Ragley mmmbop

Nirvana Cycles have built up one of their Ragley mmmbop frames as a test bike. The medium (18”) frame in “Quick Lime” green looks quite nice but check it out in real life before forming an opinion. As lovely as my photos are, they may not give a fully accurate representation of the colour. Components of interest include NC-17 flat pedals and a 2010 Marzocchi 44RC3 Ti...better be amazing for a fork approaching £700. Anyway, it seemed like a really nice bike during my short ride. More photos here.

7046 aluminium

"3 finger" left chainstay bridge for increased stiffness and chainring/tyre clearance. Bolt on cable guides are a nice detail too

Chainstay mounted brake calliper means lighter gauge seatstays can be used to improve the ride quality

A 3.7lb frame that passed the CEN tests - something Marin dreams about

Wednesday news and views

Local bike shop news

Nirvana Cycles in Westcott are now stocking Ragley. I’m not sure if Nirvana Cycles are a proper dealer but it’s nice to see Ragley frames in a shop somewhere in the south of England. Right now they have the mmmbop in blue and “Quick Lime” green for a very reasonable £275.99. They are also stocking the steel Blue Pig frame seen bellow for an even more reasonable £259.99. Brant’s future 29er creations interest me far more but keep an eye on my Flickr for photos of the mmmbop and Blue Pig.

Nirvana Cycles have also recently signed up to become a Cube dealer. Some stunning Cubes on display at the London Cycle Show as well as some very good salesmen played a big role in the decision. The outrageously long wait for Giant’s 2010 bikes also had a hand in it. Many riders will be thinking about 2011 kit by February or March so the very late release isn’t doing Giant or their dealers any good. Indeed several 2010 models became 2011 models today due to “insurmountable production issues”. The good news is that Cube reckons they can have their bikes in store for early January...not too bad. Nirvana will be getting in the 160mm travel Fritzz for all mountain, 140mm Stereo for trail riding and the 100mm AMS for XC. I'm very much looking forward to trying a Cube after years of only seeing them in catalogues and at the Cycle Show. Again, keep an eye on Flickr for photos.

Downs Link

The Downs Link section between Christ’s Hospital and Slinfold is currently covered in hedge cuttings, along with several other bridleways and footpaths in the area. When I checked last week it was bad enough that riders should prepare for a significant walk carrying the bike or several hawthorn punctures. It would appear that a number of local farmers give very little consideration to public safety, punctures, thorns going through walkers shoes and the law in this county. Which not only covers roads but footpaths and bridleways as to clearing up or sweeping to one side all debris as soon after cutting as possible.

Sunday ride

Conditions weren’t ideal for riding after three days and four nights of rain, wind, several thunderstorms and a few hailstorms. Every so often a new component gets installed on one of my bikes and I just have to try it out at the first opportunity. The new component on this occasion was a Shimano XT chainset for the Paragon. Allow me to list a few of the benefits:

- An XT chainset weighs 853g, so according to my calculations that’s 100g less than the FC-M542 that came on the bike, but add a little more back on because I went for the 180mm option.

- The look of the bike has been improved no end.

- 180mm crank arms give more leverage, a smoother crank rotation for my long legs, no knee pain and still leave plenty of toe/wheel clearance due to the excellent G2 geometry.

- A rather annoying knocking sound that happened with every left pedal rotation on the old chainset has vanished.

- Slightly better shifting and hopefully less chain suck, I’ll have to get back to you on that last one after more riding, though.

My only riding jacket suffered a serious zip failure moments before I set off which required immediate retrofitting of a newer and stronger zip from one of my other jackets. The ride itself was pretty good considering the amount of puddles on the trails, even after a surprisingly deep one that nearly reached the front hub. Eventually the water, mud and sand had the drivetrain making sounds rather like a vintage paint mixer. Quite a few fallen branches and rocks uncovered by the rain up Leith Hill this morning needed jumping or avoiding but that just adds to the fun. The clear sky and low but bright sun didn't really help photography up there today, the bikes ended up too bright and backgrounds too dark. So most of the photos were unusable, hence the above photos taken elsewhere later in the day. On my way back up to the Tower for tea and cakes I spotted the Muddymoles leaving. Somehow I never seem to arrive at the top while they‘re still there, timing needs to be improved. On the return journey the rear brake felt like it had lost a lot of its power. I really hope this doesn’t turn into a major brake pad problem like the 08 XTs on my Stumpjumper. Even two years later I have no idea what caused every set of pads I put in there to die and haven’t managed to replicate the problem on any other brakes…yet!

