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These are the 933 Villopoto/Stewart bend bars. For comparison, a similar bend of ProTaper Evo bars, Factory Suzuki - KTM Stock bend (taller than the current stock KTM bars), weigh in at 640 g. The stock Neken bars coming off the bike weigh in at 630 g. The stock KTM bar pad weighs 77 g.
Edit - just realized these were the new Zarilium material... 36mm clamps, wow that’s big. Sounds better than saying 1 & 13.25/32” bars. Doesn’t quite roll off the toung like 1 & 1/8” LoL 😆
For $260 I’ll glad you do get a weight savings!
Of course that doesn't include the cost of bar mounts, but people are often replacing the stock KTM and Husky bar mounts for something stronger anyway.
I was just looking at those as well, since they were advertised as 1/2 pound lighter.
Would need to do some machining though, as I'm really trying to keep my SFS top clamp due to a tweaked wrist.
The Shop
Innertubes for Fatbikes. Don't laugh !! I'm using them for 5 years now without any issues. There's the german SCHWALBE brand, a very well known manufacturer for bicycle tires. The only downside they have is the tiny Presta valve. So you need a bicycle pump to inflate them. Other than that no issues. You have to use the largest size so the thin rubber doesn't get streched anymore inside the MX tires. One size fits both front & rear.
If you prefer the regular Schrader valve you can use the MAXXIS Fat-Tube. Still made for Fatbikes. At just 450g still much,much lighter than any MX innertube on the market. Compare these weights with heavy-duty immertubes and you easily save 2 lbs PER WHEEL ! To all those statimg they wouldn't trust them, that you would get flats easily...well - as mentioned i'm using them on my lightweight 125cc for 5 years now. German bicycle magazines do scientific tests on all sorts of things...amongst it also on innertubes. These tests showed that the thickness of the rubber helps against flats from penetrating objects like thorns or glass etc. which we never have a problem with on our MXers. On the other hand, against pinchflats the thickness of the rubber doesn't do all that much. On the other hand, the lighter the wheels, especially the outer weight (tires,tubes,rims) the less inertia. You can change direction with ease, the bike become much more flickable.
NOW the most interesting part which gets overlooked as well: lighter wheels not only help in maniability but in fact they help you accelerate faster! It's a fact that a heavier wheel needs more energy to be accelerated than a lighter one....thus lighter wheels are like having more power!!
My own Honda CR 125 AF weighs 87,5 kilos and i can pull starts against 450s !
Schwalbe SV13J:
MAXXIS Fat-Tube:
These tubes cost about 7-10$...and can save 2 lbs per wheel....not bad
I'm a mad weight-weenie on my MXers as well. I did a Flickr-Album with some weights here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ottospeed/albums/72157673197341717
By the way - what was the naked steel chassis weight of your KTM?
I do have some fat tubes here that we'll likely run in the front. The Tubliss system is lighter than the stock KTM tubes in the rear, and we're going to try that first. Maybe switch to the fat tubes there later.
The stripped frame (with steering bearing races) weighed 8,595g according to my notes. The powdercoat only weighed about 95g.
And while we're weight conscious on this build, we're only doing it where it makes sense. There are plenty of spots where we're adding weight, either for more performance or for more durability. For example, going to spring forks or using the Excel A60 rims.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ottospeed/46317369982/in/album-7215767319…
Big advantage of the Tubliss system is that you can run insanely low pressures which is a big plus on hardpack terrain.
I don't see the need to go with heavier wheels on a lightweight 125/150! Those use the smae wheels as the 450 which is like 30 lbs heavier and puts a whole different load on the wheels. Any added weight, especially on the wheels, is poison on a small bore ! For me a big No-No !!
I'm amazed to hear about the KTM chassis weight. I just happen to have a new VRP aluminium chassis for my '89/90 Honda CR 125 on hand. It weighs just 7,3 Kilos
We're going with heavier wheels because I like the durability of the hubs and rims. I'm a bigger guy at about 200 lbs, so it makes a difference for me. Here's the 2016 150 with big heavy wheels on it. I'm no A rider, but I'm still able to move it along just fine (bonus accelerometer data on the footage):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxzl0u2x68
On another thread I speculated you'd either be all over it (the MasterCross sale), or, perhaps, you where selling some of your 'extras'.......
