One of the more fun things to do here is to poke around into all the unusual nooks and crannies to see all the crazy stuff people hawk here. Once in awhile, you actually uncover a surprise or two!

I poked my head into the J&B Importers booth. They are a distributor for independant bike shops here in the U.S.A. Well, lo and behold, they had 29″er stuff! Their in house brand, Origin 8, is going to have a steel 4130 29″er frame set that is quite unusal. It reminded me at first of an old Eastern Woods Research frame with a severely sloping top tube that flowed right into the seat stays, which were at an extremely low angle and in line with the top tube. To support the seat mast, there was a short tube running from the seat collar down to the sloping top tube. Really different and it offers boatloads of standover clearance. The frame continues on with unusual details like horizontal, plate style rear drop outs that incorporated a derailluer hangar. Very burly looking and looked to be able to withstand alot of abuse. The frame has downtube routed cable stops by the way. Also, and probably most stunning, both the frame and 4130 unicrown fork have two brake bosses for 26 or 29 inch wheel use! Crazy! No geometry details were available yet, but I can’t imagine the bottom bracket height would be too good in 26″ mode. So, a single speed or geared frame with a choice of 26 or 29 inch wheels! A true “do it all” frame!

The fun didn’t stop there either. They also showed a carbon/aluminum constucted front fork. Rigid, 29″er only, disc only or disc/canti versions, and all at 770 grams with an uncut steerer! The fork crown and drop outs were black forged aluminum bits with an aluminum steer tube. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. Approximate retails for the frame and steel fork should be in the Karate Monkey range, while the carbon/ aluminum fork should be a bit more than $350.00. All are slated to become available in the Spring of ‘07.

I also stopped by the Velocity booth. They make some fairly decent rims that I’ve built wheels out of since the 90’s. Aeroheat anyone? Well, they showed those rims in a multitude of powdercoated colors, and even one sample was in a pastel blue. They also showed me a prototype disc only rim for 29″er use. 26mm wide in the rim well, no eyelets, and it will also recieve the powder coat traetment. They expect rims to be out for sale by the Spring of ‘07, as well.

Finally, and a little more single speed related, I found that AC Components were still kicking about. A company that used to make really cool cranks, hubs, and other bits back in the “CNC Era” of mountainbiking is still at it with really cool cranks in square taper, ISIS, or outboard bearing designs in several lengths. They have alot of 110 BCD chainrings in unusual sizes like 35T and 37T, along with other traditional sizes. The real cool thing was that you can get alot of this stuff in ano colors like purple, green, blue, gold, and red! Viva La 90’s!

More pics will be uploaded sometime…….maybe yet today. Stay tuned!