We spotted a prototype of this at Sea Otter, and now Race Face has finalized the design and gone into production with the Single, a single chainring for fixies and singlespeed bikes, both road and mountain.

It’ll come in 32, 34 and 36 tooth sizes with blue, black, red and gold color options. The 36T size weighs in at just 38g, but, thanks to it’s extra width, remains stiff. The Single is machined from a 4mm plate, versus 3mm for most rings, which lets them have a slightly wider outer area that leaves a lip on both sides of the teeth. U.S. retail is TBD, but it should be available by August.

Check more pics after the break…

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Scott’s new 899, so named for the frame weight (median-ish weight, anyway), and it replaces the Scale for 2011. There’s a 29er version, too, which we’ll be riding this weekend at the Scott press camp.

Full post coming soon, but check after the break for a couple detail photos…

Transworld BMX has just posted a video it shot with Nuno Oliveira which details an innovative seatpost that Odyssey has been working on for some time now. The video explains the concept, as well as stating it’ll cost around $35 when it hits retail later this year. Give it a watch!

Proper products are designed in the UK by IMG Distribution

Full Factory Distribution has announced the first shipment of Proper Bike Co. product has landed with them. Designed in the UK by IMG Distribution staff, the Proper brand manfactures frames, as well as numerous components. Check out a slightly ‘different’ video of Proper team rider Gav Shortall being ordered around by a young ‘un after the break…

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Blue Cycles has made a nod to mountain bike advocacy with a new partnership with the Southern Off Road Bicycle Association (SORBA), donating $100 from every Blue mountain bike sale to SORBA’s efforts.

Press Release:

Blue Competition Cycles National Sales Manager, Chance Regina “Here at Blue, we all ride, both on the road and off-road. We know that without the help of groups like SORBA, we wouldn’t have the kind of quality trail riding that we have in the southeast, so our support of their efforts really was an easy decision to make.” Blue has committed to donating $100 from the sale of every MTB to SORBA-IMBA to help build and maintain trails all across the country. Tom Sauret, Executive Director of SORBA and Regional Director of IMBA says “The partnership with Blue is a great example of the bike industry working with IMBA and SORBA to help grow mountain biking and bike culture. We are grateful for this important support, and are looking forward to great future together.”

We seem to be on a vintage kick today here at BikeRumor, as we have now confirmed that the storied Cinelli Laser track bike, made popular during its run as one of the coolest bikes of the ’80′s, is returning to production. According to a press release from Cinelli;

‘Today thanks to the rebirth of steel and people like yourselves, a dream is about to be realised: the Cinelli Laser will return. Not just as a museum display, but as a track machine; rigid and lively, more so even than its predecessor 20 years ago. All the original protagonists are ready and motivated; Andrea Pesenti who built 300 throughout the 1980’s, myself Antonio Colombo who thought them up, Paolo Erzegovesi who engineered them, and Emilvano Montorio who pulled out the tubes. New in the band will be Alessandra Cusatelli, my partner, and Cinelli design co-ordinator of the last 10 years. As always, it will only be available in limited editions. The kids are alright!”

No word on pricing or availability quite yet, but it will probably be similar to the limited run of the originals, in which they only produced 300 frames by hand. Stay tuned to BikeRumor for updates from Cinelli.

Thanks to Bill for the tip!

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If you have ever tried to identify an old frame or rebuild a vintage bike to spec, you know how valuable an original catalog can be. Now, one website is out to create a PDF database of every bicycle catalog it can get its hands on, and is now the largest database online. With over 1000 catalogs in PDF form, Birota.Ru is finding, scanning, and hosting as many catalogs as they can find. The files are sorted by company name and year, and available for download as ZIP files, which expand into either JPG or PDF format.

We found this cool Colnago cover from 1988, just one of many very cool vintage catalogs in the database. The entire database is hosted here, but they ask that you only take what you need and don’t try to download the entire collection just for fun.We poked around for a bit and put a couple of our favorite vintage  finds after the break.

Special thanks to Daniil Kuznetsov for running the database and pointing this out!

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QUASI-PRESS RELEASE: With the much anticipated Tour de France rapidly approaching, Versus.com, the official US online and interactive home of the Tour de France, has made their web offerings a little more feature rich. With the new Tour Tracker and Map My Ride/Tour Challenge features, you can race along with Lance in your own home town, and watch every exciting moment live from your computer and mobile device.

The Tour Tracker lets you ride alongside the action every kilometer of the way with brand new features:

Watch live streaming video of the tour in high definition from any online or mobile device anytime, from anywhere in the world for only $29.95.  Pause, rewind, and fast forward to guarantee you don’t miss any epic moments  Follow every stride of the race with real-time GPS tracking, minute-to-minute updates on overall standings and rider positions Customize and personalize your viewing by setting alerts for your favorite players and using the new timeline feature to jump instantly to key moments in the race.

Versus will also have a Tour de France mobile application on the iPhone so you can watch live video, expert analysis and up-to-date statistics while on the go.

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Telegraph-Road is a newly established brand from London that makes performance cycling wear. The company claims to fill the space between ‘the team’ and ‘the technical’ and, while I’m not sure exactly what that means, after riding one of their new jerseys for several hundred miles through the nascent British ‘summer’, I’m impressed.

First up, the fit: it’s a perfect, and predictable, fit, running true to size, with good shoulder room and enough taper to the waist for an athletic feel without getting too tight. Many manufacturers seem to forget that they’re designing clothes for cyclists – ie, skinnier-than your-average chaps – but this is just right. Comfortable and streamlined on the bike, not like a sausage skin off it.

Secondly, it has some high-end features, without a high-end price. The silicone gripper to stop the rear hem riding up is effective and classy and the bite panel (to help with zip-manouevring on the go) is as you’d expect.

The jersey material is soft and not too artificial, but sweat-wicking and quick-drying. I cycled through sun and heavy showers, and it kept me comfortable in both. Back pockets are well thought out and secure, but not huge, so don’t expect to pack a ton of stuff in them. The middle pocket is divided in two, to securely hold a pump; I managed to squeeze tyre levers in, too, an inner tube into the other. There’s also a small zipped compartment for valuables.

Looks-wise, the jerseys keep it simple, in the manner of other classically styled road brands, and have a nice branded patch on the sleeve. They’re predominantly white, to reflect the sun, and any design is pleasingly minimal.

I bought the Fireflies Tour shirt, which has been released in limited numbers to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the charity ride over the Alps from Geneva to Cannes because: a) as a Firefly myself, it’s got my name on (with all the other people ever to ride – I’m just under the left armpit) and b) because Telegraph-Road is donating £20 of the £45 price to Leuka, the charity supported by the Fireflies that pays for research into leukaemia. (Check out videos of the Fireflies Ride, including an awesome blizzard last week, here)

But, after riding with it for a couple of weekends it’s become a firm favourite, and I’ll definitely be buying another one from their range as soon as I can justify it to my bank balance!

There are several London stockists, or you can buy direct from the website.

Click ‘more’ for a few more pictures.

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“Hauling a 32 foot ladder by bike” by Mark Stosberg. Click on the first link to read more about this haul by bike. Check out his blog: Bikes as Transportation, or click here to read Mark’s other blog, which is all about technology, but peppered with his nice cycling photos.

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

Photo: Joe Shlabotnik - http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/350582000/

I really enjoyed this during the Giro, so a heads up to y’all for the Velogames fantasy Tour de France, which will be opening for entries soon.

The concept is simple, and like a lot of other ‘fantasy’ sports. You take the position of DS at this year’s Tour de France, and are allocated a certain number of points to spend on riders. You must spend these points wisely to build a balanced team (a mix of sprinters, all-rounders, climbers and doméstiques) that you think will perform well over the 2010 Tour.

Reigning champ Contador, obviously, will cost many more points than Katusha’s Evgeni Petrov, so sacrifices and compromises to fit in the riders you want. Then, each day, the riders are allocated points on a range of measures, ranging from their stage finish position and GC ranking to stage assists and aggressivity, and each fantasy team ranked in a central table.

The fun really starts, however, by inviting all your mates into a mini-league, to add an element of personal competition: wagers, prizes… who knows?

Think you can better Bruyneel? Have a go!

Expect an update when the Tour de France 2010 game goes live.

Spotted at the intro dinner for PressCamp attendees was this bright orange Scott commuter bicycle. I talked to Scott’s rep, Adrian, for a sec and he said they’ll have their new TT bike and some other fresh stuff on display.