Cube AMS Pro R1 Mag and Borders

First Cube arrives

Nirvana Cycles received their first Cube this week…much earlier than Janurary, which is when I heard they were coming. Opening the box revealed a £2249 18” AMS Pro R1 Mag in Sid Blue. For those that don’t know Cube’s range, the AMS Pro is their 100mm travel XC bike featuring FSP 4 Link suspension (very similar to what Specialized uses). The R1 Mag is the top aluminium model and weighs 24.2lbs. More photos here.

"The most attractive bike we've ever had in the shop" - Simon

3D Link

Rear pivot

DT Swiss XPW1600 wheelset

Bad news for magazine readers

The UK bookstore chain Borders was recently put into administration. Borders has been in the UK since 1997 and currently has 45 stores and 1150 staff here. What does this have to do with Mountain Biking? Well, Borders may be best known for books and CDs but they have an excellent magazine selection. Amongst this excellent magazine selection are several American MTB mags that either aren’t stocked anywhere else, don’t turn up regularly in other shops or need to be specially ordered/subscribed to. So an already abysmal range of mags in the shops here is about to get worse with the loss of titles like BIKE and Dirt Rag. Unless someone wants to buy Borders and keep it going which is sounding very unlikely right now.

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.