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I was going to post this entry a few days ago but ended up holding off until Ashwin’s first official piece showed up on the site. Ashwin rides an Iron Horse himself, and I figured that his review of the 2004 Iron Horse Hollowpoint was a good way to give site readers good information about the way the suspension platform works, especially since the 2006 Iron Horse Bikes lineup is now online.
Visually, the new site’s a big improvement on last year’s design, and the only thing that I’d like to see are the full specs for each bike integrated into the site’s content (including geometry and weights). For those you who are interested in those things, you’ll need to download the 2006 Iron Horse catalogue (far left) and look it up that way.
There are lots of good looking mountain bikes in the ‘06 lineup too: the MKIII trail bike models, the cross country Azure bikes, the freeride-oriented 7Point series, and the sick looking Sunday downhill bikes all look fantastic. Even the non DW-Link bikes look solid.
Poke around the site to uncover stuff like downloadable wallpaper, team news, and more information about the technology used in Iron Horse Bikes.
Update (13 January 2005): Iron Horse now has geometry specs available directly on the site. Good to see that the company responded positively to criticism on the Web.
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Earlier this year, Marzocchi unveiled its first official rear shock — a coil over beauty called the Roco — and promised greater things to come.
Rumours about another rear shock have swirled for the last couple of months and, now, the folks over at Mountain Bike Action have revealed some of the first shots of Marzocchi’s new air shock. MBA’s test shock featured a remote reservoir (a la the Fox DHX Air). The reservoir allows for significant degrees of damping adjustment, making this new shock perfect for riders interested in big air, jumps, and drops. The shock features a nickel-plated shaft designed to resist cracking better than its anodized counterparts and move through its range of travel smoothly. Also, MBA mentions that Marzocchi has another, shorter stroke version of the rear shock in development — something that’ll be more in line with the ‘all mountain’ and ‘trail’ market.
I’ll be interested to see how Marzocchi is able to compete in the rear shock marketplace. Does the industry really need another rear shock manufacturer? Is there room for one?
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I’ve had my eye on the Yeti Cycles 303 for a while now, not because I’m particularly interested in a new downhill rig but more because of the 303’s innovative frame design. Instead of the “traditional” pivot points found on almost every significant full suspension mountain bike frame, the 303 utilizes a system of linear rails to direct rear wheel path. The 303 is designed to take the solid, square edged hits that Yeti’s team riders felt slowed them down on race day.
Jared Graves and other team riders like Tyler Klassen provide solid input to the Yeti engineering team and, thanks to Yeti’s domestic production facilities, receives prototypes relatively soon after revisions are implemented in the design process. Aside from the fact that Graves’ bike is spec’d with the type of tidbits you find on the bikes of pro racers, notice that the rail position and head tube area on Graves’ bike isn’t the same as the production version currently featured on the Yeti Cycles website.
The Yeti 303 frame has a claimed weight of 13.0lbs and includes a DHX 5.0 for an MSRP of $3469 (usd). The 303 has fairly standard race geometry — a 65 degree head angle, long wheelbase, and it runs a 150mm thruaxle hub in the rear — and looks like a pretty nice ride when it’s fully built.
Sources: Yeti Cycles | Cycling News | Pinkbike.com (video profile of Yeti from Interbike)
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I’ll state up front that I’m a fan of the Giant Bicycles lineup, especially the bikes in the Maestro range. Every Maestro-equipped bike that I’ve seen pedals amazingly well and the company, at least in Canada, provides excellent customer support.
NSMB.com has an excellent preview of the 2006 Giant bike lineup. The writeup has some great photos of each of the Maestro-equipped bikes and provides some decent technical info.
Related entries:
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Banshee Bikes made a splash during its first year on the freeride scene, offering a big hit bike with a 10 year warranty (and one of the biggest head tubes that I’ve ever seen). Along with solid local marketing, the Banshee Scream did a great job giving the company access to a hard-core niche market in southwestern British Columbia. Aside from a few blips, Banshee continued to build its product line in the next few years, and now has a good range of bikes for riders interested in a bunch of different disciplines.
Banshee has posted up the latest version of its website, featuring all of the bikes in the company’s 2006 product lineup. I’m going to focus on a couple of particular models in this writeup but keep in mind that Banshee introduced a bunch of other bikes for 2006, including a full range of all mountain bikes.
The Pyre is Banshee’s entry into the burgeoning all mountain category and looks pretty interesting. The RAD-tubed frame uses a new linkage — the Virtual 4-Bar (V4B) — that is designed to limit negative feedback while pedalling. Ready to take a 6″ travel single crown fork and featuring great geometry for “do-everything riders” the Pyre looks set to make some inroads into the non-freeride marketplace.
For 2006, the Chapparal receives an overhaul including a longer stroke shock and increased travel looks set to make further inroads into the freeride scene. Lighter than it’s full-on freeride sibling (the Scream) is a good choice for riders who make regular visits to lift-acessed places like the Whistler Bike Park, but are still willing to ride places where shuttling isn’t an option. Personally, I wouldn’t have chosen a Fox 40 to demonstrate the versatility of the bike — a 36 would have been a more fitting option — but the rest of the spec on the fully-built bike looks good to go.
Note: Banshee Bikes is marketed under the brand “Mythic” in the United Kingdom because of trademark issues. Mythic is distributed by Freeborn.
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Back on the day when I purchased my first mountain bike, steel was the only real way to go. Unfortunately for me, the steel mountain bikes of the lates 80s were heavy, relatively expensive, and fully rigid (don’t get me started). When aluminum bikes started to make serious inroads into the marketplace a few years later, I remember making some rather unpleasant comments to my non-steel colleagues. Little did I know that, ten years later, I’d be the proud owner of a number of aluminum frames, and they’re doing quite well for me.
Reynolds Cycles has been around for over 100 years but, in the mid-1990s, the company introduced their proprietary 853 tubing, which has remained the primo choice for manufacturers looking to put together a quality steel frameset for a good part of the next decade. At Interbike, one of the writers for Bike Magazine noticed that Independent Fabrication was quietly promoting a bike using Reynolds 953 tubing.
I’m betting that most frames using 953 tubing will remain on the road but for mountain bikers looking for a custom or high-end frameset, there likely will be a number of smaller manufacturers who are quick on the uptake. Most of us will continue on our merry way without 953-based framesets, but it’s good to see that options remain for the “Steel is Real” crowd.
Sources: Bike Magazine | Reynolds Cycles
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Canadian bike manufacturer Devinci Bicycles now has their entire 2006 bike lineup online.
Changes for 2006 are relatively minor on the freeride / downhill end of things which makes sense, since almost every person I know who’s owned a Devinci in the past couple of years loves their bikes. In the ‘all mountain’ or ‘freeride light’ category, Devinci repositioned their lineup and fit it more into the all mountain end of things, with cross-country style parts specs on each of their ‘remix’ models. Other interesting items of note? No hardtails in the mountain bike lineup, the disappearance of personal faves (the Magma / Guzzler).
Another thing to consider when thinking of Devinci bikes is the fact that, at least until last year, the models available in Canada differed from those available in the United States — Specialized’s ownership of the Horst-link patent prevented Devinci from using said linkage on bikes destined for the American market. So if you’re American and are interested in one of the company’s bikes because of the suspension design, you’d be well advised to check into this ‘issue’ before you place your order.
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Normally I don’t spend too much time discussing gear for road bikes but I have no problem making exceptions when something catches my eye and looks as though it’ll really shake up the biking scene. SRAM’s road gruppo is a case in point; the component group made waves at the recent Interbike trade show but journalists were sworn to secrecy and not allowed to reveal too much information about the system. However, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and Cycling News has the first detailed look at the upcoming SRAM road group.
The shifting system itself looks pretty standard on the outside, but SRAM took two years and, I’m assuming, a whole lot of cash to develop this product line. Downshifts and upshifts are controlled by a single shifting ‘paddle’, that is separate from the brake lever. What this means is that riders can shift from a number of different positions (from the hoods, from the drop, and even while sprinting with their hands fully on the bars) without having to worry about grabbing a bunch of brake.
The other bits of the group look pretty impressive too. SRAM’s rear derailleur is based on the 1:1 actuation ratio found on their mountain bike components. While the extra bit of tolerance that this system provides (as opposed to Shimano’s 2:1 actuation ratio) won’t be as beneficial on a road bike as it is on a mountain bike, I can’t see it hurting overall shifting ability. Apparently, the performance level of the two rear derailleurs will be similar to Dura-Ace / Record and Ultegra.
Check out the article on Cycling News for more information on parts like the front derailleur and the crankset, as well as a whole bunch of great photos.
Other thoughts on the SRAM road group
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Rocky Mountain Bikes has posted up their entire 2006 bike lineup.
Personally, I’m not super stoked on Rocky Mountain’s RMX series — each RMX that I’ve ridden has felt really tall in the front end and they didn’t pedal as well as I expected. That being said, the people whose bikes I rode love them and I haven’t heard of any major issues with the frame (which can’t be said for the now-retired RM7).
That being said, the 2006 Rocky Mountain Switch looks pretty sharp. I’m a little surprised to see such a heavy-duty freeride kit on the Switch, but the bike looks ready to take some serious hits on the way down while being well equipped to deal with the pedal up (if necessary). The glow in the dark Switch that I spotted on a couple of occasions up at Whistler doesn’t appear to be available as a production model, but word is that it will appear as a special edition later in the 2006.
My personal favourite in the ‘06 lineup is the ‘06 Slayer. In the months leading up to Interbike, the Slayer received a whole bunch of media coverage and, looking at the bike now, the press attention was warranted. The top-of-the-line Slayer 90 is spec’d with the type of great parts (X0 triggers, X9 rear derailleur, Fox 36 RC2) you’d look for on a high-end bike, even if some of the components are a little more ‘cross country’ than I’d expect on an all mountain bike.
You can draw your own conclusions by checking out the entire 2006 lineup on the Rocky Mountain Bikes website.
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Salsa Cycles has cranked out frames and accessories for quite a while, and the company’s expertise shows. Salsa skewers are like Chris King headsets — they’re not necessary, but they’re something that people in the know love to use. Of course, Salsa Cycles produces more than just skewers. The company creates a full range of road and mountain bike frames, accessories like bars, stems, and seatposts, and a full range of clothing.
Salsa continues to expand its lineup for 2006 with the addition of the Dos Niner, a 29″ wheeled bike that features 1″ of rear wheel travel on a pivotless suspension platform. For ‘06, Salsa made a couple refinements for its sexy El Santo cross country / trail frame, including greater standover height and some additional support bracing.
In addition to Salsa’s mountain bike frames the company has some mean looking road frames, if that’s your poison. Bike Magazine grabbed some good shots of Salsa’s 2006 road bikes at Interbike. Also, there are some good tidbits about some of Salsa’s mountain bike frames.
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