Tuesday news and views

New Sram X9 derailleur

The 2009 and 2010 X9 derailleurs look pretty similar but taking a closer look reveals an almost complete redesign right down to the type of rivets used and how it shifts. The Direct Route cable entry now runs along the inner side of the parallelogram and clamps underneath rather than going around the outer side and clamping there. This moves the guide, cable and bolt further out of the way but makes setup more of a fiddle. For me the biggest improvement is the new jockey wheels. The new ones are already proving to be much smother and longer lasting than the old ones, which I had nothing but trouble with. On the whole the new X9 derailleur seems to be a massive improvement over the old model and finally brings it up to Shimano XT performance level…and for only £3 more than last year’s!

New X9

Old X9

Shimano

Following the news that Shimano’s sales figures have dropped considerably this year, they have now lowered prices. The price of an XT crankset has dropped by over 10% down to £180. So I will be paying £1 per millimetre of crank arm later this week when I pick up XT cranks for the Paragon. Now what should I upgrade next???

Singular

Sam recently took delivery of the first sample Pegasus Ti 29er frames made in Italy by Nevi. The Pegasus will be available with a Phil Wood half-link ebb or standard bb shell and a lifetime warranty for around £1500. The attention to detail and general frame quality looks fantastic. More photos and geometry here.

£4 buys power and silence?

The rear Avid Elixir 5 brake on my Paragon has been vibrating so much its been almost unusable since I got the bike. The vibrating makes an awful sound and takes away nearly all of the braking power. Only when riding very slowly or when the rear brake is really hot does it work correctly, so hardly ever. A few riders on Mtbr who were experiencing similar issues with their Avid brakes tried adding lead weights to the calliper and seemed to have some success with the idea. So I stuck four pounds on the calliper and went out for a ride to see if the idea works. The added weights have more or less fixed the problem. Hopefully the idea can be refined a bit, firstly because I want my money back and secondly because the rear brake still vibrated once or twice during the two rides so far. I’ll be sure to come back and keep this post up to date if the added weights turn out not to work.

Tuesday news and views

A 31.8mm Hope seat clamp finally turned up to replace the Bontrager one on my Paragon, the bolt was so crap I stripped it the first time I used it. Strangely the Hope seat clamp is much harder to fit even though it is only a fifth of a mm smaller than the one that was coming off. Next on my upgrade list is a lighter and longer armed crankset…

Apparently it’s Autumn but somehow the season seems more pleasant than last year, or perhaps the bad weather just hasn’t arrived yet. Bad weather is on the cards for tomorrow so I’m sure the trails will soon turn from dust to mud pie…and then onto resembling a WWII battlefield with the help of the local horse riders. Speaking of local horse riders, on yesterdays ride I wasn’t amused to see they had removed a perfectly good foot bridge and replaced it with a massive bridge specifically for horses. That would be fine if the horse traffic going over the new bridge hadn’t already made about 20m in either direction almost unrideable. I say “almost” because it’s just about possible going carefully in the granny gear with a 29er.

It was sunny and cold up Leith Hill on Sunday, just how I like it but now I’ve caught a cold.

Cycle Show 2009 part 7- the rest

Whyte E120 with Sram XX

Sunn Kern - 140mm of travel and no through axle fork

Tioga Spyder saddle - I have yet to see anyone actually riding on one of these

Yeti ASR5 - also available in carbon

Ah yes, the company that pulled its only 29er model from Europe and has started copying Specialized by selling the nicer looking bikes in the US but not Europe. They have at least made some big improvements to the Moto for 2010

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr. Come back for more next year :)

Cycle Show 2009 part 6 - Pace

Pace could make such a great 29er, just look at their 26ers...

The new 104 Reynolds 853 steel hardtail with the Slideout system

The new 325-5 aluminium long travel hardtail with an ISCG mount and the Slideout system

Pace uses a rear suspension design they call FreeFloater which compresses the shock from both ends much like the DW Link Pivot Firebird. The 204 model appears to have picked up the pivot mud shields first seen on some of Niner’s full suspension models.

The new Slideout system is designed to offer wheelbase adjustment or a little bit of chain tensioning

Post mount brake mount

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Cycle Show 2009 part 5 - Sram

Sram XX crankset and front mech

Sram XX rear mech and cassette

Sram XX brake lever

Sram XX hydraulic Poploc for Rock Shox forks - a little bit pointless but it operates very nicely

Single sided Sram I-Motion 9 internal gear hub - a special for the Cannondale ON bike

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Cycle Show 2009 part 4 - Cube and Bionicon

The new Cube Hanzz FR bike with 180mm of travel

Tapered head tube and nice graphics

Post mount through axle replaceable dropouts

Bionicon’s new 160mm travel Tesla

Bionicon Edison in blue

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Cycle Show 2009 part 3 - Mavic and FSA

Mavic had some really nice stuff on the display this year. The most impressive of the lot was the Crossmax Ultimate wheels with carbon spokes and tubular rims. If/when Mavic chooses to make them available to the public I’m sure they’ll cost an absolute fortune!

