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Interbike Confidential 2007

Atop a bar stool in the airport bar I gulp one last drink of beer and hum to myself, “Viva Las Vegas.” But, The King is not who is playing through my mind. I am hearing the screechy, clunky, satire laden rendition by the Dead Kennedys. Vegas has always been an odd coupling for Interbike, the bicycle trade show -- thousands of skinny, shaven legged, messenger-bag-carrying bike industry folks are very out of place amidst a back drop of smoke filled casinos and geriatric slot machine addicts.

Although Vegas seems an unlikely venue, the desert surrounding Vegas is home to some wicked singletrack. It’s for this reason that the Dirt Demo has been the highlight of the show for the last several years. The test loop at Bootleg Canyon boasts fast singletrack with mostly gradual climbs, a few rutted corners, rock drops, and G-out spots that can even inspire a cross country dork like myself to attempt to catch some air.

One of the first bikes on our agenda to test out was a new brand, Pivot Cycles, creating arguably the most buzz. Former Titus owner, founder, and our good friend, Chris Cocalis, is the man behind Pivot so we had to throw a leg over one of the frames ourselves. The line up is simple -- two models, the Mach 4 and Mach 5 which are 4 and 5” travel respectively. Pivot utilizes the DW Link suspension, which is matched with an interrupted seat tube design and accented with red pivot bolts and linkage that popped against the matte black and blue anodized finishes. One of the more unique features is a press fit BB bearing system that Pivot Cycles designed in conjunction with Shimano -- no need for cups, your cranks will install directly.

At the demo all the 5” bikes were on the trail so we opted for what we could get our hands on -- a Mach 4. Heading up the fire road towards the trail, clicking the pro-pedal on the RP23 on eliminated any bob and really stiffened up the suspension, but I clicked the pro-pedal off upon entering the single track. The bike felt nimble and quick handling on the trail, and it loved to be thrown through tight turns. The lateral stiffness was more than plenty to inspire confidence diving through rutted turns and climbing out of the saddle. The suspension was more on the stable side, than the plush side which would make for a great race bike. Half way through the ride, I had to stop and ask my riding partner, “Are you thinking what I am thinking?” He affirmed with a head nod, as if I never needed to ask the question in the first place. “This bike handles and feels almost identically to a Racer X!” Well with the correlation through Cocalis that shouldn’t be a surprise, but with the matte ano finishes, color selections, and outline decals, the whole package was overwhelmingly reminiscent to all the good things we love about Titus. It’s almost unfortunate as the redundancies somewhat overweighed the new innovations on the Pivot. Great bikes, nonetheless.

Speaking of great bikes, Titus introduced the highly anticipated El Guapo Ti. Despite its beefy titanium tubeset, Titus actually shaves a half pound from the aluminum version. Titus anodized the rocker a beautiful blue for a nice visual touch, specific to the EG Ti. The frame will feature a massive 1.5 head tube, and a size-specific top tube and down tube junction promises some awesome stiffness. It would be a perfect match with one of the new Chris King 1.5 headsets!

The Titus Racer X and Moto Lite will undergo a small tweak in construction. Titus decided to move all production on the Racer X and Moto Lite frames back to the US. This gives them more control over the production and an ability to utilize a 6069 series alloy shaped top tube featured on both bikes for 2008. The new material and shape of the top tube is claimed to reduce the tube's weight by 10% and increase rigidity by 18%. The new powder coats were gorgeous -- trust us when we tell you the photos don't do them justice!

After a couple demo rides it was time for some refreshment. Beers were aplenty and the folks at Fizik -- God love 'em -- brought out a full on "almost authentic" Gelateria. They even had bicycle powered Gelato cart, with Geoff Kabush supplying the motor. Very impressive! Although, the next night at the Vegas Cross, watching Kabush get yo-yoed off the break, we hoped his sponsors at Fizik hadn’t worked him too hard delivering Gelato to the masses.

Our good friends at Intense Cycles were buzzing as usual and with several of the new bikes that we have been hearing about, they had proto-type SS Slope Style and 5.5 29er. Also they had production version of the long awaited Spider FRO and a couple Spider 69er frames set up. We didn't get to ride the Spider FRO at dirt demo, but we gave the 5.5 FRO a good lashing. What a rocket -- lightweight, and we've gotta say that the VPP suspension was perfect for the terrain at Bootleg Canyon, gobbling up the few rocky corners, and exploding from the G-outs.

The Intense Works finish has been all the rage for Intense last year and for ’08 they will be offering a new custom option: Works Red -- a translucent gloss red coat over the Works finish. This was mad cool as you get the industrial feel of the Works with a red glossy coat to give a very refined, finished look. With the introduction of this new custom paint, Intense says goodbye to the Sparkle Silver, Gloss Black, British Racing Green, and Steel Blue custom paint options.

