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0:00
The Colt Gateway is a beginner level BMX bike that costs about $429 and it weighs around 26 pounds
0:08
In this review, we're going to talk about the quality, the geometry, the street score
0:12
park score, dirt. We're going to talk about everything that you need to know about this bike. I'm going to help you decide if you should buy this bike or if you need to find a different
0:20
bike. So let's get right into it. The first thing we need to talk about is some of the most commonly
0:24
asked questions about the Colt Gateway. The first question that people have is how much does this
0:29
bike weigh. The Colt Gateway is going to weigh around 26 pounds. If you go to Colt's website and
0:34
you go down to weight, it's going to say about 26 pounds. I think it's a little suspicious because
0:39
other brands are like very on point with it, like 26.4, 26. There's no way this bike is like 26.00
0:47
pounds. So it could be plus or minus a little bit. But anyway, that is the weight of the bike
0:52
The next question is, can you upgrade this bike? Everything on the Colt Gateway is customizable
0:58
and upgradable. So if you want to buy new handlebars, new forks, new bars, new pedals
1:03
whatever you want to upgrade it with, you can do so. Just purchase that part and put it on. You'll
1:08
be good. Can you grind with the Colt Gateway? No. You can, but you need to buy pegs and hubguards
1:15
As it comes out of the box, the Colt Gateway doesn't have pegs, doesn't have hubguards
1:19
It's like a level 10 skill to grind without pegs. So the answer is no. You need to buy pegs and
1:24
hub guards for the Gateway if you want to grind with it. You can buy them separately and put them
1:30
on this bike, then you can grind with it. But as it comes out of the box, the answer is no
1:35
Does the Colt Gateway have brakes? The Colt Gateway just has really standard U-brakes with
1:41
non-removable brake mounts. So a lot of street riders like to take their brakes off and ride
1:45
brakeless. And if you have removable brake mounts, you can get a really nice clean look on the frame
1:51
If you have non-removable brake mounts, they're welded on there and it just shows like there was
1:56
brakes on this bike. It doesn't look as clean. It's not the end of the world and it's very typical
1:59
for lower quality BMX bikes. The last question is what kind of hub does this bike have? The
2:05
Kohl Gateway has a cassette hub with a 25.9 gear ratio. This is a very common gear ratio that you'll
2:12
see on most complete BMX bikes and a cassette hub has pedal pressure, not the same as a free coaster
2:18
that's what the gateway has. Now my first BMX bike was way too small for me. I didn't know that
2:24
there was a correlation between top tube size and rider height. And so when I got my first bike
2:29
it was not the right size. And what this did is it made it really hard for me to learn tricks
2:34
made it really hard for me to have control over the bike and maneuver it. It was just tough
2:39
And I want that to not, I don't want that to happen to you. I want you to get the right bike
2:43
So let's talk about the size of this bike and what height is best for it. The Colt Gateway has a 20.5
2:50
inch top tube and this top tube size is best for riders who are between five foot six and five foot
2:56
nine. If you're a few inches taller or shorter than that, you're going to be fine on this bike
3:01
But if you're a lot shorter or a lot taller, get something else, get the right size for you. I
3:05
stress this so much. Most people buy bikes based off of color or based off of quality and I think
3:12
that that's the wrong approach i think the best thing you can do is find bikes that are within
3:16
your size and then find the best quality bike within that range okay don't don't skip over this
3:22
because if you get a bike that the wrong size bmx is going to be super hard for you and if you listening to this and you like oh man i am five foot four or i six foot this bike is not right for you and i will find you three bikes that are perfect
3:37
for you if you request a free bike recommendation this is a service i do for everyone who watches
3:42
the channel click the link give me some information about yourself and i'm going to find three bikes
3:46
that are absolutely perfect for you for free now alongside this top tube size is other frame
3:53
geometries and these frame geometries are going to have an effect on how the bike handles and how
3:57
the bike feels these geometries also have a pretty big effect on how good the bike is for street
4:03
riding dirt riding or park riding which we'll talk about later in the video but the colt gateway comes
4:08
with a 75 degree head tube angle and we don't know the standover height colt doesn't list it on their
4:14
website but we can guess it's about nine inches as that's the most standard standover height that
4:20
that you're gonna see on most BMX bikes. It has an 11.8 inch bottom bracket height
4:24
and then it has a 13.65 inch chainstay. The head tube angle and the standover height
4:30
are pretty normal, but that 13.65 inch chainstay is incredibly long. This is gonna give the bike a really stable back end
4:38
It's gonna make it harder to get into manuals because your wheel base is so much longer
4:42
