Although much of North America is under winter’s icy grip, the news of wagon wheelers and components is not frozen. Here are the latest things to have crossed the radar of Twenty Nine Inches………

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Giant Scuttles Proposed Model: The news that Giant was to enter the market with a 29″er earlier in the year was only surpassed by the announcement of an “Alliance” framed model that was to feature an “all purpose” drop out. The carbon/aluminum composite frame was to be compatible with a geared, single speed, or belt drive set up. Unfortunately, Giant was not pleased with the testing of the drop out and deemed it “not ready for prime time”. As for now, no news on whether this model might re-appear or be scuttled entirely. We were told that there would be much to be excited about for 2011 though.

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New VooDoo: VooDoo Cycles introduced a new steel frame on their blog recently dubbed the “Soukri”, which means “Sacred Temple”. The frame is a Reynolds 631 steel model with new gusset designs and the ability to be geared, single speed, disc, or linear pull brake in set up. The geometry features suspension compatibility with 100-120mm forks. Most sizes come with a 72 degree head angle with the exception of the smallest and largest sizes which go one degree slacker on the smaller size and a half degree steeper on the largest, which is an XL. Don’t expect to see one of these in 3D until next year sometime.

New Continental Tire Model?: That’s right. We’re hearing more rumors that a new Conti tire for 29″ers is in development. based on the Rubber Queen/Trail King designs. It is rumored that it will be a 2.4″er and made for aggressive trail riders. We’ve liked Conti tires in the past and if you can be patient enough to let them stretch- which they do more than any other tires we’ve ridden- then the width and performance is very satisfactory. No word on when this new tread would be available, but we’re betting spring 2010 will bring some good news.

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Woodchipper To Be Out Soon: Salsa Cycles introduced the Woodchipper off road drop bar design to the world at Interbike this past September and now the news is that this bar will be hitting the U.S. any day now. Twenty Nine Inches will have a Woodchipper on test soon, so stay tuned for that. In other Salsa related news, we are hearing rumblings of big changes for the brand with new introductions coming in February at Salsa Cycles parent companies late winter show called Frostbike. Nothing for certain is known at this time, but the feeling here at Twenty Nine Inches is that Salsa Cycles will be surprising a lot of folks in 2010. Stay tuned……….