Interbike 2012: Photo Dump!

Photo Dump!- by Guitar Ted

As we begin to wind down our Interbike coverage for another year, we often have several photos that don’t really fit into any singular category, story, or trend. So with that in mind, here is a photo dump from Interbike showing you things we found interesting, just because!

We figured it was only a matter of time before Pivot would render its popular 429 model in carbon. Featuring the hollow box molding technology it uses on the Carbon Mach 5.7, the bike has gained strength and stiffness over the alloy version, as claimed by Pivot. Pivot also took the opportunity to revise the geometry and DW Link suspension to further refine this model. Geometry reads pretty well with a 70.3° head angle, a 72.9° seat tube angle and 17.65″ long chain stays.

Rear travel is 100mm and the bike is rated for 100mm or 120mm suspension forks. The frame features 142 X 12mm drop outs, a 160mm rotor rating, and post mount style brake caliper mounts. The bike is offered in seven build specifications and is available in either Team Green, or Natural Carbon with Red accents.

A hard tail Pivot? Yes, and a very cool one to boot. This new hard tail model features Pivot’s own “Swinger System” drop out which allows an indexed chain tensioning in case you want to run the Les as a single speed. The geared drop out is a 142 X 12 through axle and geared cable set up runs internally with easier routing provided by the bottom bracket located access port.

On the flip side of Pivot’s booth at Interbike was BH Bikes, which is no surprise, since these two brands have had a relationship for sometime. In the U.S., BH has been pretty much strictly triathlon and road oriented, but in Europe, they do have a mountain bike line. Well, to our surprise, BH is now bringing the hard tails over to these shores and here we have an interesting model called Zenith.

The Zenith is a hydro-formed aluminum frame with an integrated head set, direct mount front derailleur, and 440mm/17.32″ long chain stays. This is matched with a head tube angle of 70° and a seat tube angle of 72.5°. The Zenith XT Pro lists at MSRP $1699.00USD.

The flagship of BH’s new 29″er hard tail line up is this, the “Ultimate”. Featuring a 142 X 12 rear drop out, internal cable routing, and a BB92 bottom bracket, it ticks all the XC rocketship boxes. The Ultimate XT Pro lists at MSRP $4999.00USD.

While it isn’t the steel hard tail Grannygear and I were hoping for, (maybe we’re just too “Old Skool”! ), Breezer has come out with a fine looking single speed steed called the Thunder One. This aluminum hard tail features an eccentric bottom bracket, D’fusion tubing, a Rock Shox Reba RL fork, and the same, tight handling Breezer geometry we’ve tested on their bikes before. This should be a single track burner. By the way- it’s also available as a frame set for those wanting to upgrade their single speed with a new frame.

Like we said in our BMC Special Report, BMC is going to make a bigger push into the U.S. We sure like the way this full suspension bike looks. In fact, our own c_g will be testing a Fourstroke soon. Stay tuned…

The Gates Carbon Drive booth had several cool bicycles in it. Amongst those was this “REEB”- (read that backwards ), single speed. This is a small company in Colorado associated with Dales Pale Ale brewing company.

I liked the raw look and that head badge is pretty awesome as well. More info on “REEB” can be found on their website here. Of course, the bike was set up with the Gates Carbon Drive Center Track. The chain stay lengths on these are a short-ish 17.3 inches and the bike comes in small through XL sizes.

Also sitting in Gates booth was this green machine from 9 Zero 7 sporting the Gates Carbon Drive Center Track and the new 45NRTH Dillinger studded fat bike tires. The curvy green beast was a stunning bike to behold.

While companies like KHS, Jamis, and Scott were pushing the 27.5″er size and showing models, they weren’t betting the farm on the wheel size, as evidenced by most of these companies showing a full line up of 29″ers, and even some new models. Some were still showing full lines of 26 inch wheeled bikes. What this says, we’re not sure, but it seemed kind of odd to us.

While Interbike is better known as a trade show for the industry, and is populated by brands big and small, you will still sometimes run into small, owner/operator brands. In this case, we ran into a custom bike builder from Tennessee named Richie Moore.

The affable Mr. Moore has worked several years as a titanium frame fabricator for two other well known Tennessee based frame builders and Moore’s current gig is with his own company called Cysco Cycles. This titanium single speed certainly showed his abilities to shape and fabricate the grey metal. Grannygear and I were pretty impressed with this one, worthy of a NAHBS appearance certainly. Not something we expected to find in the basement of the Sands Convention Center, that’s for sure!

The full suspension bike in Redline’s booth was a total surprise. First that it was a Redline, but secondly that it was a high single pivot design, or was it…. Looking closely down there one can see a mini-link running from the swing arm to the seat tube. Pretty interesting for sure. Redline dubs it the “Binary Link”. (Note: Click on the image to enlarge it.)

The bike was well spec’ed with Shimano drive train parts and Fox shocks front and rear. Novatec wheels did the spinning here and those were shod with Rapid Rob Schwalbe tires.

Tom Ritchey is celebrating a big anniversary in frame building this year, having wielded the torch for 40 years now. This 1977 fillet brazed frame fitted with the then rare 650B knobby tires was an exercise in finding a more ideal wheel size than the much more common 26″ers of the day. The difficulty in procuring these tires and the advent of aluminum rims to fit 26″ers pretty much sealed the bigger wheels fate back then. The 650B/27.5 wheel size was pretty much dead from that point until until recently.

Ergon made quite a splash with this new seat post design in carbon fiber. While it isn’t being touted for mountain biking, we love the idea of a compliant seat post for hard tails and can’t imagine something like this wouldn’t be of interest to the XC/Trail crowd.

The design, the CF3 model, is made up of two separate pieces of carbon which at the bottom mate to form the round cross section of a traditional seat post. These two pieces split away from each other above the point where they exit the frame to form, what is in effect, two leaf springs. These are attached on top by the seat clamp assembly which pivots. This allows the saddle to remain level despite the flexure rearwards when a force is applied to the rear wheel by a road irregularity. Pretty trick stuff here.

Ergon designed the post with help from the engineers at Canyon Bikes who have been helping Ergon with the carbon lay up and testing of this new product.

Another new product for Ergon is this premium grip, the GP1 BioLeder. Ergon takes leather from certified organic raised cows from Barvaria that is tanned with organic substances and then bonds it into the grip as it is being made. This process is something entirely new and requires no stitching of the leather. London leather manufacturer Quoc Pham helped Ergon to achieve this technology in their grips.

The grip feels really good in the hand due to the supple, soft leather feel. I can’t vouch for the durability of this design, but it is quite luxurious to the touch, that I can say! Ergon also debuted a grip with a slight cant to the paddle section to make it more “swept bar” friendly. The model name for this new grip is GC1. Also new for Ergon are a racing saddle for the road, and a new back pack dubbed the BA3 Super Enduro with 15L of capacity. Need something bigger? Ergon also introduced the BX4, a “24L + 3L” capacity rucksack for the epic journey on a mountain bike.

Okay, that’s a wrap on the odds and ends from Interbike. look for another Special Report, and then we hand the reigns to Grannygear this year for the pick of the Best Of Show for 2012.