Yesterday, we showed you Felt’s F and AR Series road bikes, and today we’ll be continuing with the full Z and ZW Series road bikes. Borrowing much manufacturing technology from their pure-bred racing F-Series siblings, the Z offer a taller headtube, for a less aggressive riding position. At only a superlight tube’s weight away from 15 pounds, the Z2 pictured above comes with Shimano Di2 and RS80 wheels for $6,499 (for those keeping track, the Di2 kit alone costs close to $3,000). Check out the rest of the Z bikes, plus the women’s specific ZW bikes, after the jump. For all the mountain bikers, we’ll have their full MTB line tomorrow!

(more…)

This gorgeous picture was sent in by Zac Plavsic who writes, “New Zealand, French, Dutch, Canadian, and Spanish Windsurfers training for London 2012 Olympics. We all love mountain biking for cross training. We are exploring Denmark for some single track. Snapped a couple nice picks the other night and though you guys might like.” Thanks Zac, we like! Check out his blog here. Click ‘more’ to see the other pics he sent in.

(more…)

Nice idea this.  New site www.bikeshd.co.uk is a handy way to see second-hand bikes on sale. It aggregates bike sales from Gumtree and other sites, and displays each as an image tiled in a wall on its front page.

It’s easy to see what’s what and also allows you to search by price. However, the site’s founders also see it as a tool for retrieving stolen bikes. Gumtree in particular is notorious as being a shifting ground for hot property so, if your bike has been nicked, Bikeshd.co.uk gives you an easy way to scan all the used bikes currently on sale, to see if yours is there.

Day one at the Breck Epic was a brutal ride up ridiculous climbs and bumpy descents. There’s no pleasant way to put it, and I was one hurt puppy after it was over. With a finishing time of 5h15m, it put me firmly in last place among the Bikerumor Media Cup contenders. Dickie and Peter had about 45 minutes on me and the others, well, they’re in a league of their own.

There were a few redeeming sections of singletrack, and some great sites like the old mining shack above (remnants of these are littered through the forest everywhere…I saw one today that was a simple A-frame with an old toilet in it).

More pics and visuals after the break…

(more…)

Kestrel sent us a few photos of their new-for-2011 RT1000 road bike, which will be offered in three trim levels: Dura-Ace, Ultegra and 105.

The RT1000 frameset uses their 800K Carbon, a proprietary new blend of High-Modulus carbon fibers to provide “the lightest, best riding frame possible while maximizing the handling response.”

Kestrel’s Steven Harad says “It allows us to custom tune the ride quality of the frame to be ultra stiff in the head tube, and bottom bracket area while allowing us to keep the ride quality extremely comfortable. Like our other Kestrel frames, we use a modular monocoque design that follows our Frameset Component Integration. This means the fork, seat post and rear stays are designed specific per size to ensure that each one of our sizes rides exactly like the other size. It’s important that the 62cm rides as well as our 48cm in ride quality. Our rear stays and fork are designed to absorb maximum road shock to keep the rider from feeling fatigued on a long ride and our sloping top tube and larger head tube provide the perfect combination for a more comfortable ride.”

The RT1000 Dura-Ace model is shown above, check out the Ultegra model after the break…

(more…)

Available in two weeks, the Golden Gate color (above) and Slate color (after the break) join the black color already available for $65 on LUNA Sport Gear’s website. Made of super soft 100% Merino Wool from New Zealand, these handsome tops can be worn as an under-layer or by themselves. Cute Japanese wood block print on the side dresses them up.

(more…)

Janeen McRae is riding the TransAmerica Trail, some 4,262 miles, to raise money for her Livestrong team, Team Fatty. A lot of people are trying to raise money for Cancer through cycling, what makes her journey unique is that her bike will be the one tweeting along her journey. Developed by the crew at Breakfast, “the advertising company of the future”, sensors on her bike will record various statistics such as speed, pedal rotation, grade, even temperature and humidity and send the information to the company’s computer servers–based on the stats, a prewritten tweet is sent out. McRae can also send out spontaneous tweets via a connection on her handlebar. Check out the whole story on Tonic.

This past weekend the Tahoe area Team LUNA Chix hosted a women’s mountain biking clinic with former World Champion mountain biker Marla Streb. All proceeds from the cost of the clinic went to the Breast Cancer Fund, a charity supported by LUNA bar and all of the LUNA Chix teams. Click ‘more’ for more info and the press release.

(more…)

What on earth would possess a small design group to jump into the crowded crankset market? I had to wonder when news of The Hive Collective’s Fifteen.G (now e*thirteen) crankset began popping up last spring. Unlike mountain biking’s salad days of the mid 1990s, the overwhelming number of mountain bike cranks now come from a handful of players- the ones with the resources and experience needed do develop and tool up for a fairly unforgiving component. With certain notable exceptions, it’s become pretty difficult to find a bad set, and for all of the talk of double cranksets’ magical front shifting, most triples’ performance has become almost boringly excellent.  Still, it turns out that the guys over at the Hive had some pretty cool ideas- hit ‘more‘ to see if those ideas were cool enough to justify jumping into the fray.

(more…)

More pics after the break!

(more…)

Last month, we showed you an overview of Felt’s 2011 lines, focusing on the new additions and big changes. Felt’s lines really shine all the way thru, and you find some impressively spec’ed bikes at a great value, which benefit from all that technology you see in the models above them. Over the next couple of days, we’ll be showing you the detailed lines, complete with photos, specs and MSRPs. Check out the F and AR Series bikes after the jump, and stay tuned all week for details on the other lines.

The sub-14 pound F1, shown above, is the flagship race bike being ridden by Garmin Transitions. Spec’ed with full Shimano Di2 with Mavic Cosmic Carbone Ultimate wheels, it retails for $12,499. A Team version will be available with specs from the team’s sponsors, with a TBA price.

(more…)

Photo submitted by Ron Flohr from one of his rides in western Nebraska. Check out what he encountered along the way after the break.

(more…)