less than an ounce difference between headsets so just buy a good aluminum sealed one like cane creek. Lightest stem is Redline microline at 112 grams, lightest bars are sinz carbon 156gm but reports of them breaking would cause me to buy bombshell carbon 166gms cut 3/4 both ends. Answer carbon weigh 200gm! THE carbon mini seat/post weighs 6oz @ $50. Buy a new uni seat and save money and weight. 3.5 ounces with prizim decals $30. Redline flight is the lightest seatclamp available but mcs is good-. Action tec makes the best ti bb and an ounce lighter, made in the usa verses ac ti, sinz ti. use a short spindle 108 or less. Cranks; Answer claims to be the lightest but I recommend snap- #1 reason- best q factor #2 reason- same weight as answer#3 reason, better quality#4 reason $20 cheaper. Lightest may be profiles new mini aluminum hollow with ti spindle $420. Have not personaly weighed these yet but will let you know. Brakes,promax mini v, diatech mini v, trp cx9, or ldc all with road pads. lever-Do not waste your money $65 or more for a ldc or pauls love lever. lighter cheaper options exist that work good with mini Vs. GT specs a plastic lever on their minis and this lever comes on toys r us bikes- find it ot get a diacompe mx 22- $8 for 2 ounce lever with better ergonomics than ldc- don't they all though? continued...

Pedals- no bmx pedals weigh less than 10 ounces. Flat pedal choices would be exustar ti spindle/wellgo wm1 clones at 6 ounces- buy the pedals with cromo axles then buy ti spindles from jersey cycles (cheaper route) and be sure to note the lefthand thread on one of the nylock nuts when diasasembling or you will wreck them. other options, oddyssey svelts, any of the new plastic pedals for bmx- wellgo makes a light parralellogram mini plastic that sells for under $10.
Clips; I recommend mini rider try speedplay frogs- they are lighter than any shimano clone, come in an 8 ounce ti version and are simple for a 50 pound rider to get into. other light options are exustar pm25 ti and you can even buy ti cleats for them and source ti hardware on ebay. wheels-ok I said sew ups and i mean it but if you just cant do it then bombshell has just reqlease a sl wheelset that is 20h from 24h rear that I would suggest first, second would be the crupi rythem, then answer ti. Add the ti option to the first two- for the weight of the rider it makes sense- do it. keep an eye on tire weights too as you can now get folding mini tires and if your rider is under 50 pounds run a 1 inch tire- no fatter. To break 11 pounds you have to do sew up wheels. Use a sub 100gm front hub, answer/crupi rythem or lighter rear. My front hub is under 70gm with hardware. My front wheel is 12 ounces with tire!

Photos?

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

I'd like to put my son on sew-ups, but all I can find are old steel rims. I've found one manufacturer of carbon BMX rims (Warp9) but they want $400.00 each rim which is preposterous when I can get a pair of carbon road/mtb rims for less than that. What sew up rims are you using? Also, what tires? I have only found old Tioga Comp3 sew-ups which run $100.00 each... again, preposterous.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

http://krinkle.net/wordpress/img/NAHBS-2008/IF-001.jpg

boom.

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Custom English Cycles CX Bike
BMC SLC01

I am sure pure do a ti frame.....I googled them but it keeps coming up service unavailable for their website.

Also, I am sure I have seem pics of Donny Robinson using carbon cranks

Lots of pros use Carbon cranks... they usually seem to be Truvativ or FSA cranks. I have a set of Truvativ carbon cranks on my BMX cruiser. They are not lightweight by any stretch of the imagination though. And they definitely don't make them short enough for little kids racing on minis. At the ABA Grand Nationals I saw some little kids sporting custom machined cranks... they were alloy cranks with the backs of the arms either drilled out completely or had slots machined into them. Definitely cool looking, certainly lightweight, but I don't know how durable they would be. I suspect a 50 pound BMXer wouldn't break them, but I don't know how they would hold up in a crash and don't want to risk my son's safety on something that isn't actually engineered and tested... so no plans for drillium on his bike.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