Ventana also streamlined their line as they plan to phase out the El Capitán, El Fuego and El Patrón. With the elimination of El Capitan, two new sizes are planned for the El Rey, a 23 and 25, each of which will feature a toned down x-brace style front triangle -- not quite as burly as the El Cap's.

Turner Suspension Bicycles had with them a proto of the newly revised Flux frame of which we were able to sneak a few spy photos. Turner never ceases to impress, and they obviously do not subscribe to the "if it ain't broke, don’t fix it" philosophy. The Flux is absolutely one of the most dialed 4” travel bikes we've ridden so we were more than curious to see what improvements had been made. To shave weight from the frame, Turner designed a whole new rear swingarm based off the Nitrous swing arm. Don’t be fooled -- this is not just a Nitrous swing arm on the Flux. They've beefed up the dropout bridges on the stays, etc. to ensure no durability was lost in the quest to shave grams. They coupled the new swingarm with a new reinforced rocker, same as those on the Sultan, to give the frame a step up in lateral stiffness to boot. All-in-all, the overall weight savings should be around .25lbs. Best of all, Turner expects to have the ’08 Flux frames on the way to dealers at the end of October.

It seems that every excess that can be produced in a carbon road frame can now be replicated on the mountain side. The new Carbon ASR from Yeti features a full carbon main triangle with a fully carbon integrated seat mast and carbon rocker. It’s a very intriguing and ambitious accomplishment for Yeti’s first full carbon frame.

Carbon, carbon, carbon -- the options seem limitless. DT Swiss had a plethora of new products to show, one of the more interesting offerings was their new forks. DT Swiss acquired Pace Suspension this year and have made some tweaks to the designs to offer a full line up for DT Swiss forks. The forks were sexy, complete with carbon lowers and lots of different travel options including some killer light 29er forks. Performance comes at a price though -- expect to see these sell for $1,000-1,300. Another neat product for weight weenies was their new DT Swiss Carbon Clincher wheelset weighing in at 1250g. Expect to see this rim and wheelset all over the World Cup race circuit this year. Do not expect to see them at your local trails.

The Crank Brothers booth was jammed every time we went by. These guys have been busy working on several new products -- headsets, cranksets, skewers and some pretty astonishing wheels to top things off. One look at the new hoops, and we realized these guys definitely took their best stab at reinventing the wheel. My question to Crank Brothers was how the heck they came up with such a radical design. They explained the whole process started at the rim. The goal was to build an already sealed tubeless rim. This means there can be no spoke holes. Instead of going the Mavic route, using grommets to hold the nipples inside the rim, they decided to take things one step further and leave the rim section completely undrilled to provide a stiffer, more durable hoop. This brought them to designing a rim with a flange, to which they attach a stainless U-shaped spoke to the flange. Coming from the hub, a straight-pull aluminum spoke run to join the stainless spokes at the center of the wheel. The aluminum spokes then act as the nipple and the point at which the wheel can be trued up.

Ironically, one of the simplest items at Crank Brothers booth seemed to get the most questions. The new Crank Brothers Quick Release skewer featured a double lever system, which made me scratch my head at first glance. The double lever makes a two step closure system. This divides the force needed to close each lever in half, making opening and closing less difficult and easier put good amount of force on the dropouts.

We love to ride, but it can be difficult to look cool on the bike! When buying jerseys etc. you are either stuck with some over pretentious road race team kit, or some sort of cereal box character, or "patriotic frog" Primal type jersey. Most of us aren’t pushing the front peleton and impressing anyone with great feats of fitness nor are we rear-view-mirror-using recumbent riders. Twin Six displayed an array of original jerseys and accessories that seemed to match our personality and sense of fashion. Argyle print jerseys that are form-fitting and performance oriented, but stylishly relaxed, help remind us that we are here to ride hard, but most importantly have fun.

We also were very excited to see Industry Nine finalize their offering for road wheels. The same hub and spoke concept we know and love from the mountain bike wheels apply again to the road wheels: straight pull alloy spokes, lightening quick hub engagement delivering incredible stiffness and durability. The big changes will be that instead of using round spoke the will be pressed into a bladed shape for an aerodynamic edge. They will be lacing to a carbon clincher rim from Edge Composites, for a wheel build in the sub 1200g range! We expect this set up to be available in the next 4-6 weeks and of course with I-9 custom color options and a wide variety of rim options will be available on a special order basis.

Our good friends at Swobo have been ultra busy designing a wide array of new products that push them way beyond the niche wool cycling sorts and jerseys. We were excited to see many additions to their casual wear including Merino Origins T’s, Merino Sunday Bobby that are available now, as well as killer organic cotton hoodies and some very nice looking bamboo button down shirts (yes, bamboo) that we hope to see soon. On the bike side they have added the Swobo Novak, which will roll on a 700c wheel with 3 speed internal hub, stock fender and rim brakes. Also the Swobo Dixon, which is a modified Otis with a lighter colored paint finish using a 9 speed internal hub & disc brakes.