Quest BMX Podium Frame!

Danny Sirkin over at QuestBMX hit me up with some exciting news yesterday, ladies and gentlemen check out the new Quest BMX Podium frame, I sent Danny a few questions about the frame, so read on and check out the first photos of the frame, dialled!

Making a flatland frame with a platform is a brave move in the small saturated market that is flatland. Firstly, why did you choose the platform and who designed the frame?
Danny-Quest products have always been about function and performance. I don’t feel like the market is saturated with flat frames, although I do feel like there might be too many shortened double-diamond street frames. There are tons of riders who actually want a flatland-looking frame and there just hasn’t been much available in ages. t designed the frame myself with plenty of input from many fellow riders. I wanted the Podium to be as technology-forward as possible. Let’s think of it as ‘Flatland Forward.”

The Podium frame is more than just a flat frame with a platform. The platform is incredibly tiny and out of the way. It’s almost impossible to notice when riding it actually. I have seen a big trend of decade-type tricks happening again which is what initially prompted the idea, but honestly, it just builds a stiffer and stronger frame. The platform boxes in the rear end and keeps it from flexing laterally. The increased stiffness is instantly noticeable.

Here are some key features:

SuperTherm double-butted top and down tubes

Really sweet tapered seat and chain stays with bullet caps

14mm dropouts with integrated chain tensioners

Mid bottom bracket

Down tube gusset for added clearance

Curved bridges on seat and chainstays

Compact 4” platform length

No integrated seat post clamp – nothing to break and an aftermarket clamp holds tighter

Removable gyro tabs and cable hanger

Thread-in removable brake mounts – the finest available

Awesome Stardust-Black Powdercoat

MADE IN USA!

What is the geometry of the frame Danny?
Top tube length – 19”
Chainstay length – 13” slammed
BB Height – 11.8”
Standover height – 7.5”
Seat tube angle – 71 degrees
Head tube angle – 74.5 degrees
Weight before powder coat – 4.6lbs.

Where are you getting the frames made?
Dylan Worsley at WE Bicycles is making them. Dylan is awesome to work with and he’s a legend. It’s an honor to work with him on this project.

Entering the frame market is a big move, plans to expand Quest further? And when can we expect the frame to go into production?
Quest is making products as the needs arise. If we feel we can make something better or if we can make something that fills a void, then we will. Every Quest product is different and unique. Our pegs, for example, are made from 6061 aluminum instead of 7075 because research has shown that it lasts longer and doesn’t crack because it’s not as brittle. Also, our knurling has more depth than other pegs which gives increased control and stability but without being too grippy. Side note – we have improved our US peg sourcing and are happy to announce that the new retail of Guru and MetaGuruStix are now $49.99/pair!

The frame goes into production within the next couple weeks and will be available at www.flatlandfuel.com and www.questbmx.com.

I have to ask Danny, will this frame contain Gurunium?
Of course! Every Quest product is Gurunium-infused. Gurunium is the key element in our relentless pursuit of perfection.

Who is riding for Quest in 2014?
The 2014 Quest team consists of JF Boulianne, Todd Carter, Joe Cicman, Bryan Huffman, Danny Sirkin, Mannie Nogueira, Colin Carter, and Camden Carter.

Any last words?
Yes, I’d like to thank Todd Carter for giving this frame such an awesome name! The Podium. Thanks to Dylan Worsley for being a dream to work with! Lastly, thank you to Brandon Halleen who is the man behind the super-clean graphics. We are really excited about this frame!

Thanks for the exclusive Danny! That is awesome the frame will be made by a flatland legend, Dylan Worsley! Stay tuned in the next few weeks for the Podium frame to drop!

53 thoughts on “Quest BMX Podium Frame!

  1. Who is riding the frame pictured? Nice looking frame Danny, decade friendly I’m stoked for you bro can’t wait to see it in person!

  2. I’ve never ran Quest pegs so I cant comment on those but I have to say in my experience 7075 pegs have always been superior to 6061.
    I got a set of prototype Tree Balsa pegs years ago and they still work fine. The ends are in great shape when compared to similar 6061 pegs that I used for 6-12 months.
    I appreciate there are a lot of other factors that I’m not taking into consideration and this is in no way a dig at Quest. I just thought your point was interesting.

  3. I’d have to disagree with 7075 being a better material for pegs than 6061. Might be a bit lighter but it also is more brittle and prone to cracking, but thanks for posting.

  4. This frame has great geo, a simple and useful platform…looks right up my alley. I like it. And awesome WE bikes is making them!

  5. It is not lighter. It has a better strength to weight ratio which allows you to use less to achieve better results. 6061 is more malleable and ductile which is why the ends of pegs made from 6061 mushroom and wear before pegs made from 7075.

  6. Aaron, this isn’t the venue to argue over the merits of different materials, but I have seen many 7075 pegs break and look like a shattered beer bottle. My pegs haven’t mushroomed and I’ve been riding daily on the same set for over a year. Again, thanks for chiming in.

