We just had a note from the good folks at Hammerhead Bikes (formerly 918XC) telling us that they were giving away a beautiful Niner carbon AIR9 frame and RDO thru-axle carbon fork. Want to “win the greatest 29er Carbon SS/Geared Frameset on the planet?” There are a couple of several ways to earn chances: hit the jump to find out how!
See all of our Project 24.2 posts here!
After a number of years essentially ‘winging it’ when it came to training for 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, it hadn’t really occurred to me to engage a coach. Much like bike fit, if -like me- you’ve been riding and even racing for over 20 years, you just kind of know how to train, right?
A trick question, obviously. When my race partner Alex suggested talking to Tom Jones at JBV Coaching, I was intrigued- and a bit worried. After all, I ride because cycling is fun. And training -actually training- didn’t sound like much fun at all. Our first meeting with Tom put most of my fears to rest- in addition to an impressive resume as a coach, racer, physicist, and mechanic, Tom is also a nice guy. While we won’t give away any of his trade secrets, go beyond the fold to find out what we’ve learned so far…
The Santa Cruz Syndicate racers, mechanics, and engineers recently spent three successful days doing early season testing of their new Fox Shox and Shimano components in San Romolo, Italy. The testing took place on the long downhill racetrack with a five-man Fox crew on hand to gather information for suspension testing using state of the art data acquisition equipment. Their ability to translate each rider’s input into measured improvements in speed and control had Santa Cruz Bikes engineer Joe Graney impressed.
Read on to view more rider impressions and pictures
Just a reminder to pay attention to the details, via Bikeworks Albuquerque:
…In news of the not-awesome, the above photo shows the surprisingly damaging results of a little inattentiveness. What you are looking at is the bottom bracket and lower linkage on a full suspension Felt. The front derailleur cable was accidentally routed through a cutout in the linkage, rather than around it. It looks like this was done when the bike was bought new, about 3 years ago (not from us). As a result, every time the suspension moved, the shift cable acted like a little saw blade and slowly cut a deep groove, almost completely severing that section of the rocker.
Pretty amazing how the seemingly smooth shift cable can cut through the aluminum rocker, without any visible damage to the cable itself…
Fox Head released their new for 2012 mountain and bmx specific catalog today. Included are new helmets, jerseys, bibs, and some awesome pictures. Click past the break to view more.
Frames like this make me feel special because I don’t want to race them. I don’t want to do time trials or sprints. Instead, I just want to ride them. Cyclo Bicycles is a company based in Spain that manufactures classic-looking custom frames, taking a step away from the all-carbon, weight-conscious mentality of bicycling. Cyclo’s mission statement reflects their approach to cycling – they write that they simply want to make the rider smile. In regards to that, everything about these frames are made-to-order so it would be hard to frown. The Asphalt road and the Toxto Mountain Bike hard tail are featured here. Both frames can be bought as complete bikes as well.
The Asphalt can be constructed from various Columbus and Dedacciai tubes, or stainless steel if you’re wallet’s up for it. For stainless, options include KVA, Reynolds, Columbus and Kaisei. Then they’ll paint the frame to personal specifications. Standard colors are listed on their website, but they offer to paint it anywhere on the spectrum. Cyclo also offers a choice of weld construction: TIG, Fillet-Brazed, or Lugged.
More pictures and details after the break…
See all of our Project 24.2 posts here!
For the most part, it’s hard to get too excited about stems. If they do their job well (and most do), they’re essentially unnoticeable. Of course, if they don’t they’re ugly, flexy, or (if they do their job especially poorly) fail catastrophically. That said, when we posted early word of Ritchey’s new C260 line of stems this fall, people got pretty excited.
Owing to its 260 degree clamp and gently curved 3-bolt steerer clamp, Ritchey’s WCS C260 stem tests 3-4x stronger in its aluminum form than any previous Ritchey stem- while being 30% stiffer than the preceding 4Axis design. Throw a unidirectional carbon wrap over the same basic design and weight goes up by ~15g (to an actual 110g in our 90mm size) and stiffness by an additional 16%. Oh, and it’s prettier, too. After a couple of months on my Project 1.1 single speed and Project 24.2 race bike, has the C260 lived up to its light/strong/sexy billing? Hit the jump to find out…
We just posted Absolute Black’s hot new stainless-and-alloy Raven SL Centerlock rotors, claiming to be the lightest in the world using Shimano’s mounting standard, and now we’ve got some video of them in action. It’s from their maker, so objectivity might be thrown out the window, but still very cool. Of note is how quiet they are even when being doused with water and blasting downhill. Yes, we know, a lot of noise can be blamed on frame design and rotor/caliper/mount/frame interaction, but still. Enjoy.
The Rotwild R2 World Cup mountain bike is on the Crankbrothers auction block this week as part of a series of auctions for the Wheels 4 Life charity. Wheels 4 Life has provided over 3,000 bicycles to people in over 20 Third World Countries. Bikerumor covered the Crankbrothers auction two weeks ago for the Tomac Supermatic 120. At the end of the auction, the Tomac had a final bid of $3,050 with an MSRP of $6,300. For that price, it was quite a steal. The auction for this bike may pan out in the same way, so keep an eye on it.
The Rotwild R2 World Cup is a carbon mountain bike designed for the World Cup and Marathon racecourses. It promises for climbing efficiency and tight handling.
Click ‘more’ to see pictures and information about this bike. (more…)
On February 10-12, Vail resort will be host to the 2012 Teva Winter Mountain games, and for the first time in North America, a winter slopestyle event. No doubt drawing inspiration from the likes of the Leogang White Style event, the Teva Best Trick competition will feature a huge snow booter, with riders competing for the big $10,000 cash purse. The list of riders is after the brake, but interestingly it includes Chad Kagy, who if you don’t know is a BMX ripper coming off a broken femur from the last X-games. In addition to the Best Trick competition there will also be the Teva Dual Slalom DH and an on snow Bike Crit.
Check out the list of riders and full PR after the break.
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