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Like every other major manufacturer in the biking world, Fox Racing Shox used the ‘06 Sea Otter Classic as a showcase to introduce the masses to its 2007 lineup. A number of this site’s more astute readers noticed new Fox gear on select bikes at Sea Otter. First up was the Niner Bikes R.I.P. 9 prototype, which was spec’d with a new air shock — the Fox Float RP23. Also making the rounds along with the RP23 was a new cross country fork that featured revised lowers / castings and was decked out with a cool white paint job.
Well, it appears as though the media has been given the go ahead to leak the details of the 2007 Fox Racing Shox lineup to the public. Singletrack magazine has some great photos of the new gear, along with the details that everybody’s keen on finding. Check out the writeup for good information about the upcoming Fox 32, the RP23, the Van R rear shock. And when you head on over to Singletrack, look at Fox’s 2007 gear with a ‘keep it simple’ mantra repeating in the back of your mind since all of the new stuff looks easier for the average rider to keep under control. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing.
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Now that I’ve kind of recovered from the overdose of chocolate and sugar that destroyed me (well, that and a mild case of the flu) over the weekend, I can get back to business.
The members of Santa Cruz Bicycles’ Syndicate — a select group of world-class riders who go big, fast, or both — are spending this year’s race season aboard rear shocks customized by PUSH Industries. PUSH specializes in rebuilding and modifying dialling in most of the rear shocks and many of the suspension forks in the Fox Racing Shox stablethe resulting ride has been described alternately as ‘bottomless’, near ‘perfect’, and ‘Avalanche-like’.
Pinkbike.com has a very good, non-technical description of what PUSH does to the Syndicate’s bikes that are equipped with Fox rear shocks. The focus of the writeup is on the Fox DHX-5 that is attached to Steve Peat’s new V10 but there’s also an interesting tidbit about the modifications that PUSH makes to air shocks so they don’t bottom as harshly as mine does on occasion.
We’ll have more on PUSH Industries in the coming months — stay tuned for more information about this company!
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In my most recent installment on The Biking Hub, I described how the idea for the Trans Iowa endurance event was hatched. This week, I’m giving you a behind the scenes look at how the route was laid out and planned.
Since the total time that passed between the basic idea for the event and the opening of registration was about two weeks, I did not have much time me to devise a route! And my job became even harder when I had to figure out what to do a whole state full of gravel and dirt back roads… Read the rest of this entry »
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This past week has been a busy one with lots of new visitors still coming in through the Niner Bikes R.I.P.9 piece that we posted up last weekend.
Original content
On Monday, I posted up a mid-term review of the 2005 Giant Trance frameset that I’ve been riding for the past 6 weeks — I’ll add a long-term update after I’ve had some more time on it. On Tuesday, Guitar Ted’s piece on the origins of the first Trans Iowa went online, followed on Wednesday by Ashwin’s suspension tuning tips for Manitou forks. For Thursday, Dan gave us a recap of his first race of the season — the 30km Paris to Ancaster race in Ontario, Canada.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
Sea Otter followup. There was a bunch of good stuff from the Sea Otter Classic this week. Mountain Bike Action image gallery from Sea Otter. Steephill.tv has some great footage of one of the road events — I remember cursing that corkscrew back in the days when I played GranTurismo 2! Pinkbike.com posted up a recap of the cross country event by Leslie Tomlinson. Singletrack had great coverage of the event, including a photo of the upcoming carbon Giant Trance.
Mtbr.com posted up a review of the Turner Flux and BikeMagic.com has a good review of the Santa Cruz Nomad.
Check out the live camera footage of this bald eagle’s nest. Read more about the imaginary city of Urville.
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13 April »
Events »
Dan
It’s been a few months since I first got my hands on a 2006 Cannondale Rush 1000 and gave my initial impressions, but with the crummy Canadian winter weather I haven’t had much time to put some serious seat time on it. That finally changed over the past couple of weeks when warm weather and the motivation of the first mountain bike race of the season had me licking my chops in excitement.
And, just as I prepared myself for race season, I decided to make a number of major changes to the Rush 1000 to get it light enough and performing well enough to be considered a serious cross country racer.
Starting with the drivetrain, I kept the stock X.9 rear derailleur and existing SRAM cassette, but I replaced the X.7 shifters with the new high-zoot X.0 carbon trigger shifters. The X.0 setup comes with Teflon coated cables and the installation and setup was simple and easy. For cranks, I’m using my 2004 Shimano XTR triple-ring setup as they’re extremely light, stiff, and work well with the SRAM shifters.
The first race on the Rush was the 30km Paris to Ancaster in Ontario, Canada which took place on Sunday, 9 April 2006. For anyone who has ever taken part in this event or the longer, 60km version of the race, you know how important tire selection can be… Read the rest of this entry »
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12 April »
Tech tips »
Ashwin
I’ve always been a fan of Manitou forks because I find them easy to maintain and they have lots of ‘tweakability’. This post looks at some of the routine maintenance that you should perform on your fork and offers some ideas for tuning some of the Manitou forks out there. Most of the information here is applicable to 2004 and 2005 forks with TPC and SPV damping.
