EuroBike, Day 2: A Sram update and a brief visit to Italy
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The Eurobike trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany, is a wonderful place to gather information. It turns out it also is a good place to generate misinformation, as we inadvertently did yesterday. After seeing the Sram road group prototypes, we speculated about the shifting system, noticing that there was one shift lever behind the brake lever on each side, but no apparent way for the brake lever to swing or rotate to provide the other half of the shifting equation.
Well, that’s because the one lever does it all. Today, we talked with two 
people who have used the system -- neither one of them Sram employees, so we’re taking this on faith -- who say that to upshift, you give the lever a long push, and to downshift you give it a short push. Click-click: what could be easier? If this information is accurate, the Sram road shifters could turn out to be the easiest and fastest to use of all. Unfortunately, it’s all speculation until Sram releases official specifications in a few months; we will do our best to keep you posted.
Meanwhile, our show report today takes an excursion to Italy, with new products from a host of that cycling-mad country’s leading producers.
Campagnolo
Campagnolo has concentrated most of its 2006 model year engineering effort on its wheels, nearly all of which are revised and improved. The new Eurus uses aluminum spokes laced to front- and rear-specific rims. The height of the rear rim (bead to spoke bed) is higher than the front, to add stiffness for power transfer, while the height of the front rim is reduced for comfort, weight savings and less lateral wind resistance and thus better controllability in crosswinds. “It’s the same idea as when the pros use a Bora on the rear and a regular rim on the front,” said Campagnolo’s Piero Da Rin.
The Eurus wheels also benefit from toroidal machining (across the curve of the rim from bead to bead), and the clincher versions have a sealed spoke bed so no rim tape is needed. The wheels have lighter hubs and a new, lighter quick-release, the lever of which engages the release mechanism with two arms for more even clamping. Total weight for the clinchers, available in silver or black, is 1490 grams per pair; the tubular version, in silver only, weighs the same.
In an interesting detail, the Eurus wheels are dynamically balanced by means of some material that is retained in the rim area opposite the joint to offset the joint’s weight. “We found that when the wheel spins, it creates an annoying ‘bounce’ effect, and the wheel might not look perfectly round,” says Da Rin. “So now, when the rims are prepared, a special machining operation on the rim section opposite the joint balances the two different peripheral masses. The result that the wheel is perfectly balanced as it spins.”
Campagnolo has also updated its Zonda wheel with flat steel spokes, and the Scirocco with a G3 rear spoke pattern. Additional new items include thinner, lighter 10-speed chains for Record, Centaur and Veloce; the Record, for example, has drilled sideplates and hollow pins. All the chains used the same chain tool as before and have the same durability, Da Rin says.
Cinelli
Cinelli’s Neo Carbo bar is, as the name makes clear, new to the line and made of carbon fiber. The carbon layers are varied to add wall thickness where necessary for strength and pared away where possible to cut weight. Available in 40, 42 and 44 cm widths, the Neo Carbo weighs about 225 grams in a 40 width. The Neo’s cable channel feature is especially interesting, as the bar includes tunnels in front to aid comfort while providing a safe route for the cable housings.
De Rosa
One of the great pleasures of covering trade shows is the opportunity to talk with legendary framebuilders, nearly all of whom -- whether Italian, American, Japanese or, probably, Martian -- share common traits. For one thing, no matter what fame they have achieved, from the worldwide recognition of Ernesto Colnago to the cult status of Dario Pegoretti, nearly all started out humbly in a tedious apprenticeship, fueled largely by equal doses of a love for cycling and an obsession with exacting craftsmanship.
The other thing they tend to share is plainspoken approachability. Most framebuilders seem to live monastic lives of long hours punctuated by bouts of self-doubt: Are the frames I’m building as good as they can be, or can I do better? Getting out of the shop and into the world, as they do in a trade show, is one of the few chances they get to connect with a wider world, and when you have a chance to talk with them, you find that most are eager to speak about their craft, the choices they make, and the difficulty of predicting the fickle tastes of a constantly changing clientele.
The De Rosa clan -- father Ugo and sons Danilo, Doriano and Cristiano -- are such a group. Ugo De Rosa, now 72, has steadily churned out his masterworks for more than 50 years for superstars like Eddy Merckx and fans of the sport like you and me. His sons have assumed the same dedication, and whether at a trade show or in their factory in the suburbs of Milan, Italy, you’ll find them happy to take a break from their labors to talk about the craft and art of framebuilding.
The De Rosa’s current line of bikes is extensive, offering an almost bewildering array of materials (steel, titanium, aluminum, carbon) and designs. However, all of the frames share Ugo’s brilliant geometry, which helped set the standard for Italian racing machinery way back in the sixties. And every new De Rosa is drop-dead gorgeous, as Ugo’s bikes have always been.
It’s hard to pick just one bike to illustrate the De Rosa philosophy, but perhaps the new Dual HF will do. Constructed with hydroformed aluminum tubes, the Dual has a sloping top tube, but looks more elegant than that descriptive would imply because the top tube is gently curved, and flows beautifully into the rear triangle. The objective, says Danilo De Rosa, is to create a bike that is light, comfortable and with quick responses, but which is also easy to build in custom sizes upon request. The Dual also has a carbon fork which evokes the shape and style of Ugo’s classic flat-crown design. The fork dimensions are, of course, sized perfectly to the HF’s integral-headset head tube, and the result is an elegance that seems to have been missing in modern designs until now.
Deda Elementi
From the fertile mind of Deda’s irrepressible Fulvio Acquati comes the Deda Supernatural, a new handlebar designed for Shimano STI shifters. (The existing Newton bar was designed around Campagnolo’s Ergopower levers.) Widths range from 40 to 46cm, outside to outside. Weight is about 209 grams.
Also new is the TT stem, which has a carbon extension bonded to aluminum ends. The TT is notable solely because it has a micro-forged front clamp, an extravagant detail that exists simply because Acquati has always wanted to do it, but was never able to harness the technology until now. We have to admit, it’s a great looking stem.
With the addition of the Supernatural, Deda now boasts what must be the most extensive line of racing bar shapes and widths extant. For example, the Deda Alanera one-piece carbon bar and stem now comes in three different drop designs and, if we’ve counted right, 11 stem length and bar width combinations per drop model, making for 33 different Alanera models alone. “The hands are the most important contact point with the bicycle, for with your hands you control your world,” says Acquati by way of explanation of Deda’s proliferation.
Fi’zi:k
Fi’zi:k, always a typographical challenge for the harried VN editorial crew, has added a number of models to its wildly popular Arione range, including the Arione Carbon, which has carbon rails and a weight of 179 grams, compared to the Arione Carbon Tubular Ti with titanium rails at 199 grams.
Also new is the Pavè HP, which adds Wing Flex sides for thigh movement and a wider shape for comfort.
On the freeride side, the company has introduced the Free;k, which marries a durable injected shell to magnesium rails. The dropped nose aids control while airborne, and the whole thing is designed to be largely indestructible.
Fulcrum
Following the successful introduction of their Racing 1, 3 and 5 aluminum-rimmed wheels last year, Fulcrum has added two carbon models. The Racing Lights have a full carbon clincher rim while the Racing Speed rims are high-profile, tubular-only designs. One fascinating feature of these wheels is the use of two non-butted spokes opposite the valve to aid in wheel balance. All Fulcrum wheels are offered in Shimano and Campagnolo versions.
ITM
Italmanubri’s K-Sword now offers an Integral version, with an anatomic shape to the bar tops and an oversized stem. The stem uses ITM’s clever GWS clamp system, which secures the bar without front bolts, and protects the carbon fibers from being crushed. The K-Sword also offers a carbon computer carrier that clips to each side of the stem and provides a tidy solution to carrying a cycling computer on an anatomic-shaped bar.On the mountain side, the ITM Over 5 carbon bar comes in straight and semi-raised versions. The Forged Light carbon stem is available in five lengths, from 90 to 130mm, and weighs about 167 grams in a 110 length.
Pinarello
As with the De Rosas, Fausto Pinarello is happy to talk about framebuilding all day long. The bikes that bear his family’s name are objects of great pride for him, and he agonizes over each detail on each model, probing them endlessly for flaws and revising his designs regularly as he hits upon new solutions and materials. In recent years, Pinarello’s active mind has spawned innovations like the compact crank design, the mega bottom bracket with ultra-rigid large-diameter bearings, the wavy Onda fork and seatstay design and, most recently, the Dogma frame with its AK61 magnesium tubes, which remains Fausto’s personal favorite for his own riding and racing.
Pinarello’s aggressive racing style seems to involve him in an unfortunate number of crashes, and in Friedrichshafen he was nursing a healing collarbone and some bruised ribs from a recent get-off. On the other hand, what more can you ask of your framebuilder than he shed skin and blood in pursuit of the perfect bicycle?
Pinarello’s Paris FP carbon is a new design which picks up the hydroformed tube shapes from the aluminum Paris FP introduced last year. The carbon is an especially robust concoction called 46HM3K, which, Pinarello says, is the strongest carbon he’s found anywhere in the world (it comes from Japan), and which allows him to cut the frame weight to 990 grams in a 54cm size. Pinarello uses a sloping top tube in the smallest size, and 45.5, and level top tubes in all the other size, which range from 50 to 59cm.
The F4:13 FP is essentially a less-expensive version of the Paris FP, with a less-expensive carbon called 30HM3K from the same supplier. Frame weight is about 1150 grams in a 54cm size, and like the Paris FP, the smallest size -- a 46cm in this case -- has a sloping top tube, while the larger sizes, from 51 to 59cm, have flat top tubes.
The Paris FP and the F4:13 FP are offered with Pinarello’s MOST crankset and bottom bracket and include the Onda fork and seatstays, bringing a bit of the Dogma’s performance to a more affordable level.
Selle Italia
Ever since the introduction of its famous Flite saddle years ago, Selle Italia has been focused on cutting every gram of unnecessary weight from its racing saddles. With the new C45, they’ve hit a new low, which of course will be a new high for bike racers everywhere. As you can guess from the name, the C45 weighs but 45 grams, making it the lightest production saddle in the world, as far as we know. Picking this thing up is like lifting a postage stamp. The shape of the C45 is narrower than Selle Italia’s SLR.The SLK Ladies model, on the other hand, is a little shorter and a little wider, and it comes in a Gel Flow Sport model as well for greater comfort.
Selle San Marco
Carbon has a place at Selle San Marco, too, but its new top-of-the-line saddle is made of almost entirely of magnesium. The Magma MGC is fashioned of magnesium alloy by means of a complicated process that combines casting with injection molding. The polished result is a knockout and, says San Marco’s Luigi Girardi, utterly functional. The injection process, he says, permits exacting differentiated thicknesses, which helps the saddle absorb vibrations and offer a high degree of comfort. For those who demand a bit more coddling, the Magma MG has a thin layer of Eva padding and thus a more traditional appearance.
The Magmas do include a bit of carbon in the saddle-to-rail couplings and in the saddle sides. But it is the polished magnesium you’ll notice first, in what is surely the most striking saddle design of the year.
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