Common BMX Bike Setup Problems

Video Transcript

"I looked at bike shops over a number of years and I noticed certain patterns in mistakes that people make when setting up their own personal bikes. A lot of them have to do with issues that I talked about already. Probably the most common one is tire pressure people just don't run enough tire pressure often times they're just negligent and don't fill up their tires as often as they should and they wonder why they start to get a lot more flats. And so tire checking your tire pressure every couple of rides is always a good thing to do. Another issue is just general bike fit, people running handlebars that are too small for them. Generally people running handlebars too big isn't too much of a problem but a lot of people you see are you know even bigger than me running much smaller handlebars and they can't figure out why they don't feel comfortable on their bike. The frame size again is another issue that a lot of people don't take into consideration nearly as much as they should. Because you know as I said there's already a lot of personal choice involved but if you just can't figure out why you don't feel comfortable on your bike, that's something to look for. Gearing often times people will go and go run a smaller chain ring but they won't decrease the size of real cog so they end up putting a much lower gear ratio and they just are getting frustrated that they're not going anywhere when they pedal. So making sure that you are running a normal sort of gear ratio is very important, crank length this is an issue that mostly with smaller riders often times you know see people come in and who are about this tall running 180 millimeters, 185 millimeters crank arms. And this just doesn't work for them, watch them pedal around and it's like they're stepping up a very tall stair or something like that every time they pedal and they are wondering why their bike doesn't pedal efficiently. So crank arm length is another big issue here in general if you go back. Go over your bike and make sure that everything kind of makes sense for your height and your riding style, your build, that kind of thing. You'll generally be very happy with your bike."