Ellsworth Handcrafted Bicycles, designer and manufacturer of high quality, state of the art bicycles, is honored to support the Shimano Alfine Breast Cancer Fundraiser by donating a “rose petal” pink commuter bike, the RIDE.
Be sure to have the coupon code MTB198 ready when you order. If you have any questions…drop me an email, but these guys have some of the best customer service in the business with the best mountain biking components on the market. Take a look around…you never know, you might find something you need (or just want).
As the weather gets warmer, everyone starts preparing for the impending riding season. This means that business for bikes shops comes out of the usually slow winter season for a very busy spring. New and returning riders alike are looking for new bikes along with tuning up the old ones to get ready for that perfect sunny day.
Some time ago, on our local board we had a “discussion” on the pros and cons of square taper bottom brackets vs. external bearing bottom brackets. The mountain biking crowd has basically split into two camps.
1. Square Taper Devotees
2. External Bearing (X-Type) Riders
Fred at Wolfhound Cycles hooked me up with a set of sandblasted and powder coated XT cranks to go on the Terremoto. The black powder coat matches the frame exactly. I really couldn’t have asked for a better crankset for this frame.
Trek ushered all of the UK journos into a prefab VW garage at the Sea Otter to unveil their latest bike. It’s a 200mm frame platform that contains nearly every acronym and catchphrase they make. It has an E2 tapered headtube, an EVO-Link, Full Floater suspension and an Active Braking Pivot… Fortunately, after all that, it actually looks fantastic and a bike we’re keen to get to play on soon.
The new Saint groupset shares some features and characteristics with the current group but on further inspection is also completely new on many levels. And it’s black and gold like those John Player Special branded Formula One cars from the 1970’s. Here’s the official Press Release in full…
SRAM’s X.0 rear derailleur went through a redesign for 2008. The most visual of these changes is the new 20th anniversary gold accenting on the mounting bolt and graphics. What you will also see is a new 6061 aluminum backing to the carbon Blackbox cage.
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.