Photo submitted by Matt Meyer, “Back from college Christmas Eve ride with a buddy, Grand Haven,
MI, still snowless…”
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In a letter to Specialized dealers on Tuesday, company founder Mike Sinyard warned independent bicycle retailers to be wary of Amazon.com’s new Price Check app.
The complete letter is copied here after the break. Bicycle Retailer & Industry News (BRAIN) has posted two excellent articles (part one and part two) of why it matters and how and why it affects both dealers that sell through Amazon and those that don’t.
Plenty of shops supplement their income selling parts on eBay and Amazon, but, as BRAIN suggests, it’s the ones that are selling online without the authorization of the brands that typically slash the prices to a point where they’re hurting the market. Two of brands called out in Sinyard’s letter, Sidi and Louis Garneau, told BRAIN they require online resellers to maintain MSRP on current model year products but that older inventory may be discounted.
For as long as we’ve been cyclists, prior model year goods have a long history of being closed out at discount, often sold in large lots to blowout mail order companies like Jenson USA. What’s becoming an issue is the ease with which consumers can now price check and order via smartphones directly from the brick and mortar bike shops.
You really must put this race on your bucket list…
Video by In The Crosshairs.
Following the high flange hubs and other parts we posted this fall, Victoire Cycles has just debuted their LOW, a lightweight, low flange version.
Based on singlespeed track hubs, the LOW uses a 15mm axle and spins on the same bearings as their originals. To save weight, they’ve pared down the hub body and given them very low spoke flanges.
The changes come with no expected loss of strength or durability as suggested by this bit of the press release: “They are also strong as hell with a full 7075-T6 construction, 15mm axles, 6902 2RS bearings and Ti bolts.”
Pre-orders are now being taken, the initial run will be “very limited.”
While the original post showed some very pretty cogs of their design, this one here looks an awful lot like the “teeth” for a Gates Belt Drive.
Note: When playing, bump videos’ resolution up to 720p for a better feel for the ContourROAM’s picture quality…
As much as I am amazed by and enjoy new electronics, I’m not usually one to incorporate them into my rides. Still, there have been dozens of times over the past few years when I’ve ridden a particularly perfect stretch of trail and wanted to have the ability to share it with friends and family. That’s why, when Contour asked if I’d like to review their entry-level (read: simple) ROAM bullet-shaped video camera, I jumped at the chance.
Touted as “the easiest video camera in the world,” the ContourROAM retails for $200, is waterproof to 1m, and can record full 1080p HD video. The camera comes packed in a small plastic carrying case with a couple of adhesive-backed mounts and a micro USB cable. The ROAM will record on MicroSD cards up to 32GB- though those need to be purchased separately. Read on for more videos and more review…
Photo submitted by Stephen Butterworth, “Post Christmas cycle tour.”
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Syncros’ FL product family is their lightweight, XC-oriented group of components. FL stands for “Freakin’ Light” and thus far, we haven’t been disappointed when we’ve thrown FL goodies on the scale. Most recently, I reviewed their FLavor tires and, despite a thick coating of leaves and mud on the trail, can’t bring myself to take them off.
While rolling on their rubber, I’ve also been testing the FL carbon rail mountain bike saddle. It should be known that I’ve broken every other carbon railed saddle I’ve ridden on a mountain bike, usually within the first ride. Just ask Cannondale and Felt.
Fortunately, after about eight months of riding the FL, it’s barely made a scary sounding creak or two, and it shows no sign of wear. Even the nice white microfiber cover is still looking fresh!
Click through for actual weight, specs (updated with dimensions) and more…
…So this doesn’t happen to you mid-ride.
While bike shops and warranty departments hate to hear it, this truly did happen while Just Riding Along (aka JRA). Coming around a corner, I put a mild amount of acceleration into my ride and instantly heard and felt a crunch. The bike came to an immediate stop. Looking down, I assumed the chain had simply fallen off or gotten jammed. It took a second to see what had really happened, and another few seconds to determine why.
Quite simply, one of the chainring bolts had apparently been missing for a while. Normally, having one bolt missing would lead to cyclical chain rub when at the extremes of the cassette with each pedal stroke. Whether it’s a testament to the stiffness of high end rings from SRAM (and, likely, other brands, too) or just weak legs, I don’t know, but I didn’t experience any early warnings until *POW* things went south quickly.
Upon inspection, I did find the second chainring bolt that had popped out and actually caused the small ring to fold under a (honestly) fairly light pedal stroke. When I finally pulled them off, both of the other two bolts were in various states of looseness, too…
To say Keen’s Coronado Cruisers are just for casual bicycle riding would be to greatly understate how I’ve used them.
Keen offers their regular Coronado casual shoe, which looks the same. The Coronado Cruisers fall under their Pedal lineup and add a 3/4 length shank in the sole for better power transfer and a sticky rubber patch in the forefoot of the tread for better grip on the pedal. They make a great riding shoe.
But that’s just the beginning…
Photo submitted by David McKinley, “My 12 year old son purchased his first mountain bike w/ his Christmas money. Picture taken on Dec. 27, 2011.”
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We saw an almost final prototype of Hope Tech’s V-Twin mechanical-to-hydraulic disc brake converter at Eurobike this year, and now the units are through production, on their website and shipping.
All parts are CNC’d from aluminum in their Barnoldswick, England, facility. The V-Twin, named for it’s resemblance to a V8 motor’s angle flanks of pistons, uses a dual piston design that uses standard road brake levers of your choosing and converts their cable pull into piston pushing, caliper squeezing disc brake action.
Where it differentiates from TRP’s Parabox is that the cables run directly through the master cylinder and pull the piston directly rather than moving a lever.
The V-Twin is mated to their one-piece X2 caliper for what Hope Tech claims is a stiff, lightweight system. We’ll update with pricing as soon as we get it.
UPDATE: here’s the word directly from Hope on pricing for us Yanks: “The V-Twin is indeed shipping now. They will retail in the U.S. for $335 and Hope USA have begun shipping to dealers already. They will also be available to dealers through QBP.”
When buying a bike or upgrading to a high end crankset, many of us are stuck with the decision between standard and compact. And it can be a tough decision, locking you into smaller or bigger gears that may be right for one situation but not others.
FSA feels your pain..
First, a quick primer. Standard cranksets use a 130 BCD (bolt circle diameter) to mount the chainrings. Compact uses a 110 BCD. The smaller BCD allows for smaller rings on the compact, and the larger Standard BCD puts the bolts further out to keep the rings stiff under power and shifting. For most brands, a Standard crankset comes stock with a 53/39 ring combo and Compact comes with 50/34 (which is what’s actually shown here).
Assuming you found some with a 110 BCD, you could put Standard tooth count rings on a Compact, but FSA’s Matt VanEnkevort says the rings would start to flex under power, particularly the big ring, and performance and shifting would suffer. Their solution? A 52/38 chainring combo for 110 BCD Compact cranksets, which he says gets it close enough to Standard for most riders without degrading shifting performance.
