The BMX that took me ‘Nearly’ all the way across the UK

Quick look and chat about the bike BMX that ‘Nearly’ got across the UK

Watch the adventure of this BMX taking on the UK here
PART ONE -https://youtu.be/o1k7O80qAQ4
PART TWO -https://youtu.be/-gEGBeRIgrs
PART THREE -https://youtu.be/fGBvvEmezmA
PART FOUR -https://youtu.be/ltgY0kQayQ0

Find all the routes and gear here – https://www.keepsmilingadventures.com/

Make a route suggestion here – https://www.keepsmilingadventures.com/route-sugestions

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The gear i am currently using

The tent – https://youtu.be/n9GKHSf805E
Framebag – https://youtu.be/6LM3UJKDOEk
Seatpost bag – https://youtu.be/W1E_iWY6Ajo
Jones Handlebars – https://youtu.be/dhPBSdRros8
Gravel bike – https://youtu.be/Gnd_4LgTyrg
plus bike mtb – https://youtu.be/COTUOzLPbGk
gps device – https://youtu.be/BWeMmx62A9M
mtb shoes – https://youtu.be/OYVEnfXwT0k
All the gear from GNT – https://youtu.be/e5oKSoPoMk0
Vest bag – https://youtu.be/01nzgd-t550
Ortleib bar roll https://youtu.be/Uk9fLgS1ioo
Dynamo setup – https://youtu.be/SL7MhjB6Lp0
Questions answered – https://youtu.be/u1q9AEs9flE
Gb divide bike/gear- https://youtu.be/epcZ81wqFCo
Sonder looped bar – https://youtu.be/BqWGTxd2VaQ
Tarpstar tent – https://youtu.be/RcQoBdZSAb8

