It’s pretty crazy how much product design history there is in BMX. Over the years we have seen a lot of products come, some innovative and unique, others just to match another product that has been selling well. One interesting thing about BMX is how many times we’ve seen a product fail, then years later something similar becomes super popular or even a standard. There’s no denying that Plastic Pegs are very common these days, sometimes more common that metal pegs depending on the group of riders you hang out with. What some of you younger guys might not know is that 13 years ago Hoffman Bikes dabbled with plastic pegs using an interesting design. We’ll let them explain it all below…
“Product Flashback – 2003 product year we introduced the SPC peg. Hoffman at the time was the first to introduce the removable plastic sleeve using a unique UHMW material. — #hoffmanbikeshistory
The SPC peg was designed to tackle all riding environments. What does SPC stand for? “S” is for Street, “P” is for Park, “C” is for Cement. So what makes this peg different from any other peg on the market? That would be the removable UHMW-PE sleeve. What is UHMW-PE? UHMW defined is Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene. 7 times lighter then Steel, 3 times lighter than Aluminum, Unmatched Impact strength and you can grind pretty much anything. Use the Sleeve all the time or part time. With a few turns on the end plug bolt you are able to remove the sleeve without taking your peg off.”
What’s pretty interesting is the end plug to hold the plastic sleeve on. We are seeing how that could be an advantage and disadvantage. One advantage being the ability to easily switch the sleeve out when it’s been used up or broken. One disadvantage we see is that the sleeve probably still spun around on the core since just the plus was there to hold it in place, and if that plug broke it would be like your bar end breaking off inside, just worse because there’s a bolt you need to get to at some point. We’re not sure exactly why these never took off, but we would imagine it was just something way before its time. Some of you older guys might remember when plastic pegs started coming out and how crazy the trash talking was between people that ran metal and plastic pegs.
Either way, this is a really interesting piece of history. Like people always say, BMX runs in circles… So what’s cool now might not be cool in five years, and in five years what’s cool might be something that was sweet 10-15 years before. We’ll never know until we get there.
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