Although the booths have been taken down, and the caravan of bicycle industry vans and tractor trailers drove away from the Laguna Seca Raceway days ago, there are still a few more items from Sea Otter that are worth highlighting.
ONE Industries Autograph Signing With GT Factory RacingMembers of GT Factory Racing, Rachel and Gee Atherton, along with Marc Beaumont, were on hand at the ONE industries booth to sign autographs for their fans. Rachel placed second in the dual slalom, and Gee pulled down a 12th in the downhill, but there's no doubt GT Factory Racing is looking forward to the longer, rowdier tracks on the World Cup circuit.
www.oneindustries.com
Manitou Marvel and MinuteManitou's Marvel (left) and Minute (right) suspension forks.
Manitou had their Marvel and Minute suspension forks on display, which are both now available for 27.5" and 29" wheeled bikes. The Marvel is an XC-oriented air-sprung fork with 80-120mm of travel. The fork uses Manitou's ABS+ damping system, and has eternally adjustable compression and rebound. Claimed weight is 1583g for the 27.5" version and 1683g for the 29er. The Minute fork, intended for trail riding, also uses the ABS+ damping system to control its 120-140mm of travel, but with a different shim stack for better handling on rougher terrain. Claimed weight is 1740g for the 27.5" version, and 1800g for the 29er. Both forks are available with 9mm open dropouts or Manitou's HexLock 15mm thru-axle, and should be available later this summer.
www.manitoumtb.com
Smith Optics GogglesSmith had their moto and mountain bike goggles on display, and hosted an autograph signing session of their own with Aaron Gwin spending some time in the booth. The goggles on display ranged in price from $40-$60 and were available in a wide range of colors and lens tints for all conditions. No word yet about any plans for a dirt-oriented version of their ski/snowboard I/O Recon goggle, but it seems like a goggle that can calculate speed and jump analytics would be a tech-savvy rider's dream...
www.smithoptics.com
Chris Chance - Mountain Bike LegendAnyone familiar with the mountain bike scene in the late 1980s and early '90s will recognize the name Chris Chance. Chris started Fat City Cycles in Massachusetts in 1982, and quickly built a reputation for his handmade bike with their East Coast specific geometry. The company closed in 1994, and Chris now works as a practitioner of Shiatsu massage, but there is still a cult following for the early Fat Chance bikes. Chris was walking amongst the booths at Sea Otter with a few friends, each of them riding a piece of mountain bike history.
Chris Sugai's Take on TweenersChris Sugai, Niner Bikes' president isn't afraid to express his views about the 27.5" wheel size. A passionate proponent of the 29er, Chris doesn't hold back in this brief clip about the future of the 'tweener in mountain biking.
www.ninerbikes.com
Sorry Issac, but you can sell your product without trying to talk shit about every other product... His matter of fact way of talking about everything as if he's "figured it all out" is ridiculous. His bikes are niche at best and aside from looking kinda cool (ONE bike) they're simply made for the Banana Republic/Starfuct Crowd and priced accordingly. It's pretty clear he cares about one thing: making money, and that's fine, but he's not one to take seriously when you talk about progression/evolution of technology. I'd say the simple fact that the BEST brands on the planet are making 3 wheel sizes while his company beats it's head against the wall mumbling something about "7 minute abs"...
you.ve mis understood what he was saying, he was talking about cable actuated and the flex stem being tweeners. not suspension forks and hydraulic discs.
i reckon its an interesting point hes making to be fair.
clearly biased but thats his job
Also I am like many MTBers and have different bikes for different riding styles but really looking for 1 bike that can ride everything, and do it well. 29ers are great for XC/trail, no doubt about that. And 26ers are good for DH/FR bike park type stuff. I think that a 150-160mm 27.5 bike(i.e. SC Bronson etc.) would actually be the first bike that would actually suit me for all the types of riding that I do....I dont think I could say that about a 29er.
In conjunction with the fact that most companies that are really pushing 650b bikes hard...missed the boat on 29ers and are tying to make up lost market share...he might have a point.
