News Stampy

20 Years of 41-Thermal

As part of our mission to make the best BMX forks possible, we continue to refine the 41-Thermal® process at all stages of manufacturing. Each step in the process is held under strict scrutiny, and we continue to examine the strength and fatigue testing methods used to evaluate our designs.

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Stampy Test Goes Above and Beyond the Industry Standard

• Much higher load than industry standard EN tests
• Load is applied in the correct direction
• Proper mounting rig to replicate real world use
• Test doesn’t stop until the fork fails

In the previous round of Stampy fork tests we blew the industry standard EN tests for bicycle forks out of the water, and yet we still couldn’t break our own fork. In fact, we had to give up after running the fork for 2,000,000 cycles and with the machine operating at its ultimate limit.

So, in order to push the tests and our forks even harder we created an updated rig design that would let us supply much more force than the last time around. With this test we doubled up the cylinders that are applying the load and ramped the force up by 25%, going from 4000 Newtons to 5000 Newtons. That’s just over half a ton! (1124 lbf per cycle). Even so, at half a million cycles we started to wonder how long our forks were going to last, and since our competitor’s forks had already been taken to failure, we decided to ramp up the load on our forks to 6000 Newtons (1349 lbf), 50% higher than the previous tests, and after over 650,000 cycles, we were finally able to break them.

It is important to note that the 41-Thermal forks not only outperformed every other model that we tested by a huge margin, but that they did so while being lighter than most of the other forks too. This is direct evidence that proper design, engineering and manufacturing are much more important factors than simply always making the part heavier in hopes of making it stronger.

Unmatched and Legendary Lifetime Warranty

• Best in class replacement program
• Warranty against bending, cracking, and breaking
• No fine print to limit coverage to basic manufacturing defects

When you see how hard we push to make the best forks; to make them better and better every chance we get, it is easy to understand why our legendary lifetime warranty against bending and breaking is still around 20 years after we first introduced it. And when you see the contrast between our forks and our competitors you can also quickly see why most of their warranties have long since been quietly canceled or modified with complicated terms and conditions that usually limit the warranty to manufacturing defects alone.

Feel free to contact us at stampy@odysseybmx.com with any questions you may have.

As part of our mission to make the best BMX parts possible, we continue to refine the 41-Thermal® process at all stages of manufacturing. Each step in the process is held under strict scrutiny, and we continue to examine the strength and durability of all our parts.

In our previous Stampy tests, we have blown away the industry standard “EN tests” for forks and cranks, and now it’s time to take a look at handlebars. In our latest test, we have taken bars with very similar height, width, and sweep dimensions, and tried to replicate a lifetime of nose-diving into the ground and pulling up on the bars for a sprint to gain speed in a confined space.

The Stampy handlebar rig drives down on the grip sections right where your hands would be with 1000N (that is about 225 pounds of force) per side, and then pulls back up with another 1000N (225lb). It drives down at a 45 degree angle, just like you would in real life. However, unlike a real rider, the Stampy rig can do this 18,000 times per hour, for as long as it takes to break the handlebar. To get an idea of what that’s like, you can fill a backpack with bricks until you weigh 225 pounds and then attempt to do 30,000 one-arm push-ups, and 30,000 one-arm pull-ups.

As expected, when we tested our bars against our competitor’s bars that had similar geometry, we outperformed them once again. Our worst bar was 33% better than the best of the rest, and our best bar was over 400% more durable than the worst. So remember, when you are buying bars, although they may look very similar, they are not all “the same”.

When you see how hard we push to make the best parts; to make them better and better every chance we get, it is easy to understand why our legendary lifetime warranty against bending and breaking is still around 17 years after we first introduced it. And when you see the contrast between our bars and our competitors, you can also quickly see why most of their warranties have long since been quietly canceled or modified with complicated terms and conditions that usually limit the warranty to manufacturing defects alone.

View all Odyssey Handlebars »

Our new Thunderbolt cranks are shipping now. Some aesthetic updates to the previous Twombolt crank should be immediately clear, but the biggest improvements have been made in the manufacturing stages.

Unlike ordinary heat-treatments, which are often merely an after-thought, The 41-Thermal® process encompasses all stages of production, and includes our own joint preparation controls, refined welding techniques (now visible in the crank’s larger weld beads), and of course, in the post-weld heat-treatment system that we originally pioneered in 1999 and continue to refine and tweak to this day.

• Laboratory tested and team proven
• Updated open-ended spindle cap
• New wedge cluster band with greater flexibility
• Never-Wobble crank arm and spindle interface guarantee
• 41-Thermal® lifetime replacement warranty against bending, cracking and breaking
• US Pat. Nos. 7,267,030, 7,523,684, 7,523,685, and/or 7,770,492
• 1 lb. 11.8 oz. (788g)
• 175 or 180mm
• RHD or LHD

For the first time, we have decided to share how we lab test our cranks…

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