Interbike '05: Leaving Las Vegas

Additional Photo Gallery below

By VeloNews Editors

Published: Oct. 2, 2005

Article Extras
Photos

Crank Brothers now offers the Candy in Ti

As VeloNews.com has shown over the past week, Interbike offers a smorgasbordof cutting edge, high-end bikes and related goodies. It’s also filled withbizarre, who-would-possibly-buy-that type gizmos. Wading through the blinkingplastic safety vests to find the 100-gram rear derailleur is just partof the fun. Mr. Bagny and Friend Nearly 800 exhibitors from around the world pack the halls of the SandsConvention Center to hawk their wares. They range from giants like Giantto garage inventors, who don’t yet have a working model but will talk yourear off about the prototype. Add in a few women staffing booths in variousstates of undress, parading Mariachis and a Storm Trooper, and Interbikecan feel a bit surreal.Where else can you see George Hincapie getting fitted for custom footbeds— 10 feet away from a display for Exycycle, an arm workout machine thatmounts where handlebars normally go? And you can spot Freddie Rodriguez,wearing dark, wrap-around sunglasses indoors at night — but you might confusehim with a number of other young men doing the same.From this whirlwind, the VeloNews editors are extracting thechoicest, most interesting products and news for your review in an upcomingprint issue.While you wait, here are a few more pearls we found in the tumultuousocean of Las Vegas’s Interbike.Over the top
You’d better get in line for Selle Italia’s $1,500 Preziosa SLR saddle,because there will only be 200 of them made. The Preziosa only weighs 145grams, but this time you are not just paying through the nose to save somegrams, you are paying for what is added to the SLR, namely 18K gold inlayover an iguana-leather cover.Worried about spending a lot of money on wheels only to total them runninginto some clown who overlaps a wheel in front of you? If so, spending abit more for Mavic’s MP3 could be just the thing for you. No, this MP3is not going to play some music to ease your pain, it will actually solvethe problem. MP3 stands for Mavic Product Protection Policy, and it givesyou two years of no-worry wheel-thrashing. Pony up an additional eightpercent of the wheel price to your dealer when you buy your Mavic wheelset,and if your wheels are damaged any time in the subsequent 24 months, Mavicwill repair them no questions asked. Sure, there is a two-year warrantyon Mavic wheels already, but the company will ask some questions when yourwheels come back beat to hell, and it won’t warranty them if your cock-and-bullstory about “just riding around” does not jive with the evidence at hand.Say you shell out $2,200 for a pair of Mavic’s new Cosmic Carbone Protubular wheels with full-carbon deep-section rims, titanium axles, skewersand freehub body. That’s a lot of money to spend on a wheel you could crashin your next race. If you were to pay an additional $176 to your dealerand fill out the registration form online when you get home, you will receivean MP3 serial number for each wheel. Then, if you do damage one of thewheels, you can take it to any Mavic dealer, who will return it to Mavic(at your cost for shipping), who will repair it no charge. Or, on the new$350 downhill Dee Traks wheelset, the extra $28 you pay could be very wellworth it for the kind of abuse you may very well expect to put into thesewheels.Speakingof MP3s, Camelbak’s new redesigned M.U.L.E. and H.A.W.G. large-capacityhydration packs have a little fleece-lined compartment on top for an iPod,closed by a waterproof zipper. And recognizing how important it can beto some freeriders to record their death-defying hucks, Camelbak has provideda place to put a video camera in its new freeride packs. The Chaos andMayhem (as well as the redesigned Havoc) freeride packs have large paddedelectronics compartments on top for all kinds of video and audio equipment,also protected by waterproof zippers. Additionally, the back of each packhas straps to secure a full-face helmet to it and further attachment systemsfor body armor.Thelong queue of bike dealers lined up at the Park Tool booth in front ofa large rectangular machine with a clear cover resembling an ice-creamfreezer was not there because folks were waiting for Popsicles.No,when the cover opened, it revealed dozens of multi-tools anodized in Park’strademark blue color. Turns out, each person in line was handing over aslip of paper with their name on it along with five bucks to get a personalizedmulti-tool. The machine was a laser etcher that would inscribe names ina whole slew of the tools at once, as soon as all of the names had beentyped into a computer.Selle San Marco’s bright, reflective, polished magnesium Magma saddleoffers the low weight and characteristic flex of a carbon saddle, at aconsiderably lower price. The Magma without a cover weighs 130 grams, whilethe one with a padded cover weighs 160 grams and has a front tip resemblinga Dodge Charger grill.Miche’s full Supertype group has Campagnolo Record shifters and derailleurscoupled with Miche carbon dual-pivot brakes, carbon hubs, aluminum cranks,a hardened aluminum 10-speed cogset and carbon/titanium pedals. A numberof top riders in the Pro Tour (like Paolo Savoldelli) are devotees of Michepedals, but the carbon brakes and hubs are new to the market.Easton’sEC90 heavy-duty carbon track sprint bar is a massive unit with a thickexternal reinforcement following the curve down from the stem and stoppingjust at the top of hooks. “We’ll never sell many of these,” says Easton’sJohn Harrrington, “but I’m an old track racer, and I have a warm spot inmy heart for these guys. They love this bar, and we have a number of theworld’s top sprinters, like the French team, using them. They say thatits extra stiffness helps them hold the bike down on the banking; roadiescan’t appreciate how the bike wants to swing up the banking and how hardit is to hold it down low on the track.” The EC90 sprint bar has the standardfall-away top curvature and deep drop of a steel sprint bar, but it weighs350 grams, less than half the 800 grams of the steel bar.Wound Up is offering two new tandem forks. These are the company's firstfull-on carbon forks and the technology is expected to be available inroad and cyclo-cross versions in 2007. Notice the full carbon crown lugthat replaces Wound Up's usual aluminum version. The 680-gram tandem forkis strong enough for use on a mountain bike, though the design doesn’toffer a suspension corrected lengths.
Shimano’s 34-tooth inner chainring on its compact road crank has chisel-shapedteeth to prevent the chain from jumping over the inner ring and droppingdown around the bottom bracket, a common problem with compact-drive roadcranks due to the smaller chainring radius and the larger, 16-tooth jumpfrom the 50- to the 34-tooth chainring. “It took us a long time to comeout with a compact crank,” says Shimano’s Jasen Thorpe, “because our engineerswere not satisfied with the shifting. They would not release it until theycould get the same low frequency of dropped chains as on our standard 39-53cranksets.” This new inner chainring finally did it, without a specialfront derailleur for it. “It works great with the standard double frontderailleur and of course the same bottom bracket,” says Thorpe, “so allyou have to do is loosen two pinch bolts on the left crank and switch theright crank.” Shimano does not package an upgrade kit with just the drive-sidecrankarm and integrated spindle, however; it is packaged as a completecrankset.RaceFace’sCadence road crank is the company’s first foray in road components. Thecrank is best described as in the “performance road” category. RaceFacehas plans for a professional level crank as well as a road bar/ stem combo.StanKoziatek and Kenda have teamed up to offer a special bead on NoTubes brandedtires. Called Vel Crow, the new bead offers a sure lock using sealant basedtubeless system; pictured is a 502-gram 29er tire.