You clearly missed the videos from Sea Otter this week showing 29ers & 650b(ers?) hitting quite sizable doubles and getting all kinds of steezy on the Sea Otter course.
Take the Amp disc brake as an example as it was probably the most successful at hitting a wider (than ONE brand) audience, they worked with virtually any brake lever available at the time, and all you needed was a compatible frame/fork, a pair of hubs built into wheels, and the calipers and rotors. Since Amp sold their forks aftermarket, and for that matter supplied their seatstay assemblies to other frame builders for their rear suspension designs, and didn't patent any of the mount patterns (the caliper design itself was patented), Hell they even made disc flanges that bolted to shimano rear hubs, to convert a shimano hub to take discs (the amp flange bolted to the left hub flange thru the spoke holes, and you laced the left side spokes to the amp flange which then carried the braking loads). The design was so good that Rockshox bought it from Amp when they decided to get out of bicycles and focus on automotive/motorcycle industry work.
As to modern cable-discs and market share, the numbers are probably heavily slanted in their favour though that will likely end soon now that shimano makes hydraulic discs down to the Acera parts level. The majority of bikes sold new at stores are under a thousand dollars, and its hard to cram all sorts of features into that price point and still make a profit. Hence all the cable discs on new bikes. When shimano gets hydraulic to the Tourney parts level, the walmart store bikes will switch over also.
It would seem to me, that mountain bikers of all people, would embrace change. After all, aren’t we supposed to the rebellious mavericks of the cycling world?
If you haven’t ridden a 27.5 wheeled bike, than I’m sorry, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Those of us that have know there is a real difference. Feel free to live in the past. I’ll be out on the trail riding the crap out my “tweener”.
The only problem I see is that the Bike Shops will have some or a lot of trouble to have every single kind of fork, tyre, and wheel for every different size...
But the pattern he mentions ignores the technologies that never took over. What about the 1.5 steerer tube? Too big, lets go back to the tapered tweener.
How about those wild forks with the rear shock up front? A few were around for a while and they died.
Some people love gripshift, but most of use like using our opposable thumbs.
How about the 20mm and the 15mm axles? Are 15's a trend that will die? Many say yes.
29er isn't going away. It makes too much sense for a lot of people, but not all of us. 27.5 might not last, but I'd sure like to have a try at it. If it rides better I will stick with it. Seems like there are niches to fill and while the 26 has held the trail niche for a long time it might be slightly better served by 650b, but maybe not better enough. 29er isn't going to do it for me, and 26 is a blast, but is it all it could be?
One final question that might bring up some interesting points: Why do DJ bikes use 26 instead of 24? What is better about 26 that makes it the sweet spot? Seems like all that smooth dirt and those big tricks would be better served by smaller wheels.
If the different size isn't big enough to make a difference there than maybe 650b is all a placebo effect. . .
Wot a crok of verbal __________ !!
That's his main argument and it makes total sense when you compare it to the tweener technologies. But as others have said, this is a size and not really technology.
I do believe that Niner is not innovating and got burned by the new Enduro 29er if it's as good as the reviews say it is (but it's all media based and they are bought by Specialized). A company with Niner as their name should lead the way, not be following.
If Niner came out with a low BB, 145mm+ bike with short chain stays in carbon, I'd definitely consider it. An RDO WFO XTR blah blah blah. They should also consider doing an internal gear transmission - something no serious bike company is doing.
Betamax was the better picture quality of the two and the tapes were physically smaller but they only had half the recording time of JVC's VHS tapes. A variation of Betamax called Betacam is still used in television production to this day, but the cameras are record-only and you need a separate VCR unit to play back (or a very large camera). Fine for TV crews with support teams and news vans, not so fun with consumers. VHS cameras could playback and review on the camera itself, and could play back to any tv with a simple cable hookup (effectively becoming the VCR unit). It was a one-stop solution.
That's probably what people like Chris Sugai are most afraid of, that their chosen size, the 29er, IS the better choice aside from various packaging limitations (big wheels + big travel = big frames that won't fit many consumers, or BIG prices for the ones it will) and that consumers will instead go to the one-stop solution presented, that of 650B.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax