Carbon Fiber Valve Stems, An Improved Dropper, and 6D's Updated Helmets - Interbike 2017
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X-Fusion's Manic dropper post proved to be a winner when I reviewed it earlier this year. Not only did it offer flawless performance and a light lever feel due to its actuation linkage, the thing is always reliable. In fact, it's still running trouble-free to this day on a tester's bike, making it a bit of a surprise performer. Regardless, X-Fusion made some big updates to the Manic for 2018, including answering the call for a much-requested 150mm-travel version to go with the 125mm stroke model that I reviewed. Sorry, no 170mm-travel version yet.
And speaking of length, they've also managed to shorten the Manic by a handful of millimeters via a new one-piece head design that replaces the previous iteration's that was bonded onto the upper tube. One thing that hasn't changed is the price: the Manic still sells for $199 USD.
This one is for the real bike dorks out there, including myself. FAV Equipment comes from the brain of Tomo Ichikawa, the guy who designed the awesome Clever Standard tire lever that has a built-in quick-link tool; this time Tomo had turned his attention to valve stems. His carbon fiber valve stem - yes, carbon fiber - weighs a barely-there 2.8-grams, which is about half the weight of an equivalent length aluminum presta stem. I know we're talking single digit grams here, but those who spend deep into the four digits on a set of carbon wheels might want some matching valve stems. Tomo plans to offer a few different lengths, both presta and schrader versions, and pricing is still to be decided on.
Tomo's other trick is an aluminum valve stem that he says can't be plugged up by sealant. A schrader valve is spring-loaded, so they snap shut as soon as you're not forcing air through them, but a presta valve depends on air pressure to push it closed. This isn't a problem 99-percent of the time, but it can be when tire sealant manages to build up inside the valve and prevent it from closing. Tomo's valve uses a tiny rubber tube (not pictured) to preload the core and push it shut when you're not pumping air through it, just like a schrader valve.
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6D, the helmet brand known for their dual-shell design, recently won the Head Health Challenge III's $500,000 grand prize in partnership with Dynamic Research for their Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS) technology. The design is essentially two separate helmet shells, one inside the other, that are joined by rubber dampers that let the outer shell to move independently of the inner shell. 6D says that the design allows for three-dimensional displacement of the inner shell upon an impact, which ''uncouples the impact force at the outer shell from the riders head.''
They've since made some updates to their ODS system, including going to differently shaped dampers in certain areas that provide movement more in tune with what's required, a change that's come about directly from their work for the Head Health Challenge.
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Remember mtbing isnt in any way green, even if you dont use carbon. Alu extraction is very damaging to the environment even if its waste can be reused. vimeo.com/27586761 Weigh up the whole journey of extraction, production and disposal before flag waving your material choice.
stravaigingmtb.com/2017/09/18/why-i-didnt-choose-a-carbon-fibre-frame
What about all the rubber, plastics and other metals involved in all the other parts on your bikes? Unless you carry that outlook through every single facet of bikes and frankly also in everything you do in your daily life you really can't get on your high horse about it.
Machining shops do literally sweep their metal chips off the floor and sell them, because that's perfectly good material that other people can re-process and use.
The best we can all do is to really challenge ourselves to be selective about what we determine that we "need," to purchase what seems to offer the best compromise between social/environmental damage and meeting that "need," and to maintain it and repair it so it has the longest possible service life.
@veero: I'm an ecologist for an environmental conservation organization; I drive a full-sized pickup a minimum of three hours a day, sometimes as much as seven hours or more. The irony does not escape me...apparently, even the ecology isn't ecological any more.
To anyone buying carbon fiber valves... sort yourself out mate... if not, PLEASE DO go all the way and buy carbon fiber bolts for your rotors and for the stem (they do exist). It will sort you out.
@mikelee wrote:"I'll never buy a carbon bike product. It's an unnecessary material to be using in a supposadly green past time" - like regularly driving a car to the riding spots - ease up mate... mountain biking is NOT a green past time, by any means. if you do think so, please evangelize Motorbikers... go Westboro Baptist Church on their arses.
So the product "launch" I am most excited about for 2018 is James Webb Space Telescope. It will be f*cking amazing.
Humans had no idea that we were making that kind of impact on our planet when we began, but through education and innovation hopefully we can change it for the better. Or we move to Mars and ruin another ecosystem...
Your last sentence makes no sense what so ever.
