When reviewing Lezyne’s Superdrive earlier this year, I mentioned that the coming helmet mount would improve the focused beam’s off-road utility.  Since then, Lezyne’s $20 LED Helmet Mount has become available- and a sample made its way to our door.  Built of Lezyne’s trademark polished aluminum and Composite Matrix (plastic), the Helmet Mount is compatible with all of Lezyne’s rechargeable LED headlights. Click through for more images and and in-use impressions…

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This picture was uploaded by the folks at Art’s Cyclery. According to them:

“We have just tripped across photos of the new 2013 Specialized Demo 8 Carbon published in the latest issue of Mountain Bike Action. It appears that this was published before Specialized intended, as there has been no official press release. Because we receive the issues before they appear on the newstand, we found that we have a bit of a scoop to pass along to our readers. Enjoy!”

The ad reads:

“The Demo 8 is born from desire – our desire to design and engineer the fastest dh bike in the world. Two years in the making and race-proven by Sam Hill and Troy Brosnan, the S-Works Demo 8 is the first carbon DH bike to win a world championship, with 200 mm of travel and a super-tough fact carbon frame. Getting sick never felt so good. Specialized.com”

FYI: The first world cup to be won on a carbon downhill bike was in Rotoura in 2006. Cam Cole won the Jr Worlds on a full carbon gearbox equipped Lahar M9. Edit: Good thing commentor SlackBoy’s memory goes back even further than mine. Nico Voiulloz won the 1997 DH World Champs on a carbon 6″ travel Sun Chipie.

We’ll let you know more details as we learn them. For know all we know is that it appears that only the front triangle will be carbon and the bike may appear in Specialized 2013 line up.

FROM TREK: This Thursday, May 24, from 12-8pm PDT, trekbikes.com will be taken over by the incredible athletes of Trek’s C3 Project as we premiere Anthill Films’ latest mind-blowing movie, “Strength in Numbers.” Backflip around the globe with Brandon Semenuk, Cam McCaul, Renee Wildhaber, Ryan Howard and Andrew Shandro as they shred the planet from Nepal to California.

Click here for more info.

Last week we showed you the Commencal Meta AM 29′er. The other new bike this year on Commencal’s Meta platform is the Meta SL trail bike which, with 120mm of rear wheel travel, offers the shortest travel of the Meta range. The Meta SL uses the same suspension design as the rest of the Meta range, a single pivot, 4 bar linkage with a floating shock, designed to reduce the forces acting on the main frame and keep the center of gravity low. This test bike didn’t have a guard on the shock but Commencal told us that the production bikes would have a neoprene guard to protect the shock. Read of more more details, pictures and a ride report. (more…)

One year ago Chris Akrigg broke his leg on a failed stunt. He’s been working hard towards making a  full recovery in the interim, and this edit shows how far he’s come.

One forum-hunting reader (thanks Erik!) sent over this image of an apparently updated Santa Cruz Nomad with a new 142×12 rear thru axle. Word is it’ll also get the revised grease port angles on the lower pivot to move them out of harms way, like on the current Tallboy LT and such.

Looks like they’re sticking with the IS mount rear brake tabs rather than post mount, something SC has made clear they like because of the simplicity in replacing an adapter versus ripping out threads.

UPDATE: Yep, it’s official, and the new frames are shipping now. It’s a rolling change made largely to satisfy consumer demand. Santa Cruz marketing man Mike Ferrentino told us it’s not so much a performance enhancement as it is something people wanted and, given the prevalence of wheels with that axle standard now available, there seemed no harm in giving the people what they wanted. But wait, there’s more…

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Extralite has just released their new Ultrapost, a 3D CNC machined alloy post that comes in as light as 99g for the 31.6 x 250mm. There’s also a 300mm length at 138g, both of which rival (or best in many cases) carbon fiber posts in weight.

The clamping mechanism is heavily machined to reduce material while still providing decent clamping area…just not much of a platform for the bottom of the saddle rails. The dual bolt design makes tilt adjustments super easy, a design shared by posts from Thomson and others and our preference.

The post surface is ceramic bead blasted then anodized black with laser etched graphics. Inside, the tube is “multishaped” through CNCing to reduce weight where they can. Clamp and post are 7075 alloy, bolts are titanium. More pics after the break…

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Since production of the Mobs at the S&M factory ceased, Black Market Bikes has not been able to find an alternate American frame manufacturer until recently. After a long quest, Carter Holland, owner of Black Market Bikes,finally found a US frame builder who could consistently build straight and true frames at a reasonable cost. While frames overseas can be be built in days and done correctly the first time, Carter complained that all of the American sourced builders wanted $400+ to weld a frame and they often produced bikes which had incorrect angles or where misaligned – and sometimes refused to return phone calls for months.

After all these trials and tribulations Carter finally found a worthy American manufacturer and is proud to introduce his latest creation – The Edit 1. At 4.9lbs/ 2.2kgs. it’s the lightest BlkMrkt to date…

We caught up with Carter a few weeks back at the Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival and had the opportunity to ride his personal pre-production  build.  (more…)

See all of our Project 24.2 reviews here!

If you could only have one wheelset, what would it look like?  Every rider is different, but for me, it would sport sturdy rims wide enough to handle true 2.3in tires, have a proven freehub, be compatible with several hub standards, freakishly light, and not too expensive.  Something that would be up to day-to-day aggressive trail use, big weekends with the boys in Sedona or Moab, and maybe light enough for the odd 24-hour race.  It would be tubeless and require as little maintenance as possible.  That’s a lot to ask of a wheelset- but when it arrived last September, Roval’s Control Trail SL wheelset looked last fall to be every one of those things.  Eight months later, has it lived up to its early promise?  Hit the jump to find out…

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As we learned at Sea Otter, Magura has revised their naming scheme for the suspension to match up with the brakes. Forks are no longer Thor, Durin, etc. They’re now TS (Team Suspension) with TS6 and TS8 levels. They also introduced their first 29er fork, which is an entirely new casting, and a 650B compatible series. Both use their dual arch design and are only available with the thru axle and post mounts for a minimum 180mm rotor. You can use a larger 203mm rotor, too, with an adapter.

Bounce past the break for more info…

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Know someone suffering from Single Track Deficit Disorder (STDD)? Nominate your friend and both of you could win a trip to Sun Valley, Idaho, July 1st-8th – coinciding with the 2012 USA Cycling National Mountain Bike Championships! Read all the info and enter here.

Details are pretty much nonexistent for this one, but Pinarello’s South African distributor, ASG Sports, has teased a foray into modern mountain bikes for the Italian brand.

Apparently dubbed the Pinarello Dogma XC 29er, we’re guessing it takes their asymmetric frame design and applies it to a carbon fiber hardtail race bike. The image above is found on ASG Sports’ Facebook page. Click the image to enlarge and you’ll see it’s coming September 2012. More as we get it.