Pedro’s

Pedro’s had a couple of very interesting tools, the trickest being the Tülio. The Tülio is ‘all in one’ QR and tool. The Tülio replaces your standard quick release, except the usual QR lever is now a detachable tool. The multi-use tool includes 8 components: 4,5,6, and 8mm hex wrenches, No. 2 flat head screwdriver, a chain tool and a pair of spoke wrenches. I played around with the Tülio, and it was quite easy to remove the tool for usage, and the best part was the QR axle stays tightened while the tool was removed. Loosening and tightening the tool lever like a normal QR was a breeze. An excellent and innovative device!

The device was a play on words, and was named for Tullio Campagnolo, the inventor of the quick release skewer, and one of the true cycling innovators.

Weight: 99g
Number of tools: 8
Compatibility: 130 and 135mm rear quick release hubs with 10mm QR axles

The Pedro’s Evolver are a rugged and tough chain tool, meant for the shop, and traveling mechanic. It uses something they call Speed Dial (can you hear me now?), which makes it easy to handle 8-11 speed chains. It also has RPG (retracting pin guide) which supports and guides the tool pin up to prevent misalignment and breakage. And I thought RPG (Role Playing Games) was what I did while playing Zelda on my Nintendo?

Weight: 375g
Number of tools: 4
Compatibility: all 1/8” and 3/32” single and multi-gear chains

Hayes Bicycle Group – Manitou, Sun-Ringle, Answer and Hayes

Manitou has released an aluminum legged version of the uber pricey carbon fiber Dorado MRD. The new affordable Dorado shares the same internals as the MRD version, so it will retain the same downhill fork characteristics. It will be available in either a 180 or 203mm travel version, with Manitou’s proprietary HexLock thru axle, 36mm stanchions and weighs 6.5 lbs.

Manitou is finally releasing their new Absolute+ damper, which will be available as a retrofit to some existing models, and will be on their 2010 models. It is sort of a combination of their TPC and old Absolute damper designs, and it has an independent slow and high speed compression circuits. The low speed damping is adjustable via the Speed Needle on top of the fork leg.

Sun Ringle has some new trick carbon rims. The SRD (Sun Ringle Racing Development) Carbon Wheels only come in a 26 inch size, and are 26mm wide, and have a very nice looking carbon matte finish, which goes well with the bright gold direct pull hubs. Weight is 1550 grams.

The new and very sweet looking Sun Ringle Chargers are available in either the Pro or Expert versions, in 26 and 29 inch sizes, and come in either black or white. The All Mountain Chargers use 28mm rims, and get the Stan’s NoTubes rim treatment (licensed from Stan’s). The hubs are Direct Pull on the Charger Pro (red only) or normal on the Expert (black only). The hubs have an option for interchangeable end caps (ala Hope), 9mm or 15mm or 20mm on the front. Weight for the Pro is 1725 grams.

The new updated Sun Ringle Black Flag are available in either the Pro or Expert versions, in 26 and 29 inch sizes, and come in either black or gold. The XCountry Black Flags were upgraded to 24mm rims, and also get the Stan’s NoTubes rim treatment. The hubs are Direct Pull on the Pro (black or gold only) or normal on the Expert (black only). Weight for the Pro is 1620 grams.

Velocity

Velocity had a couple of new rims that they are releasing, foremost is the new P35 or Pacenti 35 . The ultra wide 35mm rim should work really well for fat tires, and should fit in nicely for All Mountain riding. The width will give uber stiffness, and the wide footprint will float and grab terrain like crazy. The rim came with some trick spoke hole plugs, in lieu of a rim strip. They are working on a tubeless kit for the P35, which should be available in early 2010. The rim was co-designed by Kirk Pacenti, who is also well known for his development of the 650b wheel size for mountain bike use. The colors run the full gamut of black, silver, white, red and antifreeze green.

The P35 will be available in 26 inch, 650b, and 29 inch sizes, with either 32 or 36 hole, and a 28 hole in 26 inch (black only). The colors runs the full gamut of black, silver, white, red and antifreeze green.

P35 Specs:

Outside Width: 35mm
Inside Width: 29.5mm
Depth: 22mm

Weight:
29”: 595g
650b: 570g
26”: 535g

They also had some faux wooden rims, that looked pretty trick.

Garmin

Garmin was showing there soon to be released Edge 500. The Edge 500 has a lot of interesting features, it has a flatter body and the graphics look improved? It is more like the Edge 305, since it doesn’t have on screen mapping capability, but it doesn’t have the 305′s Virtual Partner nor a couple of other course features, which I never used on my 305 anyway. It does have some additional features for heart rate, a power meter, and a temperature gauge!

Hope

Hope had the new eternity seatpost on display. The naming was due to the extremely long time it took to get it to market. The clamp system looks to be very nice to adjustment, and it should have the good engineering that always comes from the Hope factory.

Maxxis

Maxxis only had the Ardent 29×2.4 as a new tire, which yours truly was involved with as a prototype tester. The new 29×2.4 has reinforced sidewall protection, good traction, and rolls and accelerates quite nicely. The extra girth of the tires are a welcome addition, especially in the big 29er tires.

Lance’s Leadville 100 bike, totally tricked out with XX grouppo. He invested quite a bit of money with Sram last year, so looks like it was well spent? I noticed they didn’t have his Shimano pedals on the bike!

Continental

Nothing really new at Continental tires, except they changed the name of the Rubber Queen to the Trail King. Why? Who knows, the bike industry is not exactly the most politically correct group of people? I really like the tires, and much preferred the old name, Rubber Queens forever!

Rotor

At the Demo Days Rotor had a small booth displaying their very trick product suite. Rotor is a Spanish company that specializes in cranksets and lightweight components for mountain and road bikes. They are best known for their elliptical chainrings.

I was very intrigued by their new 3D cranks, which are very lightweight and use some very innovative methods to tweak out as much material as possible. There is a lot of CNC work done to the cranks to take out all that material. The crank arm core is even drilled out for weight savings!

The S2 stem was very lightweight, and again had a lot of trick CNC work. All in all, the Rotor products show a lot of precise work, and are highly engineered and very innovative products.

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American Classic
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American Classic has updated their mountain bike wheelset with a few new tweaks. Foremost is that the rim is now tubeless. I have a set of their All Mountain wheels, and I have used a rim strip to run them tubeless, and it was hit and miss getting tires to work. So the new tubeless rims are a welcome change. The rims come in either white or black, while the hubs are a very cool red! The new rims are wider, deeper and lighter, and the new geometry has increased stiffness. They come in both 26 and 29 inch sizes.

I had a very nice technical walk through of the new wheels by the President, founder, engineer and techno geek Bill Shook. Bill led me through some interesting engineering features of their products that relate to the wheels. The IS disc brake interface posts on the hub are slightly raised, which aids keeping the rotors from getting warped.

Instead of using brass nipples Bill uses aluminum nipples, which are extremely lightweight and hence reduce rotational weight. He extended the body of the nipple so that the threads go slightly past where the nipple is cradled in the rim, so that the nipple is held in compression instead of tension, which reduces fatigue and breakage.

While I was at their booth Jenny Fletcher, their sponsored triathlete was signing autographs, so I got one for my daughter, and of course I got one for my basement bike shop! Jenny was really nice, and down to earth, and we yakked on about training and such.

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GoPro
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The long awaited GoPro HD HERO was on display at Interbike, and the multiple TV monitors around their booth had some very luscious video running. I got to speak with a whole slew of GoPro people, and I even had a long conversation with the man himself, founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman. Nick is a really great guy, and he is very psyched about their new product. GoPro spent a lot of R&D time on the HD HERO, and they not only worked on the video, but also on the audio, to help keep down wind noise when riding at Mach 10.

It was very sweet to hold the new camera in my hands and play around with it. The camera is just slightly larger than its predecessor, and uses the same old mounting hardware, except the new housing is obviously larger to accommodate the new camera. The camera looks almost exactly the same, with the small screen, LED light and the 2 buttons. The small screen still has its information upside down as you progress through its settings using the buttons.

What is hugely different is that you can now shoot HD with the HERO. You can shoot in 1080p (widescreen) at 30fps, 960p (full frame) at 30fps, and 720p at either 30 fps or 60 fps. The 60 fps allows slow motion, how cool is that! The camera angle is different in each format, so 1080p is 127 degrees, while 920p and 720p are at 170 degrees. And hold on to your horses, memory is now up to a 32GB capacity!

One of the other great things that have done, is that the camera has an internal rechargeable Lithium Ion 1100mah battery. The back of the camera has an expansion port, that will allow optional expansion packs (called Bakpacs) to be connected. The current Bakpacs list is a LCD screen, and a battery extender.

The sensor is .4 inch HD CMOS with 2.2 micrometer pixels, and the video format is H.264 compression, which is saved as a MP4 file.

Recording times are:
12min/GB for 1080p
14min/GB for 960p
16min/GB for 720p/30fps
11min/GB for 720p/60fps.

HD settings:
1080p – 1920×1080 pixels, 127 degree viewing
960p – 1280×960 pixels, 170 degree viewing
720p – 1280×720 pixels, 170 degree viewing

For more technical mumbo jumbo refer to:

http://vid.goprocamera.com/HD_HERO_Catalog_v01.pdf

Today was the first day indoors of the mighty Interbike, and it was as overwhelming and crowded as ever. I had a few appointments today (sort of a new thing for me), and then spent the rest of the time visiting my network of vendors that I review for. It is nice to get a face to face talk with someone. Phones, emails and instant messenger are useful, but it is amazing how much of an interpersonal creation happens with actual close proximity to a person! Trust, comfort, respect and friendship happens at an almost instantaneous pace, acceleratious maximus!

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Ashima
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Wayne from Ashima had on display a set of their new brakes, and some colored rotors. The lightweight AiRotors brake rotor now comes in red, black, blue, yellow, and white! I got a trick set of the red ones to test out, and I must say that the colors really added to their uniqueness.

Their new brakes are very radical and innovative. The PCB or Pancake Brake has no pistons, and instead operates using a diaphragm seal. The design is very simple, lightweight, and has very thin calipers (25mm). The piston less design, gives an excellent response, simpler manufacturing, and has an equivalent area of a 20mm piston. Wayne has another brake in the works,the 4 pot APV (Ashima Power Valve System). The PCB just became a Design Award Winner at the Eurobike Show, congratulations to Ashima.

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UFO Plast
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UFO Plast was hidden over in their usual spot in the European Village section of Interbike. They had a couple of very interesting new releases for this year, the paramount one was their fork protector. They zip tie onto your fork, and protect the sides from rocks and crashes that always seem to zero in on your forks. They come in white and black, and are relatively light, so they would be a nice accessory to protect your fork from damage. They are made from hard plastic, and should work much better than the usual protection tape that I usually use.

They also had some nifty new body guard protection to add to their body armor collection.

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Ibis
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There wasn’t a whole lot of new stuff being released for Ibis this year. Some new colors for the bikes and the Mojo HD was on display.

Mojo HD
The much anticipated Mojo HD is still in a prototype phase, so its still vaporware for now, but at least we can see it and touch it. “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.”

I spoke with Scott and he said that they had kept the bike under wraps for a long time before it was allowed to be seen. Sort of a Ibis secret Skunk Works project if you will. The had just painted Brian’s bike, so it looked a bit different than some of the earlier photos I had seen.

I commented on the gearing on the bike; which was obviously meant for going downhill; and Scott said Brian was able to keep up (and kill) with everyone on a group ride on XC terrain! He also said that Brian sets his derailleur to not go to the upper cog, since getting a chain sucked up over the top of the cassette isn’t to useful for racing.

Scott showed me a couple of new pieces that are going on the Mojo HD. There was a beefier lower link, with some sweet looking CNC work to hollow out the sides, and than a steerer tube adapter to allow you to keep running a no tapered fork (HD uses a tapered headset).

New Colors
The Mojo now comes in a nice looking blue, and in white (which is the new black).

I am going to try and get a Ibis group picture this morning with the gang, and I will add a few pictures tonight, so stay tuned.

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Moots
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After last years cavalcade of new bikes and parts, it was a bit calmer in Titaniumville this year. Moots released a new version of the Vamoots, a new road stem and a 10 year anniversary edition of the Mooto X YBB29er.

Mooto X YBB
The limited edition Mooto X YBB 29er was created to celebrate the 10th birthday of Moots first foray into the 29er world. It has a cool looking decal package, and is decked out with a slew of white and red parts. Of course using Sram XX made it look pretty bling! Very rad looking for the usually understated Moots. Only 75 are being created, so run out to your dealer and order one!

Color Options
Moots added some colors to their stem faceplates, seat collars and cinch post saddle clamp. You can now get them in black, red, blue and gray. I am already destined to add some blue pieces to my Moots Mooto-XZ!

Vamoots RSL
Ok, this is actually a road bike, but it is a pretty sweet one anyway, and at a mere 14lbs or so. The RSL (Race Super Light) uses double butted 3/2.5 titanium tubing, 6/4 titanium seat stays and a Moots/Alpha fork (very cool looking). I saw them working on it this summer, and a lot of R&D went into this baby.

RSL Road Stem
This stem is extremely light for a titanium stem coming in at 121 grams. It was designed to compliment the Vamoots RSL. The faceplate is a double band and the steerer clamp is slightly hollowed out. Trick! They also use 6/4 titanium bolts. I wonder if 6/4 bolts are better to use then 3/2.5 bolts?

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DT Swiss
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DT Swiss has a bunch of new products being released this year, the most prominent is the new tubeless ready Tricon wheelset. They are also releasing some new carbon wheels, new forks with a better price point and some minor tweaks to their existing top of the line carbon fork.

Tricon Wheelset
The new Tricon wheel system has some very innovative features that were engineered into them. Foremost is that they use a multiple piece hub, which is comprised of 2 spoke flanges and a hub body. The separate spoke flanges are tightened down onto the hub body, so they are not part of the hub itself. This arrangement leaves the hub body and the bearings free of tension from spoke pull, so the bearings can spin as smoothly as possible. Usually a hub has to have a built in amount of bearing bind, since once spoke tension is applied the body is pulled outwards, thus freeing up the bearings. Otherwise the bearings would be sloppy and more apt to wear if that factor was not designed into the hub.

The spoke pattern is a combination of radial and crossed spokes, for maximum stiffness and torque transferal. The spokes use Torx nipples, and are threaded on each end, and are straight pulled. Lastly the rim, uses small spoke inserts, which are supported on two sides of the rim, think of them as a sort of rectangular spoke nuts. This arrangement allows the rim to be built lighter, and in addition it is airtight for tubeless compatibility.

The mountain version of the wheel system is the XM 1550 Tricon, and is 26mm wide. The front is available as either 100mm/15mm or 110mm/9mm, while the rear can be 135mm/10mm or 142mm/12mm. Weights are 700 grams for the front and 850 grams for the rear. It is also available in a road version RR 1450 Tricon.

Forks
DT Swiss has a couple of new and updated forks coming out. The brand new forks are made with a torsion box arch and magnesium lowers, and were made to have a more market compliant pricing structure (i.e., not so bloody expensive). The models are the XMM 100, 120 and 140, and the EXM 130 and 150. They will be available in either white or black, in either 9mm or 15mm axles.

The EXC 130 and 150 carbon forks have had the launch control and rebound lever changed, and some minor adjustments to the damping.

Carbon wheels
DT Swiss released some very sweet looking carbon wheels for mountain biking, they are the EXC 1550 and the XRC 1350, and follow in the footsteps of their older brother the XRC 1250. They are supposed to be very durable, but I would mostly be afraid of marring up such a pretty rim? They are obviously Uber expensive. I covet the EXC 1550!

The weather at day 2 of the Outdoor Demo was a touch milder, but it was still windy, dusty and hot. I had a couple of bikes on my To Do list, but it became very crowded, and it was extremely difficult to get many rides in. At least there was some free food around!

Blur LTc

The Blur LT comes in a carbon and aluminum version. I tested out the carbon version, the LTc, which is comprised of a carbon front and rear triangle. The 140mm travel bike uses their always nice VPP suspension system. The bike really accelerated and railed nicely, and it climbed well, but on occasion on very steep climbs; there was a slight loss of traction. The Blur LTc was a good all around bike, and it did everything well, with no glaring faults. The carbon fiber not only lightened up the bike, but gave it some nice stiffness with just a slight hint of resiliency and damping. The Blur LTc didn’t have any outstanding attributes, but on the other hand, it did not do anything poorly. It was well rounded, with a tad of carbon goodness, and was just a decent mild mannered bike.

Kind Shock

Kind Shock had a small booth hidden over by the electric bikes. They had some of the rear shocks and adjustable seatposts on display. I played around with their i Series (i950 & i900) of adjustable seatposts, and I was very intrigued with their engineering, workmanship and functionality of the units . They come in either a remote or on top of the seatpost (under the saddle) lever actuated versions. Rick of Kind Shock gave me a really in depth walkthrough of the units, and I was very impressed. They also had a seatpost and saddle on a platform, so you could try the units out. I really liked that it was infinitely adjustable, so you could stop it wherever you liked in its travel length.

Sizes: 30.9mm & 31.6mm
Lengths: 300mm & 400mm
Travel: 75mm for 300mm & 125mm for 400mm

Banshee Spitfire
Banshee is fairly new to the bike scene, and their Spitfire model is still in its prototyping stages. The 5 inch suspension Spitfire has one very interesting feature, it has 2 shock mount positions, that allow you to vary the geometry of the bike. One position gives you a higher BB height, and a steeper head angle for technical XC riding. The other position drops the BB height, and slackens out the head angle for higher speed riding.

The Spitfire was wicked fast when it was pointed downhill, it just accelerated down like crazy. The Spitfire was very neutral, steered and handled nicely, and didn’t display any outstanding squat issues. During hard pedaling, it did just you asked of it, and on steeps climbs the rear end tended to stay connected to the tarmac. I think there is some room for further tinkering on the suspension system, to get it to the same level of its competitions (DW Link and Yeti AS come to mind). On some G-outs, the front end collapsed a bit much, and really tossed you forward. The Spitfire is designed as a 1×9, something that I haven’t ridden very much, so I found the gearing tough for me, since I like to granny gear it a bit more.

I enjoyed my brief time on the Spitfire, it was a nice bike, and the adjustable geometry is an innovative feature. Release date is 2010. I think Banshee has a winner on their hands, and further tweaking of the bike will only help improve it.

Scott Genius

The Scott Genius bike comes in 6 versions, the 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and the Limited. I tried their middle of the road 20 version. The SG 20 has 150mm of travel, and uses their very innovative Equalizer2 rear shock (the TC version). The three chamber Equalizer2 is a remote travel adjustment shock, going from lockout, to 95mm and the fully open 150mm. The rear linkage system is a “faux-bar”, and the frame is made from carbon fiber. On the trail, the SG20 had some pedal bob, and although it was tolerable, it was a bit to much for my taste. The adjustable travel on the rear was really nice, especially when climbing something steep, just do a simple push on the lever, and you drop to 95mm, which really aided traction. On the flats, it was nice to flip it to lockout to keep the pedal bob down. This bike liked to haul around on rocky terrain, the faster and the rougher it was the more comfortable the frame felt. When it got slow and technical, the bike was a bit much to wrestle, and felt heavy and ponderous. Although I really liked the adjustable suspension, the Scott Genius 20 seemed unwieldy on anything but super tough terrain taken at a good clip.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Sunday to some unfriendly 100 degree stifling heat. The next day I ventured up to the first day of the Outdoor Demo for Interbike 2009 in Bootleg Canyon. The temperature died down to a moderate 90 with wind gusts up to 30 mph, so it was a dusty, hot and bone rattling dry.

Yeti ASR 5 C
The ASR 5 (5 inch suspension) is a brand new bike for Yeti, and this was the first time I had seen this model. The ASR 5 comes in an aluminum version, and a full carbon version, which is what I tested. The moment I started pedaling this bike, I felt its instant acceleration and laser like steering and handling. Its suspension was very compliant, and the resiliency of the carbon material was paramount in the feel of the bike.

I found myself sitting in almost all the terrain, and was amazed at how well the suspension just sort of floated along the undulations and rocky sections of the trail. This did not feel like a 5 inch travel bike. On one of the very steep and very loose climbs the bike went up it effortlessly, and needed very little pedaling to get to the top. This was an excellent bike, that has a carefully thought out suspension system, with an incredible amount of compliancy. It is very neutral, climbs like a demon and makes the most of what the carbon fiber feel and material can do for a bike.

