In an effort to be thorough here at “The Lab”, I am scouring for every bit of news on things going on here. The weather is starting to come around a bit, so we’re gearing up for more riding and testing at Twenty Nine Inches.
More on Geax’s newest Saguaro tire versions.
Saguaro TNT and UST Tires: We are starting to ride the Geax Saguaro TNT and Saguaro UST tires again in varied conditions. Look for an update coming soon. The UST version holds air really well without sealant, by the way.
We’re really digging the Maxle Lite on the Reba team we’re testing.
Rock Shox Reba Team 29″er with Maxle Lite: We’re really liking this fork so far. Everything the old Reba had that was good and none of the bad. Plus, the Maxle Lite is all that and a bag-o-chips. We’ll get to thrashing on this fork some more real soon and give ya’all a long term update on it’s performance.
Future Arrivals: While I don’t like to give away everything on what’s going on in the future, I will say that Twenty Nine Inches has some pretty cool products lined up to get tested in the coming months. Besides the things I mentioned in the last post, we will have a bike hitting the Lab to test made out of that “magical gray metal”. Also, there should be another wheelset on test in the coming months. We are really excited about the potential for a test on a new FS rig and on a rigid fork that is pretty rad. Stay tuned for more this spring……..
News!: The rumored Shimano 12-36T cassette has been confirmed along with a hub to match. A hub? Yes…….a hub! It seems that Shimano is concious of the fact that a 36T cog will be generating a lot of torque, so there is a hub that will mate up with this cassette that reportedly has a beefier freehub body and ratcheting mechanism. Check out this thread on Mountain Bike Review for more on these items.
In response to gearing you can built your crankset to be 29 specific. You can go old school and use 5 bolt and square taper , this is cheapest or go with action tech for the modern outboard setups. Also what is the reba travel ? Sounds cold over there time for antifreeze. Keep up the great site and happy trails from NM.
dan: For sure, I’d love to be riding in NM right about now!
The Reba we’re testing has 120mm travel.
I know there is supposed to a new hub, for rhe 12-36 cassette, any word on it fitting the regular hubs?
A guy on MTBR is right, this cassette would Rock on the Fargo!
Desert9er: That’s a great question on the hub. I looked at the picture, and there is no visual indications that it would be a proprietary set up. I’ll see if I can find out more soon.
I want that freehub. I’m a big guy and I trash one or two XT freehubs every year. I’ve learned that I cannot stand and mash in the granny. It will rip up the pawls.
29″ also “calls” for more clicks in the rear hub, per rotation. Wonder if they’ll correct fort that; too.
Hi Ted!
What tire is it that we can see in the second picture?
Lionel: That is a Specialized Eskar 2.3″ tire. We did a series of reports on Specialized tires recently, if you want to look at that, here is a link to one of the several reports: http://twentynineinches.com/2008/12/14/specialized-29er-tires-a-mid-west-round-up/