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I’ve been watching the space that Giant Bicycles set aside for the Giant for Women website since it showed up on my internal radar sensors earlier this month and it looks like the site has gone live.
The website itself looks great, and has a number of features that are designed to foster a sense of community and to make the biking world — typically a pretty macho place — seem a little less intimidating. To do this, Giant has enlisted the aid of Olympic silver medallist Mari Holden and mountain biker Tara Llanes, as well as a number of other women who will contribute to the site’s weblog. There are already a number of good entries about some of the unique challenges women face when saddling up on the bike.
As for the bike lineup, it looks pretty good, although the standover height on the smallest of the small Trance frames still pales in comparison to some of the other popular woman-specific rides out there. My girlfriend is quite short, and I can say for a fact that she’d have a tough time straddling a frame that has a standover that’s only an inch lower than my own Trance (and I’m 6′0″). I’ll see if I can track down some comments from a Giant rep on the specific reason for sizing the frames in this way.
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Shimano’s Saint lineup is targeted at the freeride and downhill markets and every component in the group is designed to meet the rigourous demands that gravity-assisted biking places on gear. asilvertouch ‘zine has a long-term review of the Shimano Saint crankset that does a good job of showing how well the Saints hold up to a long season of abuse on the race circuit.
If you haven’t seen these things in person, you’ll probably be surprised when you eventually stumble across a set, because the Saint crank arms are absolutely huge. As mentioned in the review, the Saints are amazingly stiff and most riders won’t be able to bend or damage them, even under the most extreme conditions. At the same time, if you do damage the crank’s spider or the drive-side crank arm, you’ll be on the hook for the entire right-side setup — something you can avoid by running Race Face’s Diabolous cranks. I’m not saying that this ‘feature’ makes the Diabolous a more desirable product, it’s just something to keep in mind when laying down the cash for a new set of cranks.
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Only days after the first shots of the 2007 Shimano mountain bike lineup started surfacing online, SRAM has weighed in by releasing some shots of their own.
Pinkbike.com published a press release from SRAM’s Eric Schutt showing pictures of the new X.9 shifters and rear derailleur. The information is pretty humorous because it reads as though the pictures are top secret and were released without authorization.
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Schutt says “A well positioned photographer snapped some sneak peaks of some of our new X.9 gear.” There isn’t much as far as hard information goes, but it looks like the new X.9 lineup will close the gap to the X.0 lineup, which is good news for more people looking to make the jump from Shimano.
More information is expected to be released at next month’s Sea Otter Classic.
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28 February »
Events »
Dan
This post has been moved. You can find it archived on the ‘road’ side of The Biking Hub.
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While almost everyone who enters a mountain bike race claims to be out for victory, the fact is that only a small percentage of those people actually have a chance of making it onto the podium on a given weekend. What that means is that most people really enter bike races for the fun of it, to participate in an activity that gives them pleasure, affords them the chance to challenge themselves in a competive environment, or gets them off the couch for a few days each season.
As those of us in the northern hemisphere round the corner and move towards the race season, many riders are going to start tuning up their bikes, hopping on new rides, and, in general, getting ready to rip on their local circuit. Read the rest of this entry »
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27 February »
Reviews »
Cory
Fox Racing Shox has been pumping out high quality suspension bike components for years, but few of the company’s products generated as much hype as the Fox 36 TALAS RC2.
In October, I installed a 2006 Fox 36 TALAS RC2 on my trusty Giant AC and set out for some trail time. An unfortunate accident kept me from riding, and I wasn’t able to get a decent take on the 36 until now. Keep in mind that this writeup provides only my initial impressions of the 36 TALAS and I’ll add a full review after I’ve spent some real time with the fork. Read the rest of this entry »
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This week was a little abnormal, mostly because Dan was away on holiday and Denise and Greg had serious computer issues, so you got a bunch of content from me and a good writeup from Ashwin.
Original content
On Monday, I posted up a brief review of the Mace Ignition shorts, which are a decent option if you’re in the market for a good wet and cold weather short. Ashwin’s article on Tuesday was an indoor training survival guide, and it was persuasive enough to guilt me back onto my trainer after a couple of years. Over the next two days, I offered up some basic terminology about rear shocks and then provided a listing of most of the major rear shock manuals, so it’s easier to track down the information when you need it most.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
On the bulletin boards, rumours are swirling that Progressive, the maker of the Fifth Element, is leaving the mountain bike market — I’ll look into it early next week and report back when I have official confirmation. Bike Magazine published a review of the softshell Bellwether Coldfront Women’s Jacket. A couple of sources reported on the 2006 edition of the Kona Clump freeride team. DirtRag has a great piece about the importance of considering the negative effects that mountain biking can have as the ground thaws. The road biking world is abuzz with the Amgen Tour of California — unfortunately, it seems as though the mainstream media in North America isn’t all that excited about the race. Singletrack World has some sneaky pics of parts from the 2007 SRAM component lineup.
The newest movie from the director of Run Lola Run is called Das Parfum, and the teaser for the film is, well, extremely unsettling. Canada’s Olympic hockey team was bounced by the Russians following an uninspired tournament along with the Americans, who were beaten by a solid Finnish squad. A guy looking for love on the ‘net set up a rendevouz with his beloved, only to find out that his belle was his mom.
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Yesterday, I spent some time describing some of the key terms that come up when people are discussing the rear shocks on mountain bikes. Having read that entry, I hope that words like ’sag’, ‘rebound’, ‘compression’, and ’stroke’ don’t send you scurrying for the door.
Now that you’re armed with the basic information you need when discussing and dialling in your rear shock, I want to provide a basic listing of all of the rear shock manuals from the major manufacturers. Every shock manual I’ve come across has detailed instructions on setting up your shock, and I’d recommend following them to the ‘T’ to get the most out of your gear. I recognize that many of you already have this things sitting in your bike maintenance areas but, if you’re like me, manuals have a tendency to disappear over time. With this directory, I hope that you’ll be able to track down quickly the information that you’re looking for and get out of the shop and onto the trail without grinding your teeth because of poorly designed websites, hidden files, and whatever other obstacles the Internet throws at you. Read the rest of this entry »
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22 February »
Reviews »
Cory
Last year I posted up a review of the Avid Juicy 5 disc brake. Overall, I was impressed with the way the brake felt and behaved during the initial testing period but, over time, there was a noticeable decline in the performance of the product.
For those of you who don’t go back and regularly read old reviews, I wanted to give you all an update about the current status of my Juicy 5s. Basically, after about 6 months of semi-regular use — my xc bike isn’t my primary ride — the front brake felt ‘mushy’ and cheap and the back brake engaged far too quickly for my liking. No amount of cleaning helped and brake bleeds were ineffective in getting rid of the problem, so I ended up taking it to a local bike shop where it was noted that there was something wrong with the piston in the lever body.
Fortunately for me, parts weren’t available from the local distributor (read on!) and after a well-timed call to SRAM it was discovered that, on my particular version of the brake, the ‘hole’ that the piston is supposed to move into was bored at an incorrect size. Specifically, the hole was too small for the piston and, over time, this manufacturer defect caused the lever to seize up. The matter was resolved after I was given a new lever body under warranty.
As I mentioned above, everything was taken care of to my satisfaction and, while it was a bit of a hassle, it doesn’t change my original evaluation of the brake. I hope this helps some of you out there, especially if you’re experiencing the same sort of problem that I encountered.
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