ASR 5C Specs:

Travel – 5 inch
Weight – 4.75lbs
Sizes – small. medium, large
Colors – black/turquoise or white/black
Rear shock – RP23 (7.875 x 2)
Bottom Bracket – 73mm
Rear wheel – 135mm with QR or 142mm with 12mm
Front Derailleur – 34.9mm with traditional mount
Seapost – 30.9mm
Kits Enduro, Race, Pro

Features:
- High Modulus, hand laid-up carbon front and rear triangles
- Tapered headtube 1 1/8 to 1 1/5
- Gravity dropper cable guide
- Interchange droputs
- Titanium hardware
- Internal cable routing on swingarm

Gary Fisher Rumblefish 29er
I was thinking of trying the new Gary Fisher Superfly 100 29er after hearing some really good things about it, but while I was looking at the display model, I saw the Gary Fisher Rumblefish sitting right next to it. It has 110 mm of travel in the rear and 120 mm in the front, and it is made to Rumble. Are You Ready To Rumble? So I got in the queue and took it out for a spin.

I demoed the top of the line Rumblefish II version, and it had a Fox F120 FIT RLC 29 fork with a 15mm axle, a Shimano drivetrain, Avid brakes and a custom Fox RP23 shock. Some of the special features of the Rumblefish are the 6011 hydroformed butted aluminum mainframe, a E2 tapered headtube, the BB95 bottom bracket, a direct mount front derailleur, the ABP (Active Braking Pivot) rear suspension and a DRCV (Direct Rate Control Valve) Fox RP23 rear shock.

I was really impressed how well this bike handled. It still has the big 29er wheels that still take a bit of cranking to get their inertia going, but it sure felt more like a 26er when I was climbing. The bike has a very short wheelbase, cockpit and trail for a 29er. Those geometry characteristics really showed itself in its quick and nimble handling, and its neutral weighting while climbing. While railing and flying down the trail those big wheels were a treat, and the suspension did really well in g-outs. On spirited sprints while standing the rear suspension squatted just a tad, and I felt some flex in the Fox fork.

Overall I have to give the Rumblefish high marks for a successfully engineered long travel 29er. It climbs and handles well, and is a really nice rough terrain full suspension 29er. Let it eat some rocks!

Titus FTM Carbon
I had read a lot about the new Titus FTM (Full Tilt Moto) product line, but I was surprised to see this full carbon version. The current aluminum, Ti and Exogrid versions are now joined by this carbon compatriot. The Titus FTM series has 135mm of travel in the rear and 140mm in the front. This carbon frame is decidedly on the stiff side of things, which means that any sort of pedaling has a prominent side effect of getting the power to the trail. Unfortunately, it also made the ride stiff and somewhat deadened. This frameset might appeal to a racer, but I wish it had a more lively carbon feel to it. The FTM Carbon was a nicely done and light bike, that just misses the mark by not having the attributes that I like from carbon fiber. The internal cable routing really was a nice touch, and added to the nice swooping lines of the frame.

Ibis Mojo HD
Although I didn’t get to ride the new prototype Mojo HD, it was pretty impressive just sitting there. The Mojo HD will be the Ibis foray into the 6 inch All Mountain world, and promises to be quite a bike. Brian Lopes has already been racing it, and only time will tell how it all well the end product will be? Since it is a prototype the linkages are a bit crude, but they are pretty beefy and will hopefully tighten up the somewhat current sloppy feeling in the Mojo rearend. I spoke briefly to Brian about the bike and his recent trip to the worlds down in Australia, he is a real decent and nice guy.

The cables have been re-routed to the down tube, to facilitate the inherent issues with the newer geometry of the bike. For a lot of Mojo riders that are a welcome change from the current somewhat disliked top tube arrangement.

Pivot Firebird
The Firebird was new to 2009, but I missed getting to try it out last year. The Firebird has 167mm of travel in the rear and 160mm in the front. This long travel bike eats up terrain, and allows you to fly down anything, soaking up terrain, rocks and undulations like crazy. It rails around the berms, and flies through the air with ease.

On steep loose climbs the suspension would drop out on me, which meant an immediate unloading of the rear end and all lose of traction. It happened a couple of times on the circuit I did, and it was a bit unnerving. All in all, the Firebird was a nice bike, and it ate any terrain I could throw at it for lunch, albeit with the occasional unloading rear end.