righty all righty should we take a look at the bike that kind of nearly made it across the [Music] UK right today we’re going to have a look at the bike that just about made it across the UK about 10 miles short before breaking it now I’m gonna be honest i don’t know a whole lot about BMX’s so I’m pretty much just gonna have to read it off the spec sheet because it is uh yeah I mean it’s just not it’s not in my uh normal terrain of types of bikes that I typically ride at least not for a long long time so let’s just go over the bike quickly first and then I’m going to sort of chat about how the ride went why I just sort of decided to do it on a BMX not just on a normal bike or whatnot so uh yes first let’s go over the bike first off the bike is called a GT Slammer Mako 20in BMX raspberry and black fade i actually really love the color of this bike and it was sort of one of the deciding factors to buy it just because it just looked good and it’s a very entrylevel bike as you’ll see from the uh the specs so I’m just going to read what it says about the frame here it says “The top tier frame design the GT Slammer Mako boasts a durable steel steel frame design to withstand the rigorous of BMX riding or you know cycling across the UK on a BMX can do that too whether you’re learning to basic the basics of tackling more advanced maneuvers or the sturdy frame the sturdy frame ensures the bike can handle jumps bumps and all the action in between like riding across the UK I guess now this one’s quite funny to me it says responsive fork equipped with a 100% highten tapered legs fork providing smooth and reliable suspension performance absorbing shocks and bumps for a comfortable ride now let me tell you one thing about this bike when you go over bumps it’s not a comfortable ride at all it’s very on the other end of the of the scale there it’s very what’s the word well we’ll just say I’m not comfortable so like I say is a very entry levelvel bike so the the wheel size is just 20 in and the rims they’re just kind of unbranded i guess they’re like GT in-house or stuff they just they just say alloy single wall rims with uh 36 spoke uh 36 spokes and the front hub steel loose ball bearings rear hub alloy semi-sealed with a 14 millimeter cassette the tires again a branded GT the GT NBS 20x 2.4 the spokes are stainless steel 14 gauge so the gearing on this bike is a 259 now if you wa if you’ve watched all four parts of the uh trip you’ll know right at the end I broke the chain which I don’t think I’ve ever broken a single speed chain in my life cuz they’re you know they’re pretty thick so the chain that’s on it isn’t the original one it was a It says it’s a KMC S1 um the chain that’s on it now is another KMC chain that I had from an old track bike i’ll just chuck that on for now the cranks again GT branded GT Power Series three-piece chromoly 170 mm bottom bracket American loose ball bearings now this is slightly different i did change the pedals like I said in the actual ride I didn’t want to put clipless pedals because it is a street BMX after all and street BMX’s definitely do not ride clipless pedals so the pedals that came with this bike it says here that they are some GT logo PC platform i don’t think the ones I got were anything like that they were just like incredibly cheapy plastic ones unbranded and when I took them out they I I like tried to twist the axle bit and it was just like not moving at all so I was just like “Yeah I’m not going to bother with them.” So I don’t know i didn’t change it to anything expensive they are just some DMR vault uh whatever the cheapest ones are i’ll put it on the screen like that and again the handlebar another GT branded one two-piece freestyle 100% highend steel 8.5 in height 29 in width and 3° up 11° back guess that’s the sweep so the only real thing I changed on this bike like I said were the pedals just to actually have something that worked and because you know road I was riding on the road I needed it to be a legal road legal bike at least you know for legalities i had to put a front brake on it i couldn’t find the adapter to have that style of brakes that it has on the back so I just went with these very old Odyssey it’s a just a very old style BMX caliper brake so the brakes are on the wrong way round technically so the right one is the rear brake and the left one is the uh the back brake one of the things one of the many many comments is like “Oh you can put that saddle up a bit.” You know I put it up as high as I could from the uh minimum insertion thing again it really wouldn’t have made much difference because I’m 6’6 and when I’m sat on there I’m not pedaling anyway now I want to go over the reason why I decided to do an end to end on a BMX rather than just a normal bike one of the reasons is because many many years ago I have to go back to when I was probably like I think I must have been around 20 21 i was just out mountain biking just out enjoying some jumps and just messing around with a friend of mine and some other guys came they were mountain biking too and we were just like got chatting and they were going to be doing a charity ride now at this time I was riding a lot of road bike stuff very long distance 300 mile days you know lots and I was doing quite a bit stuff for like raising money for charities and stuff doing that so they were they were going to be doing a charity ride now it wasn’t a very long ride it was from Oxford to Chenham I think it was like 40 miles and they asked they just got talking to me and oh do you want to come and do it and I was like yeah sure I can do that but in my mind at that point asking people to sponsor me to cycle 40 mi when I used to cycle 40 mi to and from work h didn’t really it just felt a bit it’s not like it’s nobody’s going to sponsor me to do that so I at the time had a BMX now I’d been trying to learn how to 180 fakey and um you know start riding again never could manage it never did figure it out but um yeah so I said I’ll tell you what I’ll ride it on a BMX but not only will I ride the 40 mi on the BMX I’ll also ride home as well so that day I ended up riding from Bista to Oxford around 20 miles and then from Oxford to Chelenham 40 odd miles and then all the way back and I think in that day I did around 120 130 miles so yeah that day I ended up riding 120 mi 130 whatever it was on a Sunday Aaron Ross BMX now the day I did that it just felt like it was just so much fun and funny enough I was the first one to arrive in Chenham and then my friend who I rode with as well he was going to take a train back and he had to get to Abington and I had to get to Bista and I beat him back as well so anyway after that ride I was like this was a lot of fun i can I know I can do a 100 miles it’s not too bad so I was like one day I will ride a BMX across the UK whether it’s from Lansen Jon Lands but it’s one of them rides where it’s like it’s got to just be a good timing to do it i then went traveling i got rid of the BMX and I never had a BMX since and now I’m doing this YouTube stuff i was like well that will make a good video it’s a good timing so ever since Christmas I have had this BMX ready to go and the reason I wanted to just do it on a normal street BMX and not an old school BMX where I could probably sit down and make it a bit easier is just to recreate that kind of feeling i like the idea of just taking a bike as it is and just doing something doing something on it