Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

S&M Sabbath

S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney

2012 is a magic year for S&M, it means they’ve been proudly producing ‘Made in America’ frames and components for 25 years. That’s a real milestone for any brand in the bicycle industry, especially one as fickle as the BMX genre. But it proves the quality of their products, and the dedication of their fan base. Joe Stevenson is one of the hardcore fans: this is the second S&M of his we’ve featured on The Spoken, and the fourth of his BMX in total.

This is the S&M Sabbath frame, designed by team rider Sean McKinney. It was debuted in 1996 as a dedicated flatland frame and was revised in 2000: the Y2K edition is lighter and lost its standing platform. It’s Joe’s favorite S&M frame (“short, fast handling and stupidly strong”), and he uncovered this Sabbath in a dusty distributor’s warehouse. He built it up with parts to match: “99% of the parts were NOS. I went with Primo as they did a lot for BMX in the ‘dark years’ and I like their industrial style. Steroid seat, Powerbite cranks, Stogie pegs, Viking clamp etc. Stem is a period-correct S&M Redneck and the seat post is also an S&M with Marvin’s Guts. S&M pedals and there’s even a Primo Pervert cable splitter on there! Anyways, I loved building this little flatland pitbull, weight topped out at over 40lbs…”

If you liked Joe’s Sabbath, you might also want to have a look at his Terrible One Custom, Standard 125 and S&M Challenger.

S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney
S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney
S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney
S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney
S&M Sabbath Sean McKinney