Buying a BMX stem?

The stim is the piece on your BMX bike that mounts to your forks and holds on to your handlebars

Typically, stims only range in front load and top load, while within front load and top load

you can get different reaches and you can get different rises in there to really fine-tune

your geometry. On the live stream last week, I actually just bought a stim. I just got done

putting it on today and riding it today, but I saw this question in the BMX Nerds Network

Whiskey says, any good brand recommendations for a durable stim? And the quick answer to this

is that for durable stim, it doesn't really depend on the brand. Most stims, now take this with a

grain of salt, most stims are going to be about the same. You get CNC machine stims, there's not a

whole lot of variance there, okay? So when you're looking at a stim, if you get a high quality CNC

machine stim, it doesn't matter who it's from, it's going to be good. The quality is going to be the

same based on the type of stim based on the company. So as long as you get a certain type of

that quality is going to remain true throughout the different companies. So you shouldn't worry

about which company to buy your stem from. What you should worry about is what the material of

the stem is or what the design of the stem is. For example, one of my first stems was a shadow

Voltus. I think it was a Voltus stem. It was a stem and it had cut out sides. So instead of just

having like this, these were cut out. So you could see the forks. This was completely cut out. And the

whole idea here was that it would save weight. And I was like, yes, save weight, please

So I got this stem I put it on and I snapped it in half in a couple of months Because of those cutouts this stem was way weaker The shadow stem that I talking about was way weaker because it had those cutouts And that not a very good thing

Yes, I saved weight, but then I had to buy a new stem later on down the line and that was really frustrating

And me being really inexperienced and not knowing anything about BMX, I bought the exact same stem

thinking that it was just a mishap. So I bought the exact same stem, I replaced it and guess what

It broke again in a few months, same thing. So lesson learned. Ever since then, I've bought high quality stems that are not made out of cheaper materials

These weren't CNC machine stems, and I haven't bought any stems with a cutout since

And I've just stayed true. I'm like, hey, I will take a stem that weighs a couple more ounces

If you shave out parts of your stem, you're saving ounces, like a few ounces, and it's

nothing crazy. It's not crazy enough to risk it breaking. So just get a stem that's CNC machined

That means it's cut out of a block of aluminum. And just get a stem like that

put it on. It's going to last you as long as you need it to. And if you're lucky, you can find some

for 10 to 12 ounces and you don't need cutouts. You don't need those that are going to snap and

break on you. Okay. So when you're looking at a stem, don't worry about, okay, I need a Colt stem

because Colt stems are the best. That's not necessarily the case. What you need is a high

quality stem that's going to last, you know, and you can get that from pretty much any brand. Okay

So that's the answer to the question. If you have any BMX questions, join the BMX Nerds Network

and ask your questions in there. It's a huge community of BMX riders

who can help you learn tricks, help answer your BMX questions, and I'm in there talking to all you guys

So the link for that is in the description. We'll see you in the next video