After a couple of mind numbing shows, we were pleasantly surprised by many cool, innovative new products this year. Here’s a few:
Electronic Dura Ace: Ok, the first person you know to buy this group will be mocked. It’s a solution looking for a problem. Why put a battery on a perfectly good bike? Say what you will about it, but getting on the bike and trying it out was really really cool. Shifts were light and fast, and the front derailer auto trim was amazing. I bet every ProTour Shimano team will run this group on their TT bikes with a version that lets you shift from the aerobars and handlebars.
Look crank: Here’s another cool thing that we may never see on the road. It’s only available on one bike right now, and a damn expensive one at that. But you can’t deny how clever it is. Could this be the shape of all cranks in the future?
Cervelo P4: Form follows function on Cervelo TT bikes more than any other brand. Orbea has their ridiculous stealth fighter facets, Look has a bent top tube which they admit is purely for aesthetics, many bikes use swooping, rippled tubes where straight and round would suffice, the list goes on. The P4 might be kinda fugly, it might be only incrementally better than the P3, but you can’t deny that every little change was made with a purpose.
Park Workbench: It’s light, it folds up real flat, it has wheels. You can put a bike on it with all your tools laid out on the table.Â
Pedros chain whip: It’s just so damn clever.
Schmalz comments in italics.
Good stuff, but what about the new (non-electronic) Dura-Ace?
heres a ? that I dont know the answer to.maybe somebody can help me
figured it out.
why are some countries are allow to wear their sponsors on the shorts
like Rabobank they are Dutch. Latto are Belgium.
but we the USA dont have a sponsor on are shorts
What gives??
I wanna know
oh I can wait the stories from Vegas
Andy Dan did some thing happen
cheers
MQ
That P4 is still one of the ugliest bikes ever made.
there’s actually a little nano motor in the cassette body powered by the battery. it gives the rider an little turbo boost of 30 watts.
Two questions:
1. Did the Cervelo goon notice his photo was on the right shoulder of Schmalz’s bowling shirt? Maybe he was just trying to get a better look.
2. Did this mean Schmalz didn’t get his annual Vroomen-White lapdance at the Spearmint Rhino?
I heard he was inviting Schmalz our back for a blumpkin.
The blumpkin invites were just relentless in Vegas.
Were you able to keep within a 100 yard minimum distance of Liz Hatch or did you get tazed, bro?
It was sad to have to have the restraining order enacted against Liz.
Looks like Cervelo jumped the shark with this one…
… and not a dime to buy it with. Thank you republicans.
Blame yourself for being born in the US. Better yet, blame your parents. I like to blame George Washington, the original tax-dodging rich whiteboy. I’ll bet he had no trouble getting a German Drasseine shipped to him tariff-free, courtesy of his buddy Lafayette.
Or blame Foundation, that’s the usual knee-jerk
actually, is the replublicans fault. So I’ll blame them.
Meanwhile:
for starters, defend the last eight years
What a podium shot! Do they race with neoprene seat cushions? Sit/stand/jump/one leg/one arm/sweat it out…ooo…like that…visualize you have won the team-all-once award!!!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
its a man, man! He works for Dr. Evil!
http://www.king5.com/video/index.html?nvid=285097
omg that p4 is seriously ugly. they really can’t pretend people will ride that crappy looking frame.
I wonder if Shimano learned from Mavic’s experience with electric shifters. First thing I notice is that Shimano is using wires. The first gen of Mavic electric derailleurs, Zap, used wires and they had lots of problems with the wires and sealing them where they entered the derailleur. After that Mavic went wireless, Mektronic, and I think those worked better, but still failed. I think Shimano will be better because the motor shifts the derailleur the same way a cable would. The Mavic used the jockey pulley wheel to provide the power to shift the derailleur. That is also why Mavic could use a small battery and the Shimano system uses a fairly large battery.
The Look crank looks clever. They now use the same crank/BB mounting method found on $50 toy store bikes. Not necessarily a bad thing. The one piece crank can be stronger and lighter than other cranks. What could suck is that this requires a new BB standard, or maybe they use the Ashtabula standard size. If you get one of these frames and the standard doesn’t catch on, then you are stuck with a very expensive frame that you can’t get parts for. Ask all the folks who bought nice Kleins and Merlins with pressed in bearings about this. The variable crank length is very clever, and simple. I like that.
Any more pictures and stories coming?
Its all fun and games till someone strips a “bottom bracket”!
1. “Did the Cervelo goon notice his photo was on the right shoulder of Schmalz’s bowling shirt?” Good observation, very funny.
2. There are no other electronic parts on a bike. Yeah, a computer, clock, SRM, or HRM…but these don’t effect the OPERATION of the bike. None of them can improve performance in any way except by providing information to the rider. But the electronic shifting seems kind of wrong…not like a mini-motor on the rear wheel but a tiny step in the same direction. Am I missing something here?