specific cranks spline drive is where the sprocket has splines that match up with the splines of your cranks instead of using a bolt
So that whenever you take pedals with your cranks the sprocket moves with it
Without needing a bulb and that means that the bolt is very self-explanatory and is where a bolt goes through your sprocket
into your crank and that is what moves your sprocket whenever you take cranks forward between the
Sprocket and the rear of our bike is our chain
And this is something that I'm sure all of you have heard of before and there's really not a lot of variation in BMX
Freestyle chains other than from the low end to the top-end
and half link and full-length chains and
Really? There's not a lot that needs to be worried about here
And if you are worrying about that
You're probably more advanced than this video moving to my brakes brakes are also very simple on BMX bikes
like I said
they can either go on the seat stay or the chains stay and there's not a lot of variation and there's really
No geometric terms when it comes to the brakes. We also forgot to talk about I have a London mod setup
That is what it's called
whenever you have to lower gyro cables instead of one that mates up to two up in the front and
That is something I really don't want to get into when it comes to this video. Let's keep it simple
So moving backward to the back of the bike
We've already talked about pegs pegs on the back are exactly the same as pegs on the front
We've got a hub guard back here as well
But it's metal instead of plastic
like the front one and this is
Generally something you'll see on the back of a BMX bike because the rear peg and the rear end of the bike with pegs
Takes a little bit more
Abuse then we've got the wheel is the last thing to talk about as far as the tires the tubes the rim
spokes
Those are all
Exactly the same as well as the axles as far as female and male axles go in the rear of the bike the difference lies
in the hubs
you can either have a free coaster hub or
a cassette hub
some BMX bikes might have a freewheel and it's very rare that you might see a coaster brake a free coaster is just simply a
How's the bike to roll backwards without having to pedal backwards?
The way a cassette would a cassette is where whenever it rolls backwards
you have to pedal it backwards to match the motion of the wheel a
Freewheel is a similar style to a cassette but everything is contained in a self-contained unit
That screws onto the hub itself. And like I said, you generally don't see those in freestyle BMX anymore
Maybe some on the race side. I'm not totally sure but
that does it for the terminology of
Every single part on a BMX bike. I hope that this served a purpose for you
I hope that you learned something if you did and you want to know more check out the description for an entire list of videos
Of the different specific aspects that I covered in this video if you did learn something and you're new here
Consider hitting the subscribe button down below. I want to thank you guys for all being here and watching and
There's something on my channel if you're new that I like to do
first of all
thank you for being here and watching I really hope that you learned something and
Hopefully you'll subscribe so that we can see you tomorrow for another video. Thanks again, and goodbye