Here’s some more tidbits from the Outdoor Demo for ya’all to peruse. It’s massively dusty and hot here, but hey….it’s a day on a bike, so it’s all good!

Sometimes the trail obstacles were alive!

I had a chance to ride this Kona full suspension 29″er. It is an interesting bike that definitely has possibilities as a XC/light trail/Endurance rig. Kona had this one set up as a XC-ish rig with the Shimano 29″er wheels and 2.1 rubber. I felt that the choice of wheel was holding this bike back a bit. Otherwise it seemed to be a capable rig. The suspension was very plush in the back and perhaps a bit mismatched with the front which felt a bit harsher in comparison. Of course, playing with settings and some tuning may bring the best out of this interesting rig. As it was set up for me, I didn’t think it was taking advantage of what the design seemed to have on offer.

Twenty Sixer Alert!: Don’t read on if a 26″er chaps yer hide, mmkay? Here we have Gary Fisher Bike’s newest trail bike, the Roscoe. Now why in the world do you think I would be riding this bike? (Think: The Future). The Roscoe was a really fun trail bike with an incredibly stiff frame, plush suspension, and the ABP brake pivot system, which I found to be extremely effective at reducing the rear brake chatter going into corners. Perhaps……just maybe someday we’ll be seeing something like this with a bit bigger wheels coming from Fisher. It would only make the design better, of course!

Now, back to a proper big wheeled bike! The Fisher Superfly is pretty well known out there. I rode this bike to get a baseline for another carbon hard tail I’ll report on later. The Superfly was a rocket! Climbing was a breeze, noticeably easier than anything else I had ridden on the day. The other thing I noticed was that the frame felt efficient, yet it wasn’t beating back on me as a really stiff frame is often wont to do. The wheels felt better than I recalled Race X Lites feeling. When I asked “Demo Ken” Derrico at the Trek/Fisher tent what was up with that, I was told that the Race X Lite now uses a new Scandium enhanced aluminum rim. It definitely felt stiffer than the previous generation of Race X lite 29″er wheels.

Check back later for more Interbike 2008 reports coming soon!