Top Crossover Components

Broadly speaking there are three routes to building a custom bike;

1. Custom make it all from scratch (expensive, slow, no good for lazy cunts like me).


2. Buy a Nirve, Basman, Felt or similar and mod it yourself using custom parts (great but ever turned up at a cruise and been a little crestfallen when everyone there has matching Electra Bullet lights?).


3. Go second hand (a la Rat Rod Bikes, awesome but you'll lose a year of your life on eBay or Craigslist).

An increasingly popular trend seems to be the incorporation of non-Custom accessories into a bike's build to add a bit of uniqueness without the grief of trying to make stuff from scratch whilst still avoiding the Electra situation. Jacob's Dream did this sooo well - downhill levers (in fresh white) and disks (with matching white calipers) really made this bike stand out as the animal it is.


Similarly an unknown bike I snapped at the party cruise had some awesome minimalist triple crowns on it...




In homage to these rides over the next few days I'm going to post some components up that I reckon would look sweet on your next custom build. Today - Pedals!

Crank Brothers 5050

These are the lushest pedals out there if you want something bling yet reasonably subtle. Love 'em.




V8 Pedals
It is fair to say that the DMR V8 is something of a design classic. The design is so simple and offers such an amazing grip it is hard to fault (that is until your foot slips off the pedal and it runs up your shin, then you'll hate 'em). The things are also basically bombproof.


Thankfully their legendary status has meant a whole range of copycat pedals are available for next to nothing - here in the UK CRC sell V8 copies for £10 a pair in enough colours to suit any scheme you've got going on. A quick scan on eBay will often get them cheaper still. If you're building on a budget invest in a set of these and watch them outlive you.


Shimano MX30
Where the 5050s and V8s are let down is the colour - a little too gaudy for some bikes. The MX30s are just perfect though, a nice subtle titanium finish with subtle branding. I wouldn't want to put them on a pedal scraper as they're too flippin' nice to trash.