Note: Make sure that you read the manual that came with your fork. If you’re unsure about what to do, bring it to someone who can perform the tasks for you. It should go without saying that you should verify with the manufacturer whether or not performing any modifications will void your warranty. Read the rest of this entry »
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There are new endurance races popping up all over the country these days. The typical 24 hour events have been joined by ultra-marathon, point to point excursions, and other types of suffering as well.
Some of you may have asked yourselves, ‘What causes someone to start one of these events?’ While I can not answer for every event out there, I can tell you about one of them. You see, I help promote one of these little gems. The event is named Trans Iowa and I am going to share with you the story of how it got started. My hope is that perhaps some of you will be inspired to try putting on your own event or, at the very least, you can see from a event organizer’s perspective about what it looks like on the “other side of the fence”. Read the rest of this entry »
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As I mentioned on the weekend, Shimano and SRAM both used the Sea Otter Classic to introduce the masses to their 2007 product lineups. The fact that nearly everyone focused on Shimano’s new XTR lineup and SRAM’s upcoming road group took some of the momentum away from SRAM’s 2007 mountain bike parts.
A crew from Pinkbike.com was down at Sea Otter over the weekend and a report on some of the items in the 2007 SRAM mountain bike lineup went online earlier today. What’s new, you ask? Check out the article for images and details of the refined X9 group, the RockShox Argyle dj fork, the Juicy Ultimate disc brake, and the Truvativ Noir crankset.
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9 April »
Reviews »
Cory
Note: The Maestro bikes that are available in 2006 to consumers living in Europe and Australia are the same as the 2005 North American models.
When Giant first introduced their Maestro-equipped bikes to the media and general public, riders loved the way the general level of performance of the entire line. After cutting through all of the marketing hype, many folks decided that Giant had indeed delivered a suspension that performed as advertised.
The first three Maestro models — Faith, Reign, Trance — were joined this year by the Anthem, a dedicated 3.5″ cross country racer that replaces the venerable NRS race bike, and the Glory, a full on downhill rig with plenty of travel.
Also for 2006, Giant made a couple of changes to the general frame design, the most significant of which was the replacement of the earlier, rather complicated shock mount area with a simpler, cleaner option that pierces the downtube. Giant also relaxed the head angle on the Trance by a little bit, responding to criticisms from riders and helping consumers differentiate between the xc-focused Anthem and the trail-leaning Trance.
The Trance, identified by Giant as a trail bike, is a versatile ride that offers 110mm (4.2″) of rear wheel travel. It was designed around a 110mm travel fork, but many riders (including myself) are running forks that have a little more travel to make things more comfortable on the way down. Most people should easily be able to build up a complete bike to between 27 and 30 pounds, depending on personal preference and budget. 2005 was the first production year for the Trance and the bike was made available in four different versions, starting with the high end Trance 1 and ending with the lower spec Trance 4.
Earlier in the year, I tracked down an ‘05 Trance 4 at a year end clearance and picked it up with then intention of stripping down the bike and replacing the stock components with a select group of parts that I’d put together for this very purpose. Over the next couple of months, I rode the Trance as an aggressive trail / all-mountain bike, riding it over a range of terrain in mostly wet conditions. Read the rest of this entry »
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Well, the Sea Otter Classic is officially underway and gear news is starting to filter onto the web. I’ll be using this space to send you towards other sites that have stuff that hasn’t been made available elsewhere.
2007 Shimano XTR group. Last week, news of the 2007 Shimano XTR group was all over the web even though, personally, I don’t appreciate the aesthetics of the upcoming version, especially since the current polished XTR lineup looks so nice.
Singletrack magazine was quick to the punch and released a bunch of photos of the 2007 XTR stuff. The photos show Trek rider Chris Eatough’s bike equipped with some new XTR goodies, and they give you a decent idea about what to look forward to in the coming months from Shimano. Singletrack also has some neat shots of some Santa Cruz bikes, including the Syndicate’s fleet of Nomads.
VeloNews has a parking lot test of the XTR group that provides some good insight into the way the components actually work. Check it out!
The 29″ers. 29″er manufacturers are making a strong appearance at the Classic, with new bikes by Salsa Cycles, Trek, Orbea, and Niner Bikes.
Update (8 April 2006): SRAM mountain bike gear. SRAM’s road group has seen the lion’s share of the media’s attention over the past few weeks but, today, CyclingNews reminded us all that the other big ‘S’ still makes mountain bike parts. Case in point? The new Avid Juicy Ultimate — Avid’s next generation high-end brake. Decked out in carbon and featuring refined design elements, expect to see many an Ultimate at your local race series.
The same piece on CyclingNews also looks at the 2007 Giant Anthem, carbon edition. Currently raced by Giant’s Adam Craig, the carbon Anthem looks like a race circuit monster. And, as a couple of people noted yesterday when checking out the Niner Bikes R.I.P. 9, Fox Racing Shox has a new version of the Float rear shock set for release in ‘07. The Fox Float RP23 features an additional adjustment dial on top of the propedal lever. I haven’t been able to track down any information on this one yet but I’ll be sure to post it up when it comes in.
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