What AL frame do you ride? Was it made in a country with very strict environmental laws- if not your AL is no better than the carbon, the ONLY difference is what happens to it at the end of it life.
If that's all you have to stand on- it ain't much.
If you want to get on a high horse, I wonder how many on here preaching the AL frame over carbon used cloth diapers for their kids.
Conversely, i've had 10 year old alloy frames that still were good as new.
From here: www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf
"From cradle to grave, BEVs are cleaner. On average, BEVs representative of those sold today produce less than half the global warming emissions of comparable gasoline-powered vehicles, even when the higher emissions associated with BEV manufacturing are taken into consideration."
A. You do realize how bad those batteries in your car are, right? You're not saving the world.. And you may be harming it worse than with a gas or diesel car.
B. f*ck off with all the exclamation marks already.
Rachael Nealer is a Kendall Science
Fellow in the UCS Clean Vehicles Program.
David Reichmuth is a senior engineer in
the program. Don Anair is deputy director
and research director in the program.
So yea no bias I'm sure.
Pink Bike, how about an unbiased well researched story on this? Or just show pictures of the five most popular bikes a some demo?
And guys.. did you notice how eloquent you all get when not talking about bikes?
If the pole interview educated you to the evils of carbon production shouldn't you also learn about how the other products that are used to make a bike effect the environment ?
Aluminum smelters, rubber factories, etc..
Feel good about riding your bike. It's a healthy life choice and it saves carbon emissions but...
If you're going to take a stand against a product make certain that your personal alternative is actually a better solution.
You could ride any given alloy frame six hours a day for 20 years and you wouldn't even put a dent in it's fatigue life.
Now this is not taking into account the effect of material compromise due to impact. But that has nothing to do with an alloy's fatigue life.
It's more about "return on investment" really. It's silly to seriously inconvenience yourself and others to reduce impact by a fraction of a percentage when you could easily eliminate other things in your life that make a much larger impact.
Here's a link to the study that essentially debunks anthropogenic climate change
cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.html
Mean surface temperature during the Cretaceous period was 18 degrees C, 4 degrees C higher than it is now!
The real reason the planet is warmer today is that it is normal for the earth to go through warming and cooling periods. It's been doing so for millions of years, long before man in habited this planet, much less started building factories.
During the Cretaceous period of slightly higher atmospheric CO2, and temperature levels, life was flourishing. Dinosaurs continued to dominate the land but new groups of mammals, birds, and flowering plants appeared.Contrary to what fake scientist tell you, hire CO2 levels are good for plants and warmer temperatures are good for life in general.
The samples from the research also show that increases and carbon dioxide always accompanied increases in temperature, but the increases in temperature always came first. That proves increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere didn't cause the warming. How could it have, if it didn't happen until after the warming? This knocks over the whole house of cards
I can't believe I am writing this. Climate change deniers are necessary, they make climate science better. If Nasa tells me himans warm the planet up, I believe them. In tge same way a friend tells me that riding a fragile road bike at 60km/h is not as dangerous as it seemsto me. I just believe it, it seems sensible to do so. But currently in the face of evidence climate change deniers lack some fundamental deduction skills. Their lust for sensarion and conspiracy fks with them. Same sort of lack of fundamental scientific deduction that lead Hollywood to finance absolutely ridiculous sci-fi movies. Like oblivion. Aliens perform faster than light travel to come to Earth, invade it using clones, setup a sophisticated scam to convince clones they fight with the invader, all to harvest hydrogen out of Earths water... Hydrogen. The most common element in the fkng entire universe. Apparently they run out of it. And missed Jupiter on the way which is made almost entirely from it.
Ehhhhh....
I.E. if you have a dent in your frame, that area is far more prone to failure than other intact areas. If you subject the frame to a landing force outside of it's limits, you'll damage the frame. Has nothing to do with fatigue life.
At the end of the day, whether humans are the main driving force of climate change or not, our behaviour isn't helping and the way we treat our only home stinks. We should as a species be sorting our shit out by now. The only way change is going to happen is if each one of us changes, it's as simple as that.
But again, environment is not on top of my list to worry about when it comes about my kids future. AI or just malicious software able to put down the economy, Katla volcano on iceland. We live in an extremely fragile system. Money diseappear from our bank accounts, food stops coming to supermarkets, we have panic within 3 days and madmax within a month. All these decent people around you, all of us, have programs installed in our brains that will make us behave like aggressive chimps when sht goes down. Panic, violence, genocide. The guy gelling me that military is unnecessary, the only force able to contain a mass panic, I want him dead. And all those dumb students shouting black lives matter, women rights, they will be the first ones to form death squads.