FSA were showing off a couple of their new 386 cranksets (3 chainring bolts and an 86mm bolt circle diameter). I believe they’re available with BB30 or the normal MegaExo style bottom bracket and either 27/40T or 27/42T chainring combinations for a 2x9 setup. I think the main idea is loosing weight and reducing the inner chainring size compared to other 2 speed cranksets. Without a 180mm option FSA won't see any of my money though.

K-Force Light 386

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Cycle Show 2009 part 2 - Hope and 650B

The KHS SixFifty606 is the first 650B (27.5in wheels) bike I’ve seen, it was almost indistinguishable from the 26ers nearby. To be honest I don’t like 650B and I’m almost certain that riding one will only confirm that feeling.

Hope's new DH stem

Apparently Hope are getting close to the final production version of their long awaited seatpost

20th anniversary brown components from Hope

I really like this colour

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Cycle Show 2009 - 29ers and the writing

Last year we went to the Cycle Show on a Friday, however this year we couldn’t do that which turned out to be a good thing because Saturday was the first day the trains were running smoothly all week. Upon arrival we found the exhibition hall at Earls Court already teaming with people. There seemed to be more people than last year but maybe that’s just because more people can get up there on a Saturday.

Who was there

Bionicon, Cannondale, Campagnolo, Cube, FSA, Focus, Fulcrum, Genesis, Hope, Haro, KCNC, KHS, Lapierre, Mavic, Norco, Pace, Pashley, Ragley, Saracen, Shimano & Pro, Scott, Specialized, Sram, Sunn, Schwalbe, Transition, Whyte and more. Every year different brands show up like Lapierre, Sunn and Whyte who weren’t there last year and Trek, GT and Mongoose who were there last year but not this year. No Trek was pretty disappointing actually.

A few things we noticed

- The Scott stand was so packed with people it was unbelievable.

- The Saracen stand was big, nicely designed and well staffed, but deserted. A few photos of new Saracen prototypes have started appearing today…if those prototypes were on display then the stand would have been brimming.

- Shimano must be making an absolute killing with the Alfine internal gear hub range. Loads of bikes fitted with them on various stands although not many mountain bikes.

- The price may be ridiculous but Sram XX was on quite a few bikes and my quick fiddle with one of those bikes revealed that shifting feels amazing and the parts look well made.

- Sunn has some nice bikes but somehow I don’t see them rolling in a taking over the world like Lapierre seems to have done over the last couple of years.

- Belt drive bikes appear to be catching on pretty quickly with everything from fixies to 29ers and folding bikes running them when there were none just a couple of years ago.

- 29ers on the other hand don’t seem to be taking off anywhere near as fast as they have in the US, only 3 there this year. Several brands including Cannondale have pulled their 29ers out of the UK for 2010 and the MD of Pace said “they’re dying here”. But the good news is that I’m seeing a slow increase in the number of them out on the trails so they can‘t be dying. And although some companies have ditched their 29er models in the UK, others have moved in with new distribution deals and new models like Norco and Santa Cruz.

The full Cycle Show 2009 set can be found on Flickr.

Singular Swift with Niner carbon rigid fork

IF 29er

Norco Judan 29er

Gates carbon belt drive

Gates carbon belt drive with sliding dropouts

Cycle Show 2009

Finally, it’s that time of year again…the London Cycle Show is later this week in Earls Court. Among the many exhibitors this year are Cannondale, Cube, FSA, Genesis, Hope, Mavic, Ragley, Shimano & Pro and Scott. Should be very interesting and worth the trip up there!

Ergon slims down its packaging

What Ergon says:

The comparison to the old packaging is testament to the leap forward that has been made. 90% of the grips are now packed using 40% less packing material in volume, yet the function allowing potential users to ‘trial’ the grips prior to purchase has been retained. The former packaging used 3 different materials, making up a total of 8 components. Although these could all be recycled, sorting them to do so was time consuming. By contrast, the new packaging uses only paper, making up its four components. Recycling is therefore extremely easy. The packaging is also in the majority made of recycled paper, and the three dimensional paper form as the box itself represents a worldwide first in the packaging industry.

The result of this new packaging quest is so innovative that it has already won the coveted German DesignPlus packaging prize.

My thoughts:

Both of my bikes are now fitted with Ergon GP1 Leichtbau grips and I couldn’t be happier with them. In fact the only negative mentioned in the review was the rather excessive packaging. So when the new greener and slimmer packaging starts rolling off the production lines it will be a perfect product.