Ok- the arayas sewups are only available in 36 hole. I have nos sun rims polished with 28 hole and a similar pair built with silver sealed hubs.
I also have a anodized blue wheelset with nukeproof carbon cassete hubs (now rare), gold Ti spokes and gold spline drive nips. Mounted rear tire is a black Vittoria and front is a panaracer knobbie. I would sell any of these and have more sew up wheelsets and rims avaialble. Both these tires are still available- my friend has the panaracer knobbies for $100 a set- I recommend them on the front they weigh 240gms, the vittorias are 200gm and come in green or black for $37 each or so- tufo has the best 100gm tire for about $90 each- I sell these. Sun makes some for wheelchairs that are incredibly light and only available is 16 hole. Corima makes a carbon deep dish rim that sells for $300 each and are not lighter than the sun rims- would be cool to build though. There was just a set of purple nisi rims on ebay. I have a couple of these in silver but the sun rims are areo and lighter. Any carbon clincher bmx rims i've seen so far were simply wrapped in carbon and weighed more than their unwrapped counterparts- those were marketed briefly as "the most expensive wheelset in bmx" but not the lightest. If you would like some my friend has a couple pair in 20x1 1/8 size or 451

Profiles hollow aluminum cranks are light but when paired with there 4 bearing bb, they are about 3 oz heaver than answer or snap with a Ti bb. I called and discussed this with them this week and they may try and offer a two bearing bb that would save maybe 2.5 oz making the system nearly as light as answer. With a couple tweeks they may wind up being the lightest system available. Don't know weather they will spend much time on it though as they are not a big seller. They cost $420. The best you can get right now IMO is snap cranks and action tec Ti bb. Add some aluminum cranks bolts and your there.

anybody want to build a sub 10 pound bike for real (for your 4-6 year old)- start with this- with this frame built to the hilt you can expect a 11 pound ride. With sew ups, you can bring it down to a 10 pound bike.http://cgi.ebay.com/Staats-Bikes-BMX-Frame-Micro-Mini-20-Chameleon-/110646344820?pt=BMX_Bikes&hash=item19c3093c74

I had to post this... just because I am a proud dad.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

An FMF micro frame is a good start. You don't need sewups to make 10lbs either. What you do need to do is run lightweight rims/hubs with as few spokes as possible. We run 16 spokes in front (linear laced) and 20 on the rear. If you buy all the lightest parts on the market you should be around 11 lbs...the rest is custom machine work..creativity, and getting rid of anything titanium or steel on the bike. Aluminum is much lighter than Titanium, so change out all the hardware to aluminum. The steel brake post are like an ounce each..replace those too. Here is the short list of what we have..
fmf micro frame
bombshell carbon fork with several holes drilled in the tube
sinz carbon bars
redline stem (bolts replaced w/alum)
crupi headset...drilled out the spacers
answer cranks..machined. No spider the crank bolts directly to the sprocket
crupi ti bottom bracket..(custom aluminum spindle)
wellgo european pedals with ti spindles
hollow pin and hollow link chain
origin 8 brake and lever and cable
uni seat (no post..glue it on and use one set screw to hold it)
profile 16 hole rims, with profile micro hubs custom machine work on hubs. (20 hole rear)
1' micro knob tires with ultralight 1" tubes (not 1 1/8)
carbon fiber number plate custom made
Total weight 10lb 2 ounces.
I think i have about 4k in it including the machine work.

hi .i been into bmx for years .and uci rules state that a cruiser must have wheels no bigger that 26 in ..so if you want to a 26 mtb frame can be used provided a low profile tire is used ..so try and find a carbon mtb frame .it is a way to go for bigger riders ,even run enve carbon rims ..a friend uses a scott frame .my son has a mbk carbon frame the aa elete i coach ran one and also a rivell carbon 20 inch .and redline has their project 79 carbon race frame .carbon forks by sinzs ,answer etc. are well proven and now sold as factory fitted on redline and intense ,bombshell has just released their carbon pro wheels and a 8 inch and 8.25 carbon pro bars

I have seen plenty of mini bmx racing bike under 10lbs. But if your looking for a pro sozed 24" then something around 20-22lbs can be expected. The khe bike company does make a flatland bmx bike that is complete and around 18lbs. I have also watched pro use mini bmx hubs to save weight , also alot of people go with ti spokes although the standard reccommendation is to only use those if you have a chromo frame as the aluminum frame with the ti spokes will end up being way to stiff for any kids or pro, that is also due to the fact in bmx racing the tires typically work the best with the highest possible pressure. I personally would recommend checking the rider's size on a monthly basis as usually the starts of bmx are always going though growth spurts. The crank arm length combined with what gears for what track come in to play biggggg time. Also don't forget to ask someone like Mike redman of Redman Frames and bmx team glory. Also i would tend to want to have Rodger Linder of Linder-Staats and many other things like Chechalem Valley Bmx Track Opertaor Fame. Those two guys know more than I do. - Bryan Matheson. I will include my winnings/ ranking briefly although i usually don't but I want to see you reply as of today WHAT HAS YOUR SON PUT UNDER HIS BELT? here's mine
district #1
state #1
national main event 1st place x2

I'm a little confused by this...

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo