The famous Crested Butte  Fat Tyre Bike Week is celebrating it’s 30th birthday this June and, in addition to the usual party, this year’s festival celebrates the evolution of our sport over those 30 years.

The festival will kick off with “Better Ride” mountain bike camps from Gene Hamilton, giving people the opportunity to touch up their riding skills ready for the various races and guided rides that will take place over the week. There are photography workshops, a “Rippin’ Chix Clinic” with Alison Gannett and all the usual food, beer, music and technology expos. As usual, the famous, and hotly contested, “Chainless Bike Race” promises to be one of the highlights of the festival.

You can see the full details on the FTBW website or keep up to date with developments on their facebok page.

What's left of the bag I brought home from Sea Otter. The delicious beans within are long gone.

SEA OTTER CLASSIC 2010 – I met Evan from 53×11 Coffee at Sea Otter where he enlightened me on some of the coffee trade practices of the big companies. Without pointing fingers or naming names, I’m all the more convinced that small batch roasters like 53×11, Kinetic Koffee and the myriad others that have intertwined their love of the bean with love of the bike are the way to go when you need a fix.

Evan also hooked me up with a bag of their new Brazil Ipanema Dulce roast to try out, which benefits Bike MS. Here’s how they describe it:

Brazil Ipanema Dulce is a rain forest alliance certified coffee. Your purchase benefits the National MS Society through their Bike MS program. We are giving $3 from every bag purchased to the National MS Society. A wonderful natural bourbon with tastes of CHOCOLATE, HONEY, DRIED CHERRY, CITRUS AND ORANGE. Medium roasted for tons of flavor.

I can’t say that I tasted all of those fruity notes, but I can say that it had a slightly sweet flavor and was exceptionally smooth…no bitterness or harsh roast aftertaste, and pretty darn close to what I imagine the ideal cup of coffee should be.

As part of their open house, pre-BURN 24 Hour celebration, Wilkesboro’s new Brushy Mountain Bicycles is hosting Topeak-Ergon riders Eddie and Namrita O’Dea for a little 24-hour/endurance racing Q&A session.  Following that, SRAM’s local rep will host a short 2×10 clinic.  And throughout, light snacks and cheap beer have been promised..and we encourage anyone else who’s racing in the Male Team Open to drink heavily.

Full info here or on Facebook if that’s what you prefer. Or, you can just click on the image to enlarge for more details.

The Hive, who makes cranksets, hubs, brakes and various other bits, has announced a merger with chain retention manufacturer e*thirteen.

The new company has hinted at more new products in the near future.  But today they’ve announced an all-new downhill mountain bike crankset packed with some industry-first features that should improve the DH and Freeride experience.

e*thirteen will replace The Hive’s previous Fifteen.G moniker, and as such their first product is called the e*Thirteen DH Crankset by The Hive.  It’s a forged, machined alloy crankset with heat-treated cromoly spindle and The Hive’s polygon interface.  Full tech specs are listed after the break, but a quick discussion with Chris Costello at The Hive reveals that the big news on these is:

• 7050 crankarms, much stronger (~40%) than 6000-series cranks made by others.
• 30mm spindle versus standard 24mm bearings, uses a new BB that has outboard 30mm ID bearings that fit in a standard BB shell.
• Polygon interface has 100% surface contact area, borrowed from German manufacturing standards used on high-torque applications like tank driveshafts…which means you’re never going to knock them loose.
• New chainring design mounts the inner ring (on double-ring setups) directly to the middle ring, easing installation and removal.
• New 24-38 Shift ringset option available.

More pics, pricing and full specs after the break!

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One of the kind folks from SBS (Seattle Bike Supply) sent over some photos of a bike we missed at Sea Otter, the 2011 Redline Conquest and Conquest Pro cyclocross bikes.

Maybe it’s the fact that the U.S. will be getting its first-ever world championship event…well, mainstream world championships anyway, we’ve had the SSCXWC events…but it seems more and more ‘cross stuff is coming out and product announcements and introductions are being littered throughout the year.

Above is the Conquest Pro.  Full specs (as provided, copied and pasted from SBS), pricing and photos of its little bro are behind the jump…

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“shop 1920′s” by collectvelo.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

For everyone who has been waiting impatiently, wait no more because the second episode of the Atherton project is here! In this episode we follow Rach and Gee to Gauvia for the first round of The Maxxis Cup. It’s the first race of the season and Rach’s first race for a year so it’s time to see if all that training has paid off. We also see Dan heading to the UCI BMX Supercross and there’s some fantastic footage from that race, showing a very nervous Dan Atherton!

As many people will have heard, Fabien Barel, downhill legend, has broken his femur in a high speed training accident in the south of France. This has put a premature end to his World Cup campaign for 2010 and is a huge blow, especially given that he was entering this season looking to be on fantastic form. Fabien also broke his wrist in the accident and suffered a severe concussion, leaving him unconscious for quarter of an hour.
Fabien’s account of the accident and the aftermath is a truly inspiring insight into how mentally tough you have to be to race at this level. Read the full account after the break. (more…)

Coincidentally, we had just sent Chris at Niner Bikes a short interview regarding many of these same things, which we’ll post as soon as he gets back to us.  In the meantime, here’s their official press release regarding the production schedule and availability of the Carbon Air 9 and Jet 9 mountain bikes.

PRESS RELEASE: We know that you have been waiting for information regarding the items listed below. We have received conflicting information over the last few months and had to wait till we had something real and solid we could report on. We apologize for the delay, but we did not have accurate information to share until now.

Carbon Delivery Schedule:
Before we go over the delivery schedule we have to take time out to “pull the curtain back” on how most carbon frames are produced:

Very few bicycle companies own their own carbon manufacturing facility. The majority, like us, contract with carbon fiber manufactures that specialize in making carbon frames. Though we do share a facility with other manufacturers, our designs and carbon layups are proprietary as are the other choices we make during our oversight of the manufacturing process.

Our Air 9 Carbon frames and carbon forks are produced in a facility that makes high end carbon fiber products for several other well known bicycle companies. We selected this facility for Niner?s carbon production because we can be confident in the quality and accuracy when manufacturing Niner?s proprietary designs.

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Following Floyd Landis’ accusation that Lance Armstrong bribed the UCI to cover up a positive test for EPO during the 2001 Tour de Suisse, today UCI president Pat McQuaid publicly denied the allegations.  He added that no riders from that event tested positive for EPO.

The “bribe” in question refers to a $100,000 donation pledged to the UCI by Armstrong in 2002, though the money was not received until 2005.  The UCI used the funds to purchase a Sysmex blood testing machine, which is still in use today.

“Lance and Johan (Bruyneel) were visiting the UCI headquarters in 2002 just after it opened. They got a guided tour of what we’re doing there, so in that context, Lance offered $100,000 to help in the aid and development of cycling. The UCI decided to use that money to buy a Sysmex machine, which we purchased some time afterward,” McQuaid said. “I don’t believe there is a conflict of interest. The machine is still in use today and we test riders before the grand tours. If there is money left over, it is still in the UCI account.”

Even if the money were a bribe, McQuaid said it would be impossible to cover up a positive test because anti-doping tests are carried out by multiple independent laboratories in Switzerland and France, and that positive results are shared immediately and simultaneously with UCI officials, French and Swiss cycling federations and the IOC, followed by WADA.

VeloNews has some other great quotes from the press conference, and the official press release is after the break…

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The new Shimano XT Dynasys 10-speed group just showed up at our office, and we’ve pulled it out and weighed it all!

Introduced officially at Sea Otter last month, the new 3×10 Dynasys drivetrains will be available on XT and SLX later this year, with press getting some early sets to play with…and this particular set is going to be raced for 24 hour this weekend.  We’ve got posts with full specs and on the bike photos already (links at bottom of post), and now we’ve got up close component photos and actual, hands-on weights.

Dive on in…

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A couple things targeted at bike shop owners and employees have come through our email boxes lately, so if you’re in the LBS biz, here are a few points of interest:

1. Lifeboat’s DealerCamp is establishing an industry advisory committee to help improve and guide future events.  DealerCamp is a an outdoor demo and expo for retailers and suppliers that provides a less-crowded (ie. more intimate, better face time) environment than the mega tradeshows.  Now, they’re looking for select folks to provide input on how to make the event better.

2. Focus Bicycles has partnered with 3point5.com and ProMotive.com to provide online training for Focus dealers, and employees can learn to earn discounts and goods.

Full press releases and links for both of these after the break…

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