Thanks for joining us for Day Two’s coverage of Interbike’s Outdoor Demo. We will continue with an overview of the show with more detailed reports to come later.

Interbike Outdoor Demo Day #2 by Guitar Ted

Going back into the dust and wind of Bootleg Canyon for another dose of 29″er goodness. This is what we found and rode on Day #2…….

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Fuji Outland 29: Fuji has made an Outland 29 FS before, but they were rare and had to find. This time around Fuji is set to change all that. This isn’t a big travel, especially light, or earth shattering rig in terms of technology, but I found it to be a competent rig. Look for a full ride report to come.

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Rocky Mountain Vertex: Rocky Mountain folks told me this bike was a “home run” for them in 2010 and they expect it will continue to sell well in 2011. This is the 2011 version and for the suggested retail just south of $1300.00, it’s hard to argue with that statement.  This bike rides quite nicely with a neutral handling, solid feeling front end and yes, your “typical” aluminum rear end feel.

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Turner Sultan: The Turner Sultan has been tweaked slightly and now comes in anodized colors. They went over the bike in great detail with us and some of the details will make the Sultan more of a “trail” bike and less “XC”. Here are a few of those details……..

DSCF6774 The head tube is the newer 44mm type which allows you to run Cane Creek’s, (or some other companies.), 1.5″ external cup and inset 1 1/8th” upper cup, (as shown), or a straight 1 1/8th”steer tube with an inset type headset. This also allows you to tweak the head tube angle slightly. Turner told us it would amount to half a degree. The head tube angle is now relaxed to 69.5, which Turner believes will allow the bike to handle tougher trails and realize their design as a “trail” category rig.

The bottom bracket was also tweaked to be slightly lower. We also noted the reshaped brace at the seat tube/top tube junction. Turner designed the bike to use a 120mm fork, but we also learned that they fully expect that folks will be using the new 140mm Rock Shox on it as well. We are working on getting a test rig for a short review and hopefully will be using the Rock shox 140mm fork on it we also are testing. Stay tuned….

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Scott 949: The Scott 949 was in attendance and was demoed throughout the day leaving us without a ride on his fine looking carbon rig. We learned every frame is guaranteed to weigh 949 grams or less, with every frame having its weight marked under the bottom bracket. That’s pretty bold. DSCF6766Cool details abound on this wunder-frame. The brake mount, the rear drop outs, and the massive Press Fit 30 bottom bracket junction which should make this bike a very efficient ride.

The bike was a hit from all accounts and we expect that this and the lower priced carbon frame from Scott will be seen on the XC circuit all across North America.

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SR Suntour “Epicon” 29″ Fork: SR Suntour, who will have a North American headquarters and distribution, are offering a line of aftermarket suspension fork products including this 29″er fork. This fork, dubbed the “Epicon”, will be available in 100 and 80mm versions with a 15QR axle.

DSCF6753The fork, which features a magnesium lower and taper wall aluminum stanchions felt reasonably light in the hand. It has a unique self contained cartridge damper system that can be easily removed and replaced if need be. For folks that like tuning forks, we were told that a circlip is inside the damper cartridge that can be moved incrementally into successive slots to realize travel from 100 to 90mm, 85mm, and so on.

The trick 15QR through axle releases by flipping the quick release type lever on one end, and then by pinching back a collar, much like an air chuck on an air tool, which allows the through axle to pass through the hub and fork to free the wheel. One caveat: This won’t work unless the bore is 15mm all the way through the hub. Hubs that only have the 15mm end caps with an open internal area will cause a bit of a problem.

In other fork news we discovered that RST is coming back to North America with a presence and a new, updated M-29 fork. They didn’t have any solid details, but were promising lower weight, better performance, and even a lower price than the original RST M-29, which we liked pretty well. Look for a possible test to develope between these two forks in the future.

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Haro Bikes: The Haro 29″ers are back without the single speed Mary anymore and a redesigned aluminum hard tail with some swoopy aluminum tubes. Both these bikes had great rear tire clearances and looked pretty sharp.

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KHS Bikes: KHS Bikes was showing these two rigs, but I didn’t see anything test rideable, since they were small sizes. The Yuma looked to have an aluminum frame and was a basic hard tail while the Prescott was a unique purplish-maroon full suspension design. We will see if we can track down some more info indoors at Interbike. By the way, the 650B bike is still be shown in the line up as well.

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SE Bikes showed the “Big Ripper” with linear pull brakes and a BMX inspired look.

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One More FatBack: Greg Matyas of Speedway Cycles was pushing around this swoopy, cruiser inspired fat bike that belongs to Dave Zabriskie. Yes……..that roadie guy! Apparently he’s a bit busy at the moment and allowed Greg to show off this fancy rig made of titanium.

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And Speaking Of The Road….. This Raleigh International was too sweet not to ride. Hey…..road bikes can be pretty cool too! :)

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Norco’s Shinobi was briefly seen in the Norco tent. This is their long travel rig and looks pretty refined since the prototype was shown earlier in April.

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Cruising In Style: And we leave Outdoor Demo in Bootleg Canyon for the last time. Santa Cruz does it on this cool, rail road inspired vintage bus! See ya indoors with more reports, coming your way soon!