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Tech update – November 17, 2002
Edited by Paul Mirtschin
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USPS to use Sci-Con bike bags for 2003 and 2004.
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U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team have chosen Sci-Con's Aero-Comfort soft travel case as their travel case of choice for the 2003 racing season. In addition to USPS, The Navigators as well as the Colavita Bolla professional teams have also chosen to continue using this case in the upcoming seasons.
The Sci-Con Aero-Comfort case is favored by teams because of its ease of use and flexibility. The case fits one bike and a spare pair of wheels without removing the seat, pedals, or handlebar/stem. When not in use, the Aero-Comfort case folds to a minimal size of 300mm x 275mm x 900mm (12" x 11" x 36") for easy storage. Packing time for a bike and spare wheels is around five minutes.
The Aero-Comfort case features an adjustable metal protective frame to which the front and rear dropouts attach, and rubberized wheels on steel ball-bearing casters for easy transport, and is suitable for airline, train, bus, and car travel. We will have a review of the Sci-Con bag in the coming weeks. RRP on the Aero-Comfort case is US$325.
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How fast is U.S. Postal?
Lance Armstrong and the rest of the USPS team will soon know just how fast they are moving. The USPS cycling team have signed on to use the CicloSport HAC 4 cyclometer until the end of 2004.
The HAC 4 has two settable heart rate target zones, recovery heart rate, cumulative altitude gain, percentage grade, current altitude, power output, stopwatch, split times, temperature reading and more. If Lance didn't know everything about his performance before, he will now.
Hutchinson to supply rubber for Quick Step
Tire manufacturer Hutchinson has signed the Quick Step pro cycling team, for the 2003 season. Quick Step, currently the top ranked UCI team, is added to a rather impressive list of teams sponsored by Hutchinson; U.S. Postal Service, ONCE and CSC Tiscali.
This will give Hutchinson four of the top ten ranked road teams entering the 2003 season. The top three teams in the 2002 Tour de France all rode on Hutchinson rubber.
Maxxis Joins 7 UP for 2003
Maxxis International recently announced that it will team up with the U.S.-based professional cycling team 7 UP for the 2003 calendar year.
Maxxis has enjoyed worldwide success during the last ten years in mountain bike racing, sponsoring a number of riders and recently adding its name to two race series in Europe. Maxxis announced that in 2003 it will begin to focus more on grassroots programs, cross country mountain biking as well as road cycling.
"Maxxis has been making road tires since 1967 and we feel that we need to come back and support the road community in the United States and 7 UP has provided us with a great opportunity" said Chance Regina, Maxxis' bicycle marketing coordinator.
Details of the sponsorship have not been released but it is expected 7 UP will begin riding Maxxis tires from the start of January
Intense to release the Spider
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After months of "will they or won't they", Intense Cycles have decided to release the Spider XVP frameset. Available in a cross country design, the frameset utilises the Virtual Pivot Point design under license from Outland Sports.
Both Intense Cycles and Santa Cruz took the bike industry by suprise when they both announced early this year that they would be releasing bikes utilising the VPP design.
While Santa Cruz went with the VPP design for both its 4.5 inch travel Blur and the 10 inch travel VP10, Intense have decided to stick to just the one initial release, the four inch travel Spider XVP. The frame comes in at 2.3 kilograms and uses a proprietary tubeset by Easton.
An actual release date isn't known at this time, but expect to see a number of riders on this bike in the coming months.
OnePointFive for Headshock?
In reply to our report on Cannondale's Headshock not being backward compatible with the new OnePointFive headset standard, Cane Creek have sent us news of their new Cane Creek Double X Short and Double XC Short headsets that will fit into all Cannondale Headshock compatible frames, other than the Cannondale Raven, without the use of any adapters. The new Short headsets have a shallower insertion depth on the headset cups to allow them to fit.
The OnePointFive standard cups use a 20mm insertion depth while Headshock cups have a 10mm depth.
This means that most Cannondale owners can indeed use the three OnePointFive standard forks on offer from Answer/Manitou.
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