Does your bike make you drop groceries? Then you need the Flipphandle, which allows you to turn the bars 90 degrees for storage, at the push of a button.

Kona had a pretty little display with final and pre-production versions of all the new bikes we’ve been showing you so far (specs, etc., in that post), including the King Kahuna carbon and Satori 29ers, Entourage freeride bike, Supreme Operator DH and Jake the Snake carbon cyclocross bike. They also had a slick new housebrand stem that PR guy Smiley was pretty proud of.

Above, the King Kahuna carbon fiber 29er hardtail comes in at 25lbs 4oz. Not the lightest we’ve seen, but look at the spec: SRAM X9 and housebrand cockpit, and it has pedals on it. This cost cutting measure it carried over most of their bikes, which means virtually all of them can be contenders on the scale if you’ve got the aftermarket budget, but they’re within a pretty good weight range out of the box.

Make the jump for detail pics and weights on all of them…

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This morning, a group of Los Angeles area firefighters left Hollywood on a six week, 3,300 mile journey that ends in New York City for the ten year anniversary of 9/11. The Ride For 9/11 benefits The Leary Firefighters Foundation and Wounded Warrior Project, and you can follow their trip plus donate at their website.

I was lucky enough to be at the event this morning, as I know two of the riders involved (Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so all I have is the camera phone shot above…) I can say that it was extraordinarily moving to here them explain why this was so important to them. They are showing incredible courage, and watching them roll out with a full police and fire escort, plus the motorcycle group The Fire Hogs was an amazing experience and made me proud.

Godspeed, gentlemen.

SR Suntour’s Crankworx booth had plenty of forks laid out, but it was this full carbon lower XC fork that stood out.

The Axon RC is a new model with full carbon fiber lowers and options for an alloy (shown) or carbon crown/steerer. It’ll be available this fall, and a 29er version is in the works. As expected, it’s an air fork with fully sealed cartridge internals, so there’s no oil or chemicals in contact with the carbon fiber legs. It has external compression, rebound and lockout controls and their slick 15mm thru-axle, which is detailed after the break along with the rest of the fork…

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• Headed to DealerCamp this week? Greg Lemond would like to ride with you and chat up his sweet Revolution Trainer. Line up a bike to test, he’ll be rolling out at 10am on Tuesday and Thursday.
• Interbike will be offering free ice cream, coffee and beer at the Outdoor Demo this year.
• Once you’ve recovered from the desert heat, there’s the annual cyclocross party that is CrossVegas. Registration opens August 2nd. All fields are limited to 100 racers. Get signed up on crossvegas.com for the Wheelers & Dealers race or jump into one of the following:
• Feedback Sports will present the new Mechanics challenge to the Wheelers & Dealers race, getting the wrenches out from the pits and onto the bikes. “We needed to share some love with the guys who keep the wheels turning and make the service departments profitable for retailers,” said Brook Watts, CrossVegas organizer.
• Raleigh USA will also be presenting the second annual singlespeed Cyclocross race there.

Thanks to Jerm for the tip!

KCNC just released their new Arrow road stem for roadies wanting something simple, strong, straight, and stiff. It’s also fairly light at 128g for the 110mm. There’s also a 120 and 130, with os 31.8 clamp only, and the 17º angle should position it straight as an arrow on most bikes. Machined into a chamfered square cross section from 7075 alloy. Available in a highly polished black (above) or white finish (shown after the break…). MSRP is £58.99, available in black and white.

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Marzocchi has just announced an all new lightweight carbon-crowned 29er fork, the 2012 Corsa Superleggera 29″.

The Italian fork maker says this model was built from the ground-up specifically for 29″ wheels and offers ample clearance for wider tires, lightweight and an 80/100/120mm internally adjustable travel, which should cover the range of  XC 29er bikes. It’ll be available with both alloy crown/steerer and the full carbon crown/steerer shown above. Top model weighs in at just 1650g or 3.64lbs. That’s 68 grams heavier than the new carbon-crowned SID 29er with 15mm thru-axle, but you gain 20mm of available travel.

Click ‘more’ for additional pics and spec’s…

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As you may recall, some of Dahon’s executives recently left the company to start a high-end folding bike company, Tern.

Press Release: Lawsuit charges Joshua Hon and Florence Hon for breaching their fiduciary duties as officers of Dahon and unlawfully using company assets, resources and intellectual property to start a competing company

Duarte, California, July 21, 2011 – Dahon North America Inc. 12Dahon34, the world leader in folding bicycles, today announced it has filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against two former officers (Joshua Hon and Florence Hon) and their unlawfully competing businesses (Mobility Holdings, Ltd. and Tern Bicycles).

Dahon sued Joshua Hon and Florence Hon for wrongfully seizing control over DahonCs Taiwan subsidiary (Dahon and Hon Industrial Labs, Ltd.) and related Dahon intellectual property, including the Biologic brand and the dahon.com website, and for using those assets and property to unfairly compete with Dahon. In addition, since Joshua Hon and Florence Hon started competing with Dahon while officers and employees of Dahon, they have acted in breach of their fiduciary duties owed to Dahon and to DahonCs shareholders.

(more of the press release after the break)

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If we’re honest with ourselves, and it’s only healthy that we are, it won’t be long before any ‘cross bike over $500 comes standard with disc brakes. I give it four years, tops.

While celebrating their 10 year anniversary, Whyte Bikes’ introduction to cyclocross certainly bears that out. All those prototype test miles must’ve paid off. Whyte’s entering the ‘cross game with three models, all spec’d with rotors and not so much as a mounting point for cantilevers.

Of the three, the Saxon Cross (above) is the racer. It gets the latest standards, including the new BB386EVO bottom bracket standard developed through FSA, BH and Wilier. It has a tapered headtube (1.125″ to 1.5″), slack 69.3º head angle on all four sizes, triple butted 6061 top- and downtubes and hydroformed rear stays. The cables all run full length housing along the top of the top tube, held in place by bolt-on bosses. On the underside of the downtube, they placed bosses to mount a mud catcher, and there are two water bottle mounts in the usual places.

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POC Sports just unveiled the second generation of their VPD (Viscoelastic Polymer Dough) body armor, called VPD 2.0.

VPD, as you may recall, is their highly moldable, flexible, padding that hardens upon impact. The original version could be molded with a single density, using different pieces with different densities to cobble together parts like the back panel where a firmer section covered the spine, with softer sections along the sides.

The new VPD 2.0 let’s them mold it in 3D with multiple densities built throughout a single pad. For example, the new back pad has about 20 different density levels throughout, firmer in the middle. Additionally, the molding process let’s them both shape the material to raise it off the body and add ventilation, as shown above.

Click ‘more’ to see some of the new armor and upcoming improvements to the Trebec…

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A drastic contrast from the various mountain bike releases over the last few weeks, Trek’s latest announcement involves their most popular platform, the FX Fitness hybrid. Not surprisingly, Trek has teamed up wtih Livestrong to produce two special Livestrong Edition FX bikes that will be available through Trek retailers this coming year. More than just a paint job, $50 from the sale of each bike will be donated directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The Livestrong FX bikes are essentially a Trek 7.2 FX with the custom Livestrong paint job. With a normal retail of $549.99 for the 7.2, the Livestrong FX comes in at $609.99. Initially the Livestrong Collection of bikes will only include a men’s and women’s Livestrong FX, but additional models will be introduces later in the year.

Check out the Livestrong FX WSD after the break!

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