No-Mastercross is not involved AT ALL! He was lucky to get hold of such a chassis as it was US , a small group of closer friends, that asked Carlo Verona to do us some replicas. the "Talk-Master" as i call him lately, was lucky to get one as well. It's 5 years we waited for these parts to be finished!
That's pretty bloody cool.
Must have cost a pretty penny. And, it would be worth every Swiss Franc / Euro you paid.
Back to Luxon MX - the best, real engineering expert we have here in among the threads.
I will mount them on my 125sx soon.
I was able to find something which I think is very light and strong. Talon Ultralight Hubs paired with SM Pro Rims / bulldog spokes / aluminum nipples.
I only compared the front final assembly with OEM. The Ti bolts, Moto-Mater rotor, the same tube, the same tire and was 1/3 lb less than OEM. I keep forgetting to weigh the rear complete assembly.
The front rim/spokes/hub w/bearings is 3102 grams:
Here is the rear rim/spokes/hub w/bearings 3936 grams:
First, some linkage updates. You've probably heard that SKF is making seals for the KTM/Husky linkages and there is talk online about how much better they are, so we picked up a couple sets. Here's a comparison of the stock and SKF seals:
The SKF seals are overmolded on the aluminum buckets, and the sealing surface has moved from the inner bearing race to the counterbore in the rocker. The seal applies a lot less pressure on the bore too, which makes it spin much more freely. The downside of this is that it won't seal as well as the standard seals, but because the sealing surface moved, water and other debris now has a much more torturous path to overcome before it can get to the bearings. Overall I'd guess that the sealing performance is about the same, but with a lot less friction.
A few people are claiming they can feel a difference with the lower friction. Well, you can definitely feel it with your hand, but on the bike there is so much leverage on these parts and they don't rotate very much, so in reality I doubt anyone will feel a difference on the bike. Regardless, it's an improvement and it certainly won't hurt!
And if we're reducing seal friction, we may as well keep going and DLC coat the races to reduce it even more. We've been doing a lot of DLC coatings on fork tubes and shock shafts lately, so we threw in these inner bearing races as well as the wristpin:
Another advantage of the new SKF seals is that they're a good deal lighter than the old style seals. Simply swapping out the seals reduces the weight of the linkage by 34 g. It's not a lot, but it all adds up in the end. Combine this with our N2D knuckle and adjustable length pullrods, and it's quite a bit of weight savings over stock:
We turned down the pullrod bearing race a little in a previous post to shave some grams, but I've since gone a different direction and made an ultra-light bearing race. We're mating hardened steel, DLC coated, races to an aluminum carrier. This will save an additional 56 g once they're done. We just need to get the carriers out to anodize and these will be available for sale:
Our Gen1 mounts were really good, but we could do a little better, so we started from the ground up on these with a lot of analysis work. We applied some topology optimization routines to the lower bridge design to find the most efficient material layout in reacting the crash loads trying to twist up the bar mounts. You can check that out in this instagram post we made a while back. The first photo is just the base design, scroll through to see the optimization and analysis images and videos.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-n44qbA6O6/
Pit Row
Here's a couple videos of the laser in action:
We released our Gen2 triple clamps a few months back, so I've stuck a set on this bike. The blue really pops against the KyoKote black fork tubes. These have the Renthal Fatbar36 bar mounts mentioned earlier in the thread:
These clamps are an evolution of our Gen1 optimized clamps, with minor revisions to material layout and a split lower clamp design. The Luxon Gen2 are much better than the stock (solid lower, black) triple clamps, of course. And in comparison the the KTM (and Husky and GasGas) PowerParts/Factory split clamps, the Luxon clamps are lighter, stronger, and have increased stiffness in torsion for more steering precision, yet less stiffness longitudinally for more comfort.
And of course we can laser etch into the clamps for that factory look:
More updates coming soon!
sorry I didn’t take a photo of them installed with out the bar pad!
With the DLC done, I put the rear axle kit together with our sealed axle blocks (so mud doesn't build up inside the axle). These are hard anodized for wear resistance and laser etched with alignment marks:
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