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Interbike show
Las Vegas, USA, September 26-30, 2005
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Part 5
Road coverage, Day 1: Outdoor Demo
Bootleg Canyon, Boulder City, Nevada, September 26-28
By James Huang
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Interbike's Outdoor Demo not only had a wealth of high-end off-road machines ready to roll, but also a host of premium road machines available for viewing and riding. The prescribed road test course was short in length, but at least it was closed to traffic and was fully supported by the Mavic neutral support crew.
Naturally, the main objective of the companies that had set up booths was to highlight their new bikes, but if one were to look carefully enough, the Outdoor Demo also provided a good opportunity to preview 'new-for-2006' componentry with which those bikes were equipped. Many smaller companies either didn't have official booths set up or shared space in order to minimize costs, but there was plenty of boutique stuff to be seen.
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Cervelo provided plenty of 'wow factor' with their P3 TT machine and Soloist carbon frame, always a hit among fans, particularly considering Dave Zabriskie's stint in yellow during the Tour de France aboard one of the Cervelo steeds.
Serotta made sure wish lists grew longer with their new carbon fibre number, the Meivici, making use of traditional-style lugs so it's instantly recognisable as a Serotta. It's the company's first all-carbon frame, weighing in at about 1100g, which is extremely competitive considering their 'rootsy' methods of construction.
Zipp and Race Face gave us a look at their crankset offerings for 2006, both of which made impressive viewing. Race Face has gone for additions like externally-mounted BB bearings, whereas Zipp has upped the weight stakes with a complete crankset package weighing in at 450g. Sweet but very pricey.
Photography
For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here
Images by James Huang/Cyclingnews.com
- Thirsty? The hot and dry climate out at Bootleg Canyon was made a little less brutal by Chris, Rich, and Cliff of PacificHealth Laboratories who were kind enough to bring nearly 100 ice-cold gallons of their new Accelerade sports drink, with fatigue-fighting and recovery-enhancing whey protein.
- The mega-aero “seat tube” is tightly tucked around the rear wheel in an effort to reduce aerodynamic drag to an absolute minimum.
- Zoom-zoom!
- Cervelo’s Soloist Carbon frame uses an absolutely massive amount of carbon fiber in the BB area.
- The Soloish Carbon is the frame of choice for much of Bjarne Riis’s CSC team and offers an aero frame that is light enough for climbing stages.
- The Epiphany is a new 5.25” travel frame from the folks at Ellsworth. Ellsworth promises frame weights comparable to their 4” travel Truth, but with an extra bit of travel and better lateral rigidity out back.
- The German folks at Ergon are paying an awful lot of attention to hand physiology and pressure points. Their grip design allegedly provides nearly 100% palm support to alleviate nerve pressure.
- Like many other carbon frames Felt’s F1C uses an immense amount of carbon fiber at the bottom bracket for efficient power transfer.
- Felt’s F1C incorporates a tidy looking headtube assembly.
- Felt’s top of the line road frameset is the carbon fibre F1C. US$5600 buys you roughly 15lbs of go-fast goodness.
- Felt’s RXC Team is built around a Scandium frame with carbon seatstays and serves as yet another reminder that the hardtail is alive and well.
- The Flybar is certainly not your granddaddy’s pogo stick at up to $230 for the top-level model. Bounce around as high as you can muster all day if you like…
- …or just pull a backflip in mid-flight as Flybar’s Chewy Call neatly executes here!
- One of Giant’s crew displays their Trinity TT/Tri bike, which is essentially the production version of the frames that the T-Mobile squad was running last season.
- Race Face enters into the road crankset market with their new Cadence model.
- As with their other X-Type cranksets Race Face’s new Cadence road crankset uses externally-mounted bottom bracket bearings and a huge hollow spindle.
- Rotor’s Eggrings promise increased power output at the sweet spot in your pedaling stroke while minimising the dead zone. Unlike other elliptical chainrings currently out on the market, Rotor’s rings are tunable to match a rider’s particular power output profile. Thankfully, the Eggrings are also pinned and ramped to retain quality shifting. Road and mountain versions are both available.
- The Salsa Primera is the first production frame using True Temper’s stellar S3 tubeset. At less than 3lbs for an average-sized frame, US$1540 seems like a veritable bargain, especially when you consider that it also includes an Alpha Q carbon fork, too!
- Even though the lugs are carbon fiber Serotta still manages to make them look pretty.
- Serotta’s Meivici uses a traditional separate head tube-plus-lugs construction unlike many other carbon frames, which allows for a nearly limitless range of head tube lengths.
- The Meivici lugs are internally CNC-machined to not only provide an accurate mating surface for the tubes, but the internal machining is also what affords Serotta the ability to do custom frame angles in full carbon.
- Serotta is launching their first full-carbon frame for 2006 with completely customisable geometry. Carbon tube-and-lug construction offers manufacturing flexibility at about 1100g for an average frame.
- Slingshot has quietly continued to chug along all these years with their unique mid-frame suspension design. For 2006, we finally see the release of their aluminum-framed version which should be both stiffer and significantly lighter than earlier steel versions.
- Might I recommend the new Zipp 300 carbon crankset if you’ve got $750USD burning a hole in your pocket? At 450g, complete with rings and mounting hardware, this may very well be the lightest production crankset around. If you’ve got another $250, you may also want to pick up one of Zipp’s matching ISIS splined bottom bracket, complete with superwide roller bearings and titanium spindle.
- Zipp’s ZSL bar offers an ergonomic fit in a 165g oversized package. I’ll take two, please...
