About

HOW THEY RIDE

For dirt jumping, a 22" bike feels more stable in the air than a 20" making it easier to go bigger on jumps, with more confidence, this effect also works in street riding when jumping down big flights of steps or doing airs on vert. If it was bigger, like a 24" bike it restricts agility, making 360 jumps, turn downs and tailwhips more difficult, - a 22" easily does all these moves like a 20" bike.

LOOKS

22" bikes look more in proportion to adult riders than 20" bikes and are often referred to as the 'blokes BMX'. A 22" bike doesn't get called a 'kids bike'.

WHY 22" BIKES

For the last quarter of a Century 20" and 24" wheel bikes have been the only options for BMX riders. This has been the accepted 'norm' (or 'Zeitgeist') for too long. When I was 14, BMXs felt perfect, but at 17 I realised the 20" bikes were too small for me but I kept riding them for 20 yrs. We started Faction Bike Co. because I wanted to get back that feeling I had when I was 14 - riding a BMX that felt and looked right, for me.


the hollowed out volcano

RESEARCH.

I thought of 22" bikes back at school in 1985, when drawing a picture of Eddie Fiola. My brothers and i have collected BMX magazines continuously since 1981 and the subject of 22" bikes has never been mentioned once. Fed up of waiting for someone else to do it, we decided in 2003 to begin work on our first 22" prototype bike.

INDEPENDENTS

Producing a good 22inch bike with new wheels and tyre size was slow progress as we had no money and the existing manufacturers still didn't get it and wouldn't help. In 2003 we manged to get our first high pressure tyre made to our spec. By 2004 we had our double wall alloy rim designed and prototyped. No cash, meant we couldn't get our first frame and fork made till late 2007.

TEST RIDING. The first time i rode the 22" at our skatepark, I knew the bike felt right and the original feeling from when I began BMX, was back - and I nailed the highest airs I'd ever done.
Over the jump box i felt added confidence to try to go higher than normal- the bike is more stable in the air (for everything else like 360 jumps and peg tricks on the mini ramps it feels and rides just like a 20" bike).

RESPECTED RIDERS. When we asked Jack Daniel to try out the 22" bike at Creation Skatepark he adapted immediately, riding to the same level as he did on his own 20" bike, going higher than anyone else. The same happened with Joe Badelby at Chester skatepark, and other respected riders, Jason Lunn, Jason Ellis, Jason Davies and Mike Pardon. In BMX racing our 22" bikes have out performed all the top brand 20" and 24" bikes.

EXPERIENCE. As well as BMX, my brothers and i have been in the mags for MX, , Superbike-stunting, customising cars, building and running our own skatepark, running our Skate/Surf/Snow/BMX shop, importing and distributing from the US. Being sponsored skaters and snowboarders, testing BMX bikes for other companies, running events in snowboarding, skating and BMX, fighting our local Town Council, blah,blah ,blah, and generally just making stuff happen.


  • The future?


    20", 22" and 24" bikes all offer a unique riding experience but together they can make a stronger more interesting future for BMX.

  • CHANGE IS CONSTANT. Our experience in other sports has shown us nothing stays the same forever, change is the only constant and new changes in equipment design always stimulate new progression in those realms. For example: Mat Hoffman also looked at 22" bikes back in 1989 for his original Mega Ramp project their higher top speed and stability.

    BIKE DESIGN. Looking at other bike designs today, you have 24" bikes trying to get smaller with shorter rear ends, shorter wheel bases, lower stand-over heights, higher BB's and you have 20" bikes with bigger handle -bars and longer top tubes - longer top tubes and bigger bars are not the solution for a proportionally better bike. Both styles of bike are on a convergence of design that is better solved by a 22" bike.

    AGILITY OF BIGGER WHEELS. As far as whats possible on bigger wheels take a look at what's happening in MTB, the boundaries are constantly being pushed by them and respected BMX figures on 24" bikes. These guys are doing double tailwhip jumps, flares, flip whips, 720's and double flips which means the smaller 22" bike can deliver that too.

    TERRAIN. Bigger scale BMX tracks, dirt trail jumps and the Mega Ramp events all point toward a bigger scale of riding trend continuing in the future so it's only natural that a faster top speed yet still agile bike like a 22" should emerge sooner or later.

The physics nerd bit


  • Why is 22" such a good wheel size and WTF is bump-steer ?
    We recently found this info, which backs up what we've been saying about wheel-size for over 20yrs.
  • California Berkeley Tec grads have done a paper on what is the ideal wheel size for an offroad bicycle - and the size they concluded? .... 21.72" (close enough!)

    It doesn't take a math genius to know why big wheels aren't suited to stunt riding - MTB (24" and over) rims generate high momentum at their outer edge, so they carry on rolling over bumps with less deflection. Put a chunky 24" tyre on there and you've got a great DH setup.

    Want to change direction or spin 3's? That momentum (moving mass plus centrfugal force) is going to resist - even when you work magic with rake and trail geo - you can reduce mass, but then its a weaker wheel.

    Smaller wheels reduce that problem, but then you've got bump-steer turning up like Cable-Guy. Bump-steer is the phenom that makes you tense up and put a death grip on the bars to keep the bike straight when you're going as fast as you can.

    Those bump impacts (lets call it deflection force x) actually act at 90degrees round the wheel rotation from the point where the deflection hit, so it steers the wheel sideways as well as vertically (this is getting beyond my Physics and boredom threshold now). Anyway, put 22" wheels on a quality bike with good geom and you hit the sweet spot between agility and speed.