whether it’s the thing that it’s intended to do or not just taking the bike and riding so that’s why I didn’t stick a long seat post bags all over it because for me it just doesn’t really it’s just not very like of course I could adapt this bike to be better suited for riding distance but then I might as well just ride a normal bike you know for me the challenge and the thing that people seem to have missed is in the title it’s standing room only the whole idea is to go from one end of the country standing up it was just a lot of fun honestly it was just so much fun and I was so glad I actually did it and finally got to do it as well because I always said I was going to do it and it’s just taken like 12 years or whatever but it was just perfect timing to uh be able to do it now how did the ride actually feel when I rode it honestly not really as bad as I thought now I didn’t do any real obviously I ride quite regularly so I’m not I’m not like new to riding or anything like that and not new to riding long distance now the only time I rode this bike before actually riding the uh the actual Jon Stan’s End was I maybe like three or four miles to go and pick up something from Dafflan where I thought I might as well just make sure I test it out um so yeah that was the first time I ever rode it the second time I ever rode it was riding from Ferso to Jon and Gros well I camped just before um and then so yeah I’d ridden it two day two times before the actual ride so obviously the bike just feels a bit awkward it feels a bit unusual to ride whenever you ride a bike after a couple days your body just adapts so the only issue I really had was a a bad wrist i’m honestly not sure how I did it i have this feeling like I slept on it funny or something because it didn’t really hurt when I was riding it just hurt when I was like taking my bag off and you know and then by the time I got to the end the swelling had gone down it was still hurting but then 2 days after finishing the ride no pain all gone so whether it was tendinitis whether I just twisted it a bit I’m not 100% sure but it’s all good now it was just a lot of fun to ride a bike like this because it’s just a very simple machine it’s one gear the brakes kind of don’t really work that well but it’s just like a very simple small bike you can just get on and off yeah and it’s not the most practical bike to ride across the UK but it’s probably one of the funnest ride I It’s probably one of the most fun bikes I’ve had riding across the UK now I have ridden an end to end multiple times now the first ever time I rode an end to end I didn’t go the most direct route i was cycling the coast of Britain so I went from Land’s End all the way up the west coast of uh England Wales Scotland to get to Jonros and then the next time I did it it was off-road through Wales and a bit longer so doing it on this wasn’t like it’s not if I’m going to make it i knew I could make it that’s not really an issue especially when you don’t have a time limit if you can just ride all day camp whenever you feel like it and just then do it again the deck next day next day now obviously I was averaging around 90 mi a day which I was really quite happy with because you know it’s a pretty decent distance just on a normal bike but it just shows that you don’t really need any special now I’m not going to say if you’ve never ridden a bike go and get a BMX and ride the ride across the UK because it’ll probably be a bit uncomfortable for you but whatever bike you probably have will most probably be able to make it across if you’re if you really want to now the question is though what should I take across the UK next because I’ve got some good ideas but you should definitely leave it in the comment section down below what you want to see me take across the UK next we’ve done gravel biking and stuff i want to do some uh unique stuff but it has to be humanpowered cuz that’s what I’m about now is there anything I would change on this bike if I was going to do it again honestly the only thing I would have done is put a top tube bag my long rest one on the top but purely because it was just a bit of a pain getting my camera out to do the shots of me like riding past cuz I had to keep taking my bag off getting my bag so I think the hardest thing of that whole trip was wasn’t the standing up all day every day doing 90 miles or essentially riding a BMX the hardest part of that ride was anytime you had a headwind and now headwinds are never fun whether you’re on a on a road bike or you know a very optimized bike for even riding into the wind but I think on a BMX you’re already kind of going a bit slower anyway so your average speed is probably like 10 mph maybe less on on hillier days or whatnot but it’s when you’re going into the headwind you’re st you’re stood up you’re a sail and it’s just very demoralizing it’s the same for me it’s the same physicality of riding a normal bike it’s just that it’s just more demoralizing because you know you’re on a slower bike anyway you know you’re not going to be able to later on average 20 mph like if you’re on a road bike so then miles you just feel like oh it’s going to be a long day just keep going keep going however that so that for me the hardest part was just riding into the headwinds it wasn’t actually standing up the whole way it wasn’t riding essentially a BMX well I mean it was because it was standing up on a BMX that made it hard but yeah it was a generally it’s just a it was just a getting used to wearing the bag on my back was a little took a couple days just to sort of get used to just the riding with the added weight now I did go pretty lightweight with the stuff just a very lightweight sleeping bag and a bivvie and the other stuff I had was just a waterproof jacket and another set of clothes which was just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt really and then I just rode in just some casual clothes cuz I also wanted to uh just feel like I was just riding a normal just riding going out for a normal ride on a BMX for a little bit and exactly what I did so although the bike didn’t unfortunately quite make it and of course I could have just taken a spare chain or whatnot but I just couldn’t be bothered so that was that’s the bike nice and uh just as it is very uh standard made no modifications put the seat up as high as I could and then a few people did say put you should have put stump pegs on it and whatnot and I I was joking with a friend that actually it would be quite funny to put some pegs on the back and then give people little lifts like you do when you’re a teenager but um and yeah some people said put it on the front cuz you can stretch your legs out and it would have been nice however the one time I was sat down going down the hill and I decided to take my legs off of the uh pedals I realized I couldn’t actually get them back on the pedals because they were just too much under me so I had to do a kind of foot plant i don’t know what you call them um to get back onto the pedals so yeah I don’t think it would have really m made too much difference having pegs because I wouldn’t have been able to get back on the pedals but yeah that’s the bike that was the trip it was fun so I’ve got some ideas of some other humanpowered transportations to take across the UK next but definitely leave a comment down below what should I take across the UK next and that’s the bike i’ll see you in the next one