INTERBIKE 2009 – In addition to their beautiful new road racing hubs (see those here), Chris King was showing off his latest labor of love: Cielo Bicycles.

Chris DiStefano, their marketing guy, told the story of how Chris King started out building frames, then headsets.  The latter became immensely popular (Heck, I’ve got three of them) and the rest is history.  Lately, he’s found time to build three models, the cyclocross bike you see above, a road touring bike and a 29er mountain bike with breakaway sleeves to make it packable.

The Cielo Cross bike is made of True Temper OX Platinum tubes that are TIG welded at their factory in Portland, OR, then capped with the Cielo seatstay cap and brass head badge.  King machines their own custom fork crown, stainless steel front fork ends & rear dropouts and headtube collars.

Hit ‘more’ for additional info, specs and photos…

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INTERBIKE 2009 – Kenda’s launching their first Tubular road tires, the 200 TPI Domestique and the 300 TPI Super Domestique and Volare.  They also showed off a Road Tubeless prototype built around their Kaliente tread pattern.  I’ve ridden Kaliente’s for years and they handle very well, so look for a solid performer when the tubeless version is released.

Also new for Kenda is their new Kadence training tire, a $25 tread that comes in five colors, and lots of new mountain bike tires including models from Brian Lopes and Hans Rey and a new casing width for the Small Block Eight.  Oh, and a few more new goodies…Hit ‘more’ to see them all…

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Yay, us!  Feel free to email the folks at BikeBiz and tell them how awesome Bikerumor.com is…and you can see what this is all about right here.  Voting ends soon, and we’re up against some other good sites for Best Consumer Website.  *fingers crossed*

The final Ride for the Roses event is coming up October 23-25 in Austin, TX.  The poster above was done courtesy of Shep Fairey, who also painted some of Lance Armstrong’s colorful race bikes this year.  Minimum amount you have to raise is $250, and as of this post, there are “only” 450 spots left.  Given that thousands show up to ride with Lance for free when he tweets, we imagine there are a few people out there that can still pay to play.

All funds raised go to the Livestrong Challenge, the LAF’s signature fundraising event.  Check their website if you’d like to volunteer or participate.  Oddly, this poster is nowhere to be found on the event’s website…

If I had a yard, I would totally do this.  Found on Calacanis.com, as in Jason Calacanis, the man behind Mahalo, TechCrunch and other world wide webby things you may have heard of.  Nice to see him keepin’ it real…

From Red Bull:

WHO: Calling all you gravity junkies to register for Red Bull Burner at Angel Fire Resort. Pro, expert or even amateur riders, no matter the skill level, can register to participate in the last downhill race of the season.

WHAT: Don’t forget your lights; mountain bike riders will be testing their skills into the night at Red Bull Burner. Registration is limited to the first 150 class entries, so register solo, with a partner or as a team, but register early at redbullburner.com.

Mountain bikers will push themselves for 12 straight hours over some of the fastest and most technically challenging terrain in North America. Three of Angel Fire’s downhill trails will be used simultaneously, the World Cup DH, Supreme DH, and Combi DH. Winners will be determined by the total number of laps in the twelve hour period. The top three in each class will claim a part of $5,000 in cash and prizes.

When was the last time you got in 80 miles of DH trails, 50k feet of vert, raced into the night…..all in 12 hours?

WHEN: Saturday, October 10, 2009
9:00 AM – 9:00 PM

WHERE: Angel Fire, NM at Angel Fire Resort

Nike has expanded their Livestrong collection with this reissue/redesign of the M65 jacket.  Inspired by military design, it’s a minimalist, three-layer laminate water resistant nylon jacket with signature yellow Livestrong detail stitching.  It has a rain gutter storm flap, waterproof front zip, packable hood and Velcro adjustable cuffs.  All seems are ultrasonic welded and taped with minimal stitching.  Drops into retail on Friday, October 2nd.

Another intro from Nike that’s based on cyclists are the relaunched Air Zoom Tiempos shoes.  There are eight colorways, including a yellow one from Livestrong (not shown).  Hit ‘more’ to see the newest colors…

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Yes, this happened last weekend.  But’s cool enough to mention anyway so you can get on their mailing list for next year.  Conceived by “TW” as a way to promote his new business, Renegade Muscle, the Bicycle Prom featured a ride from a bar to an art gallery where there was food, music, beer, wine and calendar girls.

The business?  Renegade Muscle is TW’s vintage bike customization shop.  He personally rides a banana-seat Schwinn that shoots flames.  And oh how I wish he had some photos on his website, but alas, about all you’ll find there right now is his contact info and this poster for the event.  We’ll get on the list and keep you posted…apparently he’s got some other events planned.  There’s a longer story about him on WeeklyVolcano.com

Contador poses with copy of his book - Photo: AC Press Room

Contador showed off his new children’s book, Querer es Poder (Where there’s a will, there’s a way) on Monday, but the story of where he’ll be racing in 2010 is yet to be finished.

At a book signing in Madrid at a school he studied in as a child, Contador said nothing is finalized for 2010.

“I’d like to be able to tell you in what team I will race next year, but nothing is decided and I don’t know where I will go,” Contador said. “There are various teams interested and we are studying the different offers, but we still have to get out of the contract that ties me to Astana, which doesn’t conclude until December 2010.”

Contador’s 3-year agreement with Astana has no buy-out option, but he said he hopes they can amicably come to an agreement to let him out of the contract.  He may not have to worry about it too much, though, as UCI’s president Pat McQuaid that Astana needs to meet certain financial and legal requirements quickly, they risk losing their ProTour license.  That would free Contador to look elsewhere, and likely crush the hopes and dreams of Alexander Vinokourov’s comeback attempt.

McQuaid has said that he’s met with Kazakh officials and that they claim a prominent business person is willing to step in and guarantee the financial obligations.  If so, and the UCI goes along with it, Contador would be legally bound to ride on the team.  Astana doesn’t seem to keen on letting the Tour de France winner go since Armstrong already quit to form Team Radio Shack with Johan Bruyneel.

INTERBIKE 2009 – You may recall Manitou’s MRD skunkworks development program launched years ago  to develop race-level products and upgrades.  Well, Hayes Bicycle Group (Manitou, Sun-Ringle, Answer and Hayes are all owned by Hayes Bicycle Group) is carrying the “Racing Development” program over to their other brands, too, and the first to get the super-elite treatment is Sun-Ringle.

Their new top of the line wheels get the SRD (Sun-Ringle Racing Development) treatment in the guise of carbon fiber rims and new hubs for the SRD Carbon Wheels.  In addition to this, they’ve completely redesigned their Black Flag and Charger wheelsets (both 26″ and 29er for each) with better rims and hubs and flashy new looks.

** UPDATED 10/1/09 – Weights for all Black Flag and Charger Models added to post **

Hit ‘more’ to see them all with specs and pricing…

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INTERBIKE 2009 – Here’s another pics only post, but there are closeup shots of the spec sheets, too.  SE Bikes (which is owned by Fuji along with Breezer Bikes) had some cool Urban, Jump and Fixed Gear bikes on display.

Hit ‘more’ to see them all with accompanying pricing and spec sheets…

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INTERBIKE 2009 – There are so many booths at Interbike that between Daniel and I wandering the floor (and me jumping from appointment to appointment), we only saw about 20% of what we wanted to see…there’s just sooo much cool stuff there.  So, for some booths, I just snapped a few shots and don’t have any real information to share.  Cinelli’s shared booth is one such example.

Shown above are the line of fixed gear bikes Cinelli had on display along with bikes from identiti and Charge.  Hit ‘more’ to see them all…

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