  7. There is nothing to argue about. I stated facts because I use these materials in my profession everyday as a Scientific Instrument Maker II at the University of Texas in Austin. Peace and good luck.

  8. I actually think Tree pegs were made out of 7075 in response to all the 6061 pegs mushrooming. I ran Trees for years and noticed a significant improvement over 6061 pegs I’d run before that. Never cracked a tree peg. That’s why a number of 6061 pegs are capped with harder steel or titanium ends. I really like 7075, but the cost and availability of it was more than 6061 (in Canada anyway) which made it a little prohibitive to use for making my own pegs.

  9. The smaller Quest pegs will mushroom a bit after tons of hard riding but that’s just because we couldn’t reinforce the outer edge anymore than we did and still allow for a 17mm socket to fit in. The larger MetaGuruStix pegs have a ton of reinforcement at the outer edge and do not mushroom. But even if they did, all it would take is a little filing to clean them up which is way more cost-effective than buying a new set of pegs if they were to crack like a 7075. I’ve seen quite a few pictures of broken pegs made from that material. But there’s SO much more to this formula than just material – there’s also good design and proper engineering. #WeGotThat

  10. You used 6061 because its more affordable. Post some pics of these supposed shattered 7075 pegs. I have seen maybe one or 2 my entire riding career.

  11. I call bullshit on the 6061 pegs being stronger than 7075!

    The 6061 material is cheaper, because 6061 is inferior to 7075 when it comes to strength.

    “I have seen many 7075 pegs break and look like a shattered beer bottle”.

    Got any proof of that?

  12. Nice to see another frame style in the mix – I’m with Brian, this reminds me of the old Infinity Frames with a Dividual style gusset. I rode both for years and loved them. Really stoked to read that Dylan is making these, too.

  13. really nice and good looking frame, good stuff!
    but Podium is also the name of a (race) bmx frame made by Intense.. that’s not really original then. Note that Google is your friend when you have to confirm a good name find

    and, can you elaborate about the “research” that shown that 6061 pegs last longer than 7075 pegs??

    maybe that’s only your sense of humor that made you wrote that.. But, come on, when you say that, that means the other products on the market using 7075 will surely brittle, that means they are shit, that’s not nice for your competitors

    what 7075 pegs did you see cracking? I personally saw 7075 Unique St Martin destroyed badly, but the design might explain that a lot. And maybe it was not 7075 alloy as St Martin says. And maybe the makers lie to St Martin, and that was 6061 alloy (?)

    With that sentence, you still acting like you did last year telling on global-flat board that all the bars except the Quest bar are shit and don’t last long.. like you could have test ALL the bars on the market…. that’s not serious

    You make me think with the MADE IN USA label.. what can USA bring than Taiwan can’t (regarding quality products)? do you seriously know the bike market and bike industry?

    Please be serious with the promotion you have to do of your products, if you keep saying than the material you use or your products are better than the other products of the market, you will be asked to prove that, and that won’t be comfortable as we can see that here

    Good luck for the Quest anyway

  14. Thanks for all the comments, both positive and negative. I will gladly answer any questions from the naysayers directly. You can email me at metaguru@questbmx.com, but don’t expect an answer if you don’t use your real name.

  15. I wonder what a study of how both 7series pegs and 6series grade pegs effect other parts of your bike. ie: frame dropouts, hub axles, forks, etc. I’m no “mechanical engineer” however, it seems to me like a super stiff peg compared to a slightly softer compound peg would be more likely to snap an axle or crack a frame?

  16. Evidently scientific facts about alloy can only be discussed in private. Luckily for the BMX flatland community nobody has to lean on Quest to provide or defend their unsubstantiated reports about 7075 alloy being weaker, than the cheaper 6061 material Quest uses to create their pegs.

    The facts are:

    6061 is about 40,000 PSI

    7075 is about 73,000 PSI

    Yield strength is roughly the amount of stress it can take before it deforms (bends).

    So, you can see how much stronger 7075 is.

  17. Danny is using cheaper material because there’s more room for a mark up. He’s a business owner, which I know is easy to confuse since he lists the companies he runs as his “sponsors”. 7075 is better. I have never seen a 7075 peg crack. Ever. Not once. In 14 years of riding many of which were spent on 7075 pegs.

    I mean some engineers came in here and showed exactly why that is but yeah sure let’s take the argument to email so that you don’t lose face.

  18. “I’m no “mechanical engineer” however, it seems to me like a super stiff peg compared to a slightly softer compound peg would be more likely to snap an axle or crack a frame?”

    no. lol.

  19. Let me clarify. At no point did I claim one aluminum was stronger than another. I said 6061 is a better material and I stand by that. 7075 is a good material but people are breaking pegs made from it. If I could post pictures here, I would. The thinking behind the ENGINEERED and TESTED Quest pegs is that a slightly softer aluminum absorbs impact when the bike is dropped on the end of the peg (whiplashes, hitchhikers, etc). When the peg absorbs some impact, it helps protect your expensive frame and rear hub (and internals) from breaking. In time, you may need to lightly file the edges of the pegs smooth again but you will have to do that with any part that frequently gets beaten on the ground. The yield strength might be higher on 7075 aluminum, but less material is being used on pegs made with it so this isn’t an “apples to apples” comparison. We don’t use 6061 because it’s less expensive – we use it because we believe it’s a better material for this application.