Sorry, mate, bad weather, carcinogens in fish just doesn't scare me enough... I can do something about it but at the same time I realize the incredible limitations of my position.
That's not even addressing the truly scary part, and the whole reason that this "global warming" narrative exists...world governments don't want us to realize that no matter who's right - whether we are solely responsible for runaway warming of our planet, or that we have nothing to do with it, or anything in between those two extremes - there's nothing we can do about it. No amount of electric cars, solar/wind/hydro power, and planting gardens in one's back yard, are going to stop what's already been set in motion.
And finally, there's that pesky little reality, the fact that absolutely none of this matters at all because we'll all be obliterated by a meteor or solar flare long before the weather does us in.
Solar flare - BS. There's virtually no danger for civilization ending solar flare, maybe major communication disruption. There's no fossil evidence for mass extinction caused by solar flare. Such event would leave a rather fat footprint in geological evidence. Nasa claims they have a good watch over comets metheors and asteroids that could cause a global cataclysm. Not much on close time scales. They may surely miss stuff that can demolish a city (like one that exploded over Tschelyabynsk or Tunguska) When it comes to Tsunamis demolishing cities at the ocean shores, well metheors have hard time competing with land slides (Canary islands) earth quakes, volcanoes, hurricanes or... sea level rise.
Volcanoes themselves are potent enough to cause severe global famine, yet again, not a civilization ender. For instance Katla on Iceland can fk up Europe but (and make India and China rich)
Watching current Hurricane trends, the 10% increase in severity may significantly depopulate Carribean basin, after all, building bunkers takes more money than shotgun houses...
Now speaking of time scale is important. It is rather likely that within 100 years Earth will give rise to super intelligent machines. Once AGIs get access to virtually unlimited source of energy like fusion, they will evolve expof*ckingnentinally. Give them ability to evolve in space, where temperature is much lower than on Earth, which means computation will require less energy for cooling and "we" will start population of the Solar system. Asteroid mining, Dyson spheres. Humans are not there.
The only thing we can worry about is whether we will be able to give birth to super machines before we f*ck up our environment so bad, that we will have to spend most of our energy to care for ourselves. Again: our grand grand "children" will not need clean air to breathe. Predicting their future though is an exercise in futility. That will be such a paradigm shift, that we have no way to predict what it will be. It may destroy us, it may build a space ship and fly off to a location much more suitable for it after stripping us from giant chunk of valuable resources. Time is a tiny problem for it, it will have no problem travelling to Alpha Centauri for a hundred years. One thing is sure. We will have as much to say about controlling it as a chimp in the zoo can say something to a zoo keeper.
We are 8 billion people, way too much for f*cking carbon frames or figgets to make a change. Nevertheless you can choose whether you want to die as an a*shole, a boring prohibitive prick or cool dude. I personally am planning hypothermia in the mountains around being 65. I do hope that until then Sweden will take finger out of its arse, legalize most drugs, as well as testosterone. I want potent weed, dmt and testosterone shots as accessible as fkng Aspirine before I get 45.
We can watch meteors all day. Great. Hows that going to stop them from hitting us? You make it sound like you are saying "oh we're good, we'll see a meteor well before it hits us". Great...so we'll know well in advance that we're going to be annihilated. Now I can sleep at night.
You need to keep science's study of earth's history in perspective. We have a handle on a fraction of a percent of what has happened on this planet since it came into being.
That makes other factors like volcanic activity or rise of post biological life to be better potential killers or paradigm shifters.
As a part time psychopath and existentialist I deeply enjoy the subject of human race annihilation. I am however far from being qualified to give you more info on flares and near earth objects. Google and youtube provide plenty of reliable information on the subject. Hollyowood qnd discovery channel, not so much. I'm deep into this sht since few years now. Lowered my existential angst by a lot.
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/flare-impacts.html
I think what you are not getting from my point is the relative chance of these events happening. I'm not saying the chances of a meteor strike or solar flare are HIGH. I'm saying that they are a much greater risk than the weather as affected by climate change.
I agree with you on AI, and really human nature in general. I'm speaking only on natural phenomena in this discussion.
