Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park is like a fine wine. It gets better with age.
The unique indoor cycling facility located inside an old parachute warehouse in Cleveland, Ohio celebrated its three-year anniversary over the weekend with a grand re-opening.
Well, I’m back from Vegas and after resting for a week or so I can finally get back to the grind here. Once again the show was incredible with literally thousands of new products from hundreds of companies.
Every year there seems to be some sort of theme that emerges from the. Last year was the year of carbon, where every manufacturer seemed the need to make multiple items out of the weave. This year there seems to be a few emerging trends which was quickly evident by walking around a few booths. The first is sort of a continuation of a theme from last year, which is 29” mountain bikes. More manufacturers have added 29” bikes to their lineups, but many have started playing with the mix from going to a single-speed model to using the 69-er style, which is a 26” wheel on the back and a 29” wheel up front.
The second theme is cyclocross. With the road bike segment starting to cool off a little bit, it seems retailers are spreading their buying dollars around. Cyclocross is a growing segment and the options at Interbike range from basic models with alloy frames and low-end groupsets to full carbon fibre frames with SRAM Force and Shimano Dura-Ace grouppos.
Here are some of the bigger companies with some interesting new products to show. In the next few weeks, we’ll have a few reviews of some of the funkier new products that were on display. Read the rest of this entry »
There are three seasons in a cyclist’s calendar – riding season, off-season and trade show season. There are hundreds of bike shows across North America each year, but only a handful register on the radars of nearly every rider out there.
With Eurobike already out of the way and Interbike less than two weeks away, the Canadian cycling industry held its annual ExpoCycle trade show in Montreal Sept. 10-12. Most of the 3,000 bike shops across the country sent some sort of representation to the show, which gives dealers and media the chance to see some of the new products that will be on the market for the upcoming riding season. I had a chance to cover the show once again for Pedal Magazine (see the stories at www.pedalmag.com) and it was as bling-blingy and fun as ever.
Where the 2005 shows seemed to be the year of the all-carbon-all-the-time attitude, 2006 seems to have manufacturers classing up their use of carbon with more dramatic and artistic molding, more paint-covered designs and mixing the weave with exotic materials such as carbon and magnesium.
The show this year also showed the increased popularity in triathlons, with dozens of manufacturers making components, bikes or clothing specifically designed for tri events. Triathlons are a fun alternative to just biking, and you’ll read more about these here on TheBikingHub in the future.
Anyway, after hours and hours of walking around the ExpoCycle show at Place Bonaventure in downtown Montreal, I’ve come up with a list of companies with products that really blew me away. Here’s my top 10 list of favourite items found at this year’s show. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m a little late on the draw with this one, but I figured a bunch of you would still appreciate the link.
Last year, Race Face introduced the mountain biking world to the Ultimate XC Challenge, a cross country counterpart to the company’s freeride-oriented UFC. Like the UFC, the UXC is a peer-judged contest where riders from across the world submit videos that are voted on by other riders. Two winning teams will be chosen, and they’ll have their bikes kitted out in Race Face gear before setting off to ride the 2006 TransRockies Challenge.
This is one of those, “Do I really want to win this?” contests but I do know that there are lots of folks out there who are really keen on pushing themselves to the edge at events like the Transrockies.
The International Mountain Biking Association has released its Canadian newsletter for April. It addresses the IMBA Summit / World MTB Conference, trailbuilding information, an International Trails Day preview and more. Have a look. Read the rest of this entry »
Since the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) opened its doors in Canada two years ago, the interest level north of the border has been growing. I’m a member of IMBA and a big supporter of the efforts they’re making to improve existing trails and fight for access issues.
Starting today, we’ll be posting some monthly news from IMBA’s Canadian branch, which is located in Collingwood, Ontario. Each news item has a link at the end of it where you can get more information. Read the rest of this entry »
Next weekend (March 11), the Cannondale Demo Tour is going to be setting up shop at the place where I build trails and spend most of my time riding. That means that I know the terrain and that I’m pretty comfortable on the trails so I can factor that into my impressions.
Anybody out there want some specific feedback about any of the bikes in the 2006 Cannondale bike lineup? I’d prefer to stay away from the Scalpel because it’s not the best ride for the type of terrain out here but I will punish myself if the demand is there. Also, there’s expected to be a pretty high demand for the Judge and the Prophet MX bikes — and because I’m not allowed to jump or do any serious drops at this stage in my recovery, any time on these bikes will be spent going as fast as I can.
Leave your requests in the comment box.
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.
A few months back, I mentioned that Kona was involved in the Bike Town Africa project. Now, the Africa Bike — the bike design that will be used — has been unveiled on the internet. Check out the Africa Bike image gallery at the weblog that follows how things are going.
Hat tip: Spinopsys.
For all of you American riders who were looking forward to jumping on a Scott Genius for the coming season, you don’t have to hold your breath any longer. Because it ain’t going to happen. According to a story published on the Bicycle Retailer and Industry News website, Scott USA has conceded defeat in an 18 month legal battle with Specialized bikes.
If you live outside of the United States, chances are pretty decent that you’ll be able to find the Genius since Specialized’s patent rights on the element that was at the the root of the disagreement — the Horst linkage — do not extend beyond American borders. The history of the dispute between Specialized and Scott is well covered on a recent article on Bike Magazine, so if you’re interested in the ins-and-outs of the affair, I suggest you head over there.
What does this mean for Scott USA? Mostly, it means that there won’t be a Scott frame that falls into the 3″to 5″ full suspension category for 2006. Scott claims that they’ll re-enter that segment of the market with a new frame design for 2007, so if you’re looking for a Genius-equivalent you’ll have to wait until then.