  20. TJ, I was posing a question/assumption. There was (and never really is) a reason to mock or laugh at me. To just say “no. lol.” Is rude and unprovoked. You could have at least said no and given a response to why my assumption was so incredibly silly that you physically laughed out loud at me.

  21. “There was (and never really is) a reason to mock or laugh at me.”

    If I sat here and listed off every reason I could think of to mock you I would be here all night.

  22. Cool debate on the pegs. The consumer should decide based on his preferences. One alloy may hold certain advantages over the other. This is coming from someone who has dealt with multiple cracked frames, which would make me consider peg alloy in a future purchase.

  23. hello,
    my friend george actually broke a tree 7075 peg after 2 years of use.
    The smaller diameter pegs.
    i was always using 6061 pegs and thats what i use at the backwheel,(bad thing) for pivots.
    I took my friends tree peg weld it and now i run it at the front.
    so yeah nice move to have one more frame at the market but we need 19.5 frames as well!

  24. A vibration study on a bike when it hits the ground will show you that your bike will break due to torsion. There is a slow-mo video of Percy’s bike twisting and shaking after falling. The bike must flex in order not to break, but eventually everything will break given enough time.

    A peg will be ground away like an eraser eventually, but its lifespan will be determined by surface roughness and the yield strength properties of the material.

  25. seems to be a well made frame with a super good frame builder, but as far as the look of the frame – no thanks not my cup of tea! but all the best anyway

  26. My experience with 7075 pegs is that they last waaaay longer then the 6061 pegs. I bought a pair of 1.5″ tree bikes flatland pegs about 3 years ago when they came out on FF. They weighed less then the nuts I was using to hold them on and lasted about 2 years before they all suddenly cracked. This happened within a few sessions of each other, they never mushroomed, they knurling never wore down, they were great pegs until one day they cracked and that was it. Ive run 6061 gt show pegs, 6061 primo tubesteaks, 6061 fly pegs, and none of them ever lasted near as long as the 7075 ones.

  27. 6061 is the most common aluminum alloy used in bmx for pegs and other parts. This is due to the price of the alloy and the characteristics that it has to offer. 7075 is better in strength and has a lower weight compared to 6061, but it costs about 2 times as much compared to 6061. When looking at making pegs or parts for a consumer, the benefits of 7075 do not outweigh the costs associated with it for production purposes. 6061 will do just fine for any stem, peg, chain ring and hub shell out there.

    In regards to Mr. Sirkin’s claim about “the thinking behind ENGINEERED and TESTED Quest Pegs” being able to absorb impact and lessen the damage to the frame and hub, does not form a valid engineering concept. Breaks/cracks in frames come from 2 different affects. First and most common area is the HAZ (Heated Affected Zone) This is the area around a weld that has had its chemical and grain structure altered from the high temperatures due to welding. This causes the thickness to become thinner and therefore weaker. To remedy this issue people use butted tubing to start off with a larger thickness to compensate for the thinning of the metal. Regardless, the HAZ zone is the weakest point of the frame next to the strongest part of the frame, the weld, and 9 out of 10 times this is where the crack/break forms.

    The 2nd affect is Repeated Torsional Loading. This means the part is under multiple torsional twisting due to falls and loads (aka tricks). My reference to Percy’s bike video of it shaking after falling from a time machine is the exact movements that cause the HAZ zone to crack. Each time a part undergoes this stress it weakens a bit. A Factor of Safety is included or should be included in every mechanical design to make sure the part can withstand forces below its Ultimate Strength.

    In response to 7075 pegs falling and cracking, scientific evidence and studies have shown that 7075 has a higher sustainability and characteristics than 6061. That is irrefutable metallurgy proven. (A side by side comparison) http://www.makeitfrom.com/compare-materials/?A=6061-AlMg1SiCu-Aluminum&B=7075-AlZn5.5MgCu-Aluminum

    But everyone must keep in mind that 7075 costs 2x more than 6061 because of this. Hence the reason why companies choose to make their parts out of 6061. 6061 is strong and durable regardless and is a excellent choice for manufacturing. If you want something superior and longer lasting than go for 7075, but it will cost more for that.

    In conclusion to all the info provided, a well engineered and thought out design, coupled with an adequate material will generally give you a realistic part life. Though material and design flaws are in everything and appear time to time.

  28. Joey if you wanted to chime in with a ^^^ lol … This would be the appropriate time. Not to be a wanna be TJ. I’ve yet to meet a rider that doesn’t respect originality 😉 (Good luck with the frame Quest)

  29. Thank you, Alan Young (Mechanical Engineer) for your recent email. I appreciate the part where you said this: “Your choice for using 6061 is perfect, due to its to machine-ability and purposes and part life.” and this “Your choice for 6061 is perfectly fine and i have used that all my parts i have made myself.”

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