left-hand and right-hand drives

You might have heard the term "left hand-" or "right hand drive" thrown around on many BMX websites. This is simply a description of the side of the bike that has the chain, rear cog, and sprocket. Many bmx hubs come with the option of a right- or left-hand drive. Some are on side-specific while others are ambidextrous- the can be used for let- or right-hand drive.

The standard on bmx bikes and every other kind of bike has always been right-hand drive, so one might ask why anyone would want to put their sprocket on the left side of their bike. The reason is simple: grinding. If you ride ramps or street on your bmx bike, you very likely have pegs on it and use them to stall or grind on ledges, ramps, or rails. If your preferred grinding side is the right side (this is a personal preference just like writing with one hand or the other), your sprocket, chain, and driver are in jeopardy of being mangled. You can get a tank-ish chain, a guard on your sprocket, and a guard on your rear wheel, but a much easier and more reliable solution is to just move your drivetrain to the other side of your bike.

This is easier said than done.

Most hubs are made by default to be used with the chain on the right side of your bike, commonly called RHD for right-hand drive. A LHD hub is made as a mirror-image of a RHD hub. A regular hub has teeth inside the hub or freewheel such that, when the driver rotates clockwise, the hub engages, driving the wheel forward. An LHD hub must be made so that the driver engages when the driver spins anti-clockwise, so the pawls on the driver (or in the hub, if you have a hub with the q-lite system, which subverts the dominant pawl/ring paradigm) engages the hub when turning anti-clockwise.

To move your drivetrain from right to left, you need to start by getting a new hub, or a whole new wheel, that is LHD-compatible. Buying an individual hub might prove to be cost-prohibitive because you will likely need a whole new set of spokes and pay a mechanic to lace up the new hub to the old rim. There are a few hubs on the market that can be easily switched from RHD to LHD and back easily such as the G-Sport Ratchet, but most hubs only swing one way. There are also LHD freewheels for those of you still stuck in the Stone Age, but those also require a LHD, reverse-threaded freewheel hub. Those are very hard to find these days.

The part about this switch that has the most people hung up is getting one's sprocket on the left side of the bike. With traditional bmx cranks, there is a drive hole and bolt only on the right crank arm and nothing on the left. This would leave one to believe that the sprocket can only be used on the right side of the bike, but that would make one WRONG. I will get to that in a moment.

Thank heavens for LHD-compatible cranks! Most modern cranks are now being made with drive holes in both crank arms so that the sprocket can be run on either side without much hassle. Take your crank arms off, swap the sprocket to the opposite arm, re-install your cranks and Bob's yer uncle, you have a LHD drivetrain. If you don't have the luxury of this novel application of technology on your bike, don't fear the structural integrity of the piggy bank, there's hope for you yet!

Conventional wisdom would tell you that swapping your crank arms is a bad idea because your pedals will work themselves as you pedal. In case you were unaware, left-side pedals are "reverse"-threaded tighten anti-clockwise) and right-side pedals have normal (tighten clockwise) threads. I have been told that the Wright Brothers are credited with this invention, but I can't verify that. Anyway, it is possible that reversing that system will result in wobbily pedals that will work themselves loose (due to a mechanical process called precession, which I still do not fully understand) but this is unlikely if you take a few basic precautions like tightening your pedals really, really hard. A little thread-locking substance like Loc-Tite 242 will help too, but that might be overboard. Always grease your pedal threads and torque them down tight. If you check them occasionally and keep your pedals snug in your cranks, they will not cause any sort of catastrophic accident. Just a little mechanical vigilance is all that's needed to avert a pedal/ crank separation disaster.

If you go this route to swapping your drive-side, you will encounter one other obstacle: your left pedal will now be on the right and the right pedal on the left. You may never have noticed, but most flat pedals are designed with a parallelogram profile so that the top platform is always nudged a little farther forward than the one on the bottom.

(mad MS Paint skillz!)

Left and right are mirror images of each other, so swapping your pedals is going to make them feel awkward under your feet. Awkward is a word with appropriate spelling, because typing or writing that word is, for lack of a better word, awkward. I can't do anything with that latter linguistic problem but the former mechanical conundrum has an easy fix: disassemble your pedals, swap the pedal spindles with their respective pedal bodies, and reassemble. This might be more difficult that it sounds. Disemboweling a pedal of it's bearings and putting it back together so that it spins smoothly takes some finesse. Take care and don't loose all those darn tiny bearings!

Regarding grind-sides, many bmx riders run pegs on only one side of their bike because that is their preferred grind side. Doing this limits one to grinding only certain objects and doing it only one way. If you roll up to a perfect handrail and it's on one side of your bike and your pegs on on the other, you might find a creative way to grind that rail by hoping over it, doing a 180 and grinding it backwards, or grinding up the rail. If none of those options are in your bag of tricks, you are going to just have to move on. The other option is to run four pegs and learn to grind in an ambidextrous manner. There is something ethereal and yin-yang about "completing the circle" and learning to spin both directions, bar spins and tailwhips both ways, opposite wall rides, etc that is worth exploring. Ask Dan Price about that.

Nevertheless, you are most likely going to have a preferred grind side and your chain should be on whatever side is going to see the least amount of abuse from grinding.

BMX in skateparks!

Be kind to you two-wheel-ed friends

Some of you live in towns where there are no public skateparks. Others have a local public skatepark but the "no bikes" rule is enforced leaving you with no fun, legal, safe place to ride. Below are my thoughts and experiences with skateparks and how to get one built or get access to the one that already exists.

The first thing to do is to stop whining about it and moaning incoherent comments about skateboarders and go do something about it. Things are not going to change by them. Gandhi did not ask the British nicely to leave India and then step back. He acted.

Do some research and be ready to articulate your argument for why the local authorities should build a public skatepark or let bikes in the one you already have. Most of the reasons why bikes are not allowed in skateparks are bogus, so refute those claims. Write it all down.

When you have some idea what you want to say, call your local city government and ask to talk to someone in the Parks and Recreation Department, or whatever department you have that handles stuff like that. Ask them if you can set up an appointment to sit down and talk with him/her in person. Talking over the phone will not get you anywhere most of the time. Give them copies of any information about the advantages of public skateparks, reasons why bikes should be allowed, statistics on how many people are into skating/bmx, etc.

Next, get a coalition of skaters, inliners, bmx riders, local bike- and skateshop owners, PARENTS, teachers, etc interested in helping you with the effort to support, design and build the thing or get your bikes allowed in the park. Getting adults, especially parents, will help the cause a LOT. Depending on your age, most of you probably don’t pay taxes and you don't vote, but your parents do. There is tons of information on the Internet about public skateparks. Start here: http://bmxriders.org/ (lots of links from there too.)

A note about petitions: get LOCAL people to sign a petition if you want to go that route or gathering support. Online petitions are easy to create but they are worthless. Do not bother getting all of your buddies on Myspace to sign your petition. No civic official is going to care if Joe Blow from Australia signed your petition if you are trying to get a park built in Springfield, USA. Joe doesn’t pay taxes, work, or vote in your town, so why would city officials care what he thinks they should do with other people's taxes? Getting a broad coalition of individuals from different walks of life (age, education, sex, occupation, location in town, etc) is going to mean a lot more than sheer numbers.

Next, go to any public parks department or City Council meeting, or whatever equivalent you have in your town. The city council may be a good idea, but the parks department would be the place to start because they are the ones who have to bring the idea of a skatepark before city council before anything else can happen, so go to the parks department first. They should allow a time for public comments, so you can stand up before the Council and state your case for a publicly funded skatepark for skating and BMX riding, or a change to the rules at the skatepark(s) you have to allow bikes. They will be 1) ecstatic about the idea, 2) confused and hesitant or 3) totally opposed to the idea. Don’t get discouraged if they aren't immediately stoked on the idea. It takes some cities more than a decade to be convinced to build a public skatepark. If some nearby towns have public skateparks already, invite the folks from your town to use those skateparks as examples.

If you're lucky, the local newspaper will catch on and write about it. Find out who the reporters in the audience and talk to them. If you can't find a reporter (they are a dying breed, I know this from personal experience!), call one on the phone. They may be itching for a good story and want to write about your plight. Free publicity! Make sure you find someone articulate to talk to the newspaper.

Once city leaders realize there is a demand for a public skatepark that allows bikes, just like there is a demand for walking trails, playgrounds and athletic facilities like baseball, soccer, tennis, etc, they will want to get started. The best thing to do, in case they don’t think of this, is to have a public meeting, inviting all interested locals to share their ideas for skatepark design, location, features, etc. publicize that meeting big! 

Once the ball gets rolling, make sure the local skaters and BMX riders stay involved in the process the whole way through! If the city thinks they can do it on their own, they will screw it up and make a crappy skatepark that no one will ride, wasting a ton of taxpayer money. Make sure they get an actual skatepark designer to design the park. Old guys who have never stepped on a skateboard might know a lot about designing libraries and sidewalks, but a skatepark needs a skater/rider to design it or it will be a big waste of money.

Keep in mind that this is a long process. You are dealing with government bureaucracy and taxpayers' money. They will probably have to wait until the next bond election for the voters to have a referendum on how they want their tax dollars spent. It may be easier and faster, in the meantime, to go to a local civic organization to get something temporary built. A local church, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, etc might be able to get something built faster, so try those too.

If you are writing a letter and you are not a seasoned writer, ask an English/composition or government/civics teacher from school to help you. If you are a student, maybe they will give you extra credit! If you really get involved in this, you will be A) writing a formal letter (writing skills), B) delivering a speech in public (English/speech skills) and C) engaging democracy in a concrete way (government/civics skills). A teacher might also help you articulate your argument and make sure the letter looks good so they will pay more attention.

I have seen this process in action more than once. Do not hesitate to ask me more questions about public skateparks.