If you haven’t caught on by now that we’re huge product nerds here at The Union, then you probably haven’t spent much time here on the site. Today while we were cruising around Facebook, going through a lot of junk, random crap we don’t care about and political warfare, we spotted a photo that Standard Bykes posted that really caught our eye. Above is a look at a custom chain tensioner they built on a 125R Cruiser race frame. Although BMX has had a number of different chain tensioners over the years from the bulky attachable washer style to the integrated tensioners on the inside of the dropout to the super clean single screw that runs through the dropouts, this design still looks amazing. We’re not 100% sure on how exactly the design works, but based off the photo it’s safe to say that it’s a three piece system with the plate in the middle, a screw that runs through the plate and dropouts and a barrel adjuster that moves the screw in or out to adjust the plate in the dropout.
Now, this might be a little “overkill” considering how simple a single screw through the dropout is and how well it works, this is still pretty brilliant and all we’re thinking is that we want it. As we mentioned above, this is on a 125R Crusier race frame Standard built for a customer, so we’re not even sure if it would work for a freestyle frame that would be putting far more stress and abuse on the dropouts thanks to pegs and grinding.
What do you think? Are you geeking out like we are right now?
Also, just for example, here’s a look at the single screw design we referenced above…
