Flatland Australia

hey all i'm asking this for my friend Derek who got his bike stolen a couple weeks ago. he's in the process of slowly building his own bike and wants a Tuffneck Freecoaster. now for some reason, we can't get it here in NZ after asking all the good bike shops we know.

is there anywhere over there in aus he can get it from? where's the best place?

cheers!!

I thought those tuff neck coasters where problematic??? why would you want one???
they are heavy as F**K too...

Yeah, I probably wouldn't recommend them. They're great at first, but then they seem to go through the same malfunction process.
After 6 months, they start slipping. You go to crank away after a trick and you end up with a mouth full of cross-bar.

A few months after that you might wanna invest in a small colourful cap with a flipped-up peak, coz your coaster will turn into a fixie.

Once this one I bought from Jim-Bob carks it, I'm going back to a KHE Geisha. It's tried and tested.

Andrew, was that the same one that you had problems with when we were up at IMAX?

shit i never knew about all the issues people have had with it. i guess it's because i never really have had personal experience with it or knew anyone here that has it until one of the other riders here got his (Nails) and it seemed alright.

anyways i'll let Derek know. i just started this thread for him but told him to come check it out.

thanks for the feedback!

I guess I'm too new to notice a difference with mine

Yeah June, that one I kept muckin around with at IMAX was a Tuffneck. I had a real close look at it and the one I got from Jimmy when I got home to Perth, but I was stumped to see anything causing the lockage. My best guess is that the grooves in the axle that assist in the cassette-style 'clicking' of the hub, wear out over time and at first cause slipping, then locking. Shaun Jarvis's Tuffneck did the exact same thing mine did, at about the same time. A couple of the other Perth riders suffered from the slipping, and did away with them straight away.

them taska sealed coasters go well and so do nankai and khe has some disappointments but I reckon they pretty good...

I would go with Khe myself...If it does Fuck up.Parts are not to hard to come by..Dont know about nankai or the others though..has anyone got the skewmatics for there Tuffneck Freecoasters???Just curious if i could modify one ...

The Nankai is far superior to any other freecoaster. I've had a Nankai, a few Taska's, three KHE's, a Tuffneck and a couple of others that aren't really worth mentioning. I'm a fairly good bike mechanic - I build wheels, maintain them often, do my internet research, listen to George French, check what grease is for what etc. etc. etc.

All of the best hubs in the bike industry are unsealed - They work way better in every possible way - go and check high end Shimano stuff if you don't believe me...

Nankai Bamboo is easily the best freecoaster hub. Badman had his Bamboo for a couple of years and in England his wheel was running way better than any of the sealed coasters on the market that I have seen on anybody's bike or ridden personally.

The only coaster that will do it's job properly is a Nankai (in my wide a varied experience ). The 10mm ones fuck up if your dropouts aren't perfectly parallel so I would recommend either a Nankai Bamboo or $200 on the Western Bulldogs for the flag. If none of those tickle your fancy then I offer a tailor-made money distribution experience: You flush your money down the toilet at a varying rate dependant on your hypothetical choice of coaster...

Paul

what he said

TN delivers the goods, rider owned and developed this thing was redisigned from the grond up and well tested before they introduced to market. Slack is adjustable, and don't have to be a rocket scientist to take apart and adj.
Parts inside are beautiful and well made. Clacks right in every time so far, very smooth engagement. No experience riding freecoasters but having loads of fun progressing. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!

who are you???
ER

Everyone is open to different opinions for sure & there are a lot of factors to take into consideration. Having said that, different parts will suit different riders.

From my own personal experience I have had 3 Nankai freecoasters over the past 12 years. They have all gone through a lot of riding in that time & I can remember the history of each one: first one I put on my street bike when I used to ride a lot of street back in the day & replaced it with another Nankai for my flatland bike. Then when the Bamboo came out I replaced that Nankai with the Bamboo. Think that one was about 5-6 years old then. I have been using my current Bamboo (which is the one Paul is talking about in his post) for the past 4 years with zero problems & it runs perfect.

I am super fussy about having a dialled bike. I say that because I tried a KHE Geisha Lite - followed all the instructions, listened to all the advice about setting it up correctly, maintaining it & so on. And after all that I got just over 2 weeks use out of it before I destroyed it but I will say that it did ride smooth for the first few days before it went a little squirrely. So back to the Bamboo....

As a disclaimer i'm very hard on parts though. I'm 90kgs, ride my bikes hard & do a lot of pedalling/back wheel stomping tricks. If you're a "lighter" rider & don't do a lot of back wheel stuff then any freecoaster will probably be fine for just cruising about. In fact Shintaro doesn't really work the back wheel at all & he just uses a cassette hub...

To add to Badman's comments about Shintaro and the cassette - Shintaro is about the most dialled rider ever and never does front wheel. Cassettes are for a) people like Shintaro and b) people like me who do backwheel, do short combos without many hikers and don't mind compromising and falling off sometimes.

Basically that means 90% of riders need or would be happier with a coaster.

I'll vouch for Shane - Everything about him and his style and trick choices is death to bike parts. The Bamboo is a truly amazing piece of functional art.

Thanks for the advice guys. I almost bought a KHE Reverse (ACB) from flatlandfuel because it's on sale and since my bike was stolen I'm trying to find the best deals I can.. but after reading your posts I think I'll look around for a good deal on a bamboo. Are the internals different at all from the technolite aside from the axle? I had a technolite on my stolen inertia and it worked great for the entire time I had it.

I'll check around on Bamboo prices!

mod spam

After Jim-Bob kindly sold me his Tuffneck freecoaster in Melbourne at 'Flatitude', which was working fine, it was laid to rest on Sunday arvo. In the course of one session it went from rolling smoothly, to clunking, to locking up. Rather than take any chances with it a week before DownUnderground and have the same pain-in-the-ass problems I had in Melbourne, I picked myself up a new rear wheel, consisting of a Colony clone 36h rim, Nankai Bamboo 14mm freecoaster, and 3-cross lacing, all in red
I'm taking Shane and Pauls advice and experience on the Bamboo and giving it a go.

I ordered it express post from Flatfuel on a 3-5 day option, fully built and trued, since I won't have time to do it myself before flying out next Thursday night. Fingers crossed that there's no problems with the postal system..!! :s

^^^
What are you riding in the meantime Buff?

I'm scootering around on the stuffed hub. lol I only had a small 3hr session the other day, and I won't get to ride again before I fly out on Thursday, so I'll do a back-wheel swap when it arrives and then I'll break it in on Friday in Hyde Park.

Is there any kind of initial pre-installation adjustment needed on the Bamboos, Paul..?? Like the gap-adjustment needed on KHE hubs.