The Beacon Bmx

The S&M dudes went on a little trip from California to Austin recently and destroyed most of the cities along the way. Considering the rippers aboard their hot-boxed van, you knew there would be some good footage coming from that tour. Here is a quick edit they put together for their YouTube channel.
Living in Texas, I’m bummed I missed them. It’s fun to see them ride some of the spots I have ridden before in El Paso and Austin. You might recognize one of the ditches they’re riding from the EP Ed photos I posted recently.

Back during my racing days, most of the guys I looked up to rode Challenger stems.  I loved checking out their parts. My thought was if they had it on their bike it had to be good, right?

During these times, most of my riding was off of the race track. So, I thought buying a “racing” stem wouldn’t be a good idea.  Surely, the cut-out on the Challenger would weaken it enough to catapult me to my death upon it’s catastrophic failure.  At the time, if you wanted a “strong” topload stem the industry suggested you bought something that resembled a brick.

Nowadays things are a little different.  With stems having more holes drilled into them than necessary, lighter stems are now almost half the weight of the Challenger.

EDIT: I’m sorry if anyone got offended with my “hole drilling” link.  I came across it when I did an image search for drilling and thought it was too funny not to post.  Lighten up dudes!

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