Anyways, AI is THE closest risk, or rather game changer. We are going into this like blind chickens into a blender and the funny bit is that, even in a lovely form, it may cut the human population of the planet by half by 2150. If you can upload yourself to a simulation where you can do pretty much whatever, why wouldn't you? I see myself, how an algorithm could replace my work as an architect. I have no delusions about it. Just think of logistsics, the drivers. Taxi drivers and couriers are fkn dooomed. They are doomed in 15 years or less. I drove Volvo V90 without self driving option, I had my hands of the steering wheel and off the pedals for 10 minutes. A new VW golf won't allow you to do that it will park itself by the side of the highway...
In face of AI, all those predictions about future of life on Earth are useless. It's like folks saying: in 4 billion years Sun will swallow the Earth. EEEErmmm... not if things go as they go now. In a Billion years, such fast developing civilization will be able to harvest the sun to the point where it becomes a red dwarf and burn for another hundreds of billions of years. They will also be able to change Earth's orbit to bring it closer to the sun. It's all possible by laws of physics if given enough time.
"In coming 200 years or more there is no major danger from a metheor or sun flare. Climate change on the other hand can cause a big exodus of people, areas that are dry, will just become drier, weather will become more severe, you can expect population of cities like Houston, New Orleans or Miami to move more inland, Europe can see a huge wave of immigrants from Middle East."
You don't know any of this with any amount of certainty. No one does. Especially on the weather end...we can't even predict next week's weather with reliable accuracy...it's not surprising that we've been abysmal with long term pattern projections (sub 30% accuracy rate thus far).
The problem is that this really tells us nothing as the only thing we can say with any certainty is that in the time we have been recording global temperatures, they have gone up 0.8 degrees. We can't say with any certainty that this will continue...it's actually been leveling off over the last ten years - the rate of increase is actually decreasing while our climate models say it should be increasing. Additionally we have not seen a conclusive increase in average weather system activity or intensity. Some seasons have more storms or more intense storms while other seasons actually have less. Once again, our models are telling us things should be getting worse across the board and they simply aren't in any discernable consistent way. None of this even addresses on what, if any, change is directly or indirectly human-caused.
It's scary what we don't know and that's a big driver behind the "global warming" alarmist movement. Everybody wants to believe that we have an answer, and more importantly, that we have control.
@TheRaven: all I can say is that my sources of information disagree with your assessment, they are quite sure that humans contribute to Global Warming and can predict some effects of it. If a dude like Brian Cox says something I trust him. Just like I trust a dude who produces my rear shock, my internet connection, that fixes my broken bone. As much as I like the debatable stuff, it's been a lovely conversation, some people just know more.
Ugh I'm about to get a second wind and comb through all of this with rebuttals...
If there's one overriding truth that i've learned in my lifetime in the scientific field, it's that we humans are very good at giving the appearance of control. We have convinced ourselves that we are in control, that we have built an infallible fortress of knowledge on which we can sustain our civilization. But the truth is that fortress is actually a very nicely detailed paper facade held up by, to use a phrase coined by a very successful fellow engineer, "popsicles and scotch tape". The truth is that we still have so much to learn.
At one point 99.999999999% of scientists said the world was flat.
@TheRaven - All I learned about in my lifetime as an a*shole is that truth and winning arguments are two different things. That's what lawyers do at the end of the day, they take rules of the game, that is the law, then they investigate the truth, then they set an objective and they nitpick facts or even distort them in order to reach the objective. Off course this "fact" supports your point of view just as well as mine. Truth... what a terrible weapon.
Then there is entertainment. We argue here for entertainment. Nobody will base policies on this discussion. Fortunately. Oh we forgot about two other potential killers of human civilization or at least economy: 1.viruses/diseases spreading fantastically thanks to our means of transportation, and 2. A fkng idiot having access to the red button.
So it's a valid point.
It seems that many of the "anti-carbon" bike crowd is jumping on the bandwagon to use the Pole article as a reason why they will never buy a carbon bike (when likely its $$$ which I would 100% agree with). Well if that is true, I guess using the same logic were all driving electric cars, not using lead acid batteries, growing your own food in your garden, not buying any overseas products if a local option is available, etc.. etc., due to the environmental impact.
I am not a huge fan of carbon bikes (own both), but one cant help wonder if the environmental issue is being used as an excuse rather than a voice for actual change (having the manufacturing process more stringent).
In short, if you own a smartphone or more than one computer, you have ZERO business complaining about people buying