Your front wheel's quite a bit longer from, or quite a bit more farther away, quite a bit
4:48
Anyway, it's farther away from your front wheel, okay? Bigger wheelbase, your wheels are spread apart
4:53
and so you need a lot more leverage and a lot more oomph to get into a manual and to pick up that front end
4:58
So that's something that you don't see a chainstay length this tall on very many complete bikes at all
5:04
and that's just something that you need to point out. The 11.8-inch bottom bracket height is higher than normal also
5:09
and this higher bottom bracket height might counteract that long chainstay a little bit
5:15
because being taller up gives you a more snappy and responsive feeling on the bike with steering
5:21
and with spins particularly. Okay so that's how that geometry is going to affect the handling of
5:26
the Colt Gateway. All right I just wanted to pop in real quick while I'm editing this video and say
5:31
thank you Unity for letting me come by and check out these BMX bikes and film some b-roll. It was
5:36
so good to come in see them in person and it makes the video so much better for you guys. So if you're
5:41
in the Phoenix area and you want a new bike, you want new parts, you need your bike worked on
5:45
swing by Unity Rideshop and check them out. It's honestly one of the best BMX shops that I've been
5:51
to and you will not be disappointed. So I just wanted to jump in here, shout them out. Okay
5:56
let's get back on with the video. The geometries of the parts on the bike also will have an effect
6:00
on the style and how the bike feels. The only thing to really talk about here is the nine inch
6:06
handlebar height and the 30 inch width on the handlebars. It's got 170 millimeter cranks, but
6:12
none of that's really going to have a huge effect. I think that these handlebars are a good size for
6:17
five foot six to five foot nine riders who would be on this bike. And yeah, that's really all there
6:23
is to talk about the geometry. Colt doesn't give you a lot of insight into what the geometries of
6:27
the bike actually is. And so we just won't get into it. Now I put together a quality scoring
6:33
system that's going to help you decide if this bike is actually a good quality because that is
6:37
is a very common question and you're probably wondering, is the Colt Gateway a good quality BMX bike
6:43
And I'm gonna say no. This bike scored a 3.57 out of 10
6:48
in the quality scoring system, meaning it's a pretty low quality bike
6:52
And the main components, the quality of the main components are the biggest reason for this quality score So let talk about that and let break it down a little bit so the colt gateway comes with the trimoli frame the forks have a chromoly steer tube and high tensile steel legs the bars are fully high tensile steel it has three eight
7:11
chromoly cranks and then it has single wall cult match rims now with this quality the trimoli frame
7:18
adds chromoly in the top tube the down tube and the head tube which gives your front end a lot
7:22
more strength and durability but the the chain stay in the back end of this frame is going to be
7:28
susceptible to bending and breaking my first tri-mole bmx bike um i had an issue where i was
7:35
doing 360s a lot and then my back end just slowly bent like this and so i could look down my frame
7:40
and my frame would be crooked and so that's just what happens with tri-mole frames it's nice to
7:44
have that quality in the front but the back end does suffer when you're doing certain tricks like
7:49
spins, tail whips and things that take a lot of pressure there on that back wheel. And so that's
7:54
just something to note. The forks have a chromoly steer tube so the piece that goes through the frame
7:59
is full chromoly but the legs that hold the wheel are high tensile steel. And I'm sure you've seen
8:05
next time you go to the skate park, look at everyone's forks and you'll see somebody who
8:09
has forks that are just raked out like crazy. And if you're learning disasters or something on high
8:14
tensile steel forks, your forks are going to bend out like this because of the constant pressure
8:19
pushing them out when you do a disaster or case a jump or something like that. And then the last
8:25
thing, single wall rims are not nearly as high quality as double wall rims and so that's just
8:30
kind of where this bike sits at in the quality spectrum and that's why it only scored a 3.57
8:35
out of quality. These parts are designed for a lightweight beginner rider who's not going to put
8:41
a lot of stress and a lot of impact on the parts. Now let's talk about some of the pros and cons for
8:46
this BMX bike. Some of the pros, the Colt Vans tires are pretty popular tires and they grip
8:51
really well in street. Another pro about this bike is the fact that it comes with some really unique
8:56
and really cool looking colorways. Now some of the cons include the weak 410 chain, the lower quality
9:03
parts altogether, and the lack of aftermarket parts. This bike doesn't have very many aftermarket
9:08
parts most of the parts on it are pretty low quality including that 410 chain you might be
9:13
getting into bmx because of a certain bmx rider who rides street maybe they ride park maybe they
9:19
ride dirt for me it was someone who rode street and so i wanted a bmx bike that was good for
9:24
street riding now i have a scoring system that comes up with a score for street park and dirt
9:30
about all of the bikes and this is based off of those geometries that we talked about earlier
9:35
and the parts package that comes on the bike. And so let's decide what type of riding the Colt
9:40
Gateway is best for. So the Colt Gateway scored a 2.19 in street, a 2.5 in park, and a 4 in dirt
9:48
making this bike best for dirt riding. The reason that it scored so high for dirt is mostly due to
9:54
that longer chainstay and the more stable geometry. The bike doesn't have a really responsive front
9:59
end or responsive parts package that makes it good for snappy street riding or park riding
10:07
You can't even put a gyro on this bike if you wanted to because the head tube has an hourglass
10:11
shape. You can't put gyros on it or you can't drill the holes for the gyro. Most frames have
10:16
holes included so you can put a gyro on it. This bike is very anti-park and anti-street
10:22
With that being said though, there are upgrades you can make to every single BMX bike to make it
10:27
for a certain type of riding And so if you want to get the Colt Gateway and you want to ride street that possible You just need to make some upgrades And I put together a free PDF that shows you what upgrades are best for what type of riding And that free The link for that is in
10:42
the description. For example, if you wanted to grind with this bike, some of the best upgrades
10:47
would be pegs and hub guards because you can throw it on and that's going to drastically increase the
10:52
street score having pegs and hub guards on there. Second upgrade I would do to this bike would
10:57
probably be the cranks. The cranks would make the bike a little bit lighter and just add really
11:01
high quality cranks to your ride. Something that you can rely on, something that you can trust
11:07
If you're doing big drops, you don't have to worry about your cranks breaking. And the third
11:10
upgrade would probably be some forks. Forks that are full chromoly and not half chromoly like the
11:15
ones that are included on the gateway and with a little bit, with a steeper offset. Get some
11:21
forks with the 28 millimeter offset, maybe 25 millimeter offset, so it's easier to get into
11:26
nose manuals and it pulls that front wheel a little bit closer to the back wheel. So if you're
11:30
considering the Colt Gateway, you also need to check out the Kink Whip, the Sabrosa Salvador
11:35
and the Sunday Forecaster. These are three bikes that are similar to the Colt Gateway in quality
11:41
and in price, but you might like one of those bikes better. So check out those three bikes next
11:46
You might be wondering if the Colt Gateway comes with a warranty and the answer to that is kind of
11:52
On Colt's website they talk about having a warranty for frames and I'm really unsure if that warranty
11:59
like that frame warranty is included on the frames on complete bikes. I'm going to assume yes and if so it's a one-year warranty against manufactured defects on just that frame
12:09
Now this is not the best warranty, like it's really not a good warranty compared to some other brands warranties
12:15
and it's very important to make sure that you buy your bike from a trusted shop who's going to take
12:20
care of you even if you have any issues with your bike and that's why I buy all of my parts from
12:24
Danscom. They literally have a phone number that you can call, talk to a BMX expert right away
12:31
and ask them questions about what's going on with your bike and just like pick their brain man. It's
12:35
so helpful and it's so important to have a shop who's going to help you out if you have any issues
12:40
with your purchase from them. Now if you're wondering what's different about this current
12:43
year model versus last year's model, you need to check out the review I did on bmxnerds.com
12:50
That review at the bottom of the page talks about what's different and what's new because sometimes
12:55
the new model has slight changes that the old model didn't. And so I talk about that in the
13:00
blog post there. Head there next if you're curious about those changes. Personally, I think the Colt
13:06
Gateway at MSRP is a little bit overpriced for the quality that you're getting. If you check out
13:12
those other three bikes that I mentioned, you might find a bike that's better quality, better
13:16
geometry for a similar price. Colt Gateway is a good bike if there's a brand new rider who wants
13:21
to just start riding bikes and they're between five foot six and five foot nine. But this bike
13:27
won't last you as you start to progress. Like I said, the quality is beginner quality. That's
13:32
because those components are designed for beginner riding. If you're doing higher end riding, they're
13:37
not going to last very long. And I also wouldn't recommend this bike if you're over like 150 pounds
13:42
because your weight's going to stress the parts quite a bit. The Colt Gateway was not good enough
13:47
to make it on my list of the top 11 BMX bikes, but if you want to see what bikes did make it onto
13:53
that list, that video is going to pop up on the screen right now, and then you can watch that next
13:58
and check out the top 11 bikes for this year. We'll see you guys in the next video
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