Industry News

In case you missed it yesterday, one of the best publicly released April Fool’s jokes in the bike industry hit yesterday. Not seconds after Silicon Valley Business Journal released the fake article, bloggers and websites went crazy spreading the news. It was fun to watch. I guess sometimes people just can’t remember what day it is! Word on the street is that even Mark Sinyard got in on the hoax by assuring people that it was true, but when dealers started calling left and right worried about the news, he told them the truth.

SRAM is planning something big for 2008. Word on the street is the front derailleur will be a part of the past.

Brian Lopes’s recent announcement of a sponsorship deal with Ibis caught many of us by surprise. Much speculation quickly followed suit regarding which Ibis models he’d be riding. Bike magazine HQ happens to be right around the corner from Casa de Lopes so last week he swung by our office to give us a complete tour of his new quiver.

Say hello to the new component group from Shimano…SLX. Set to replace the Hone and LX line for mountain biking, the SLX is marketed as a heavier duty all mountain group for the Shimano line. So far from the pictures, it appears that Shimano mixed the previous LX and Hone together and added a new look along with the some features that were added to the XTR line. The rear derailleur shows some XTR-like characteristics. This line will still fall below the XT line in price and is designed around the growing popularity of 5″ and 6″ trail bikes.

Everyone that is saying that 15mm is going to be lighter than 20mm has no engineering background at all. All things created equal…the difference with the same materials and parts would at most be several grams…and this small difference would not be felt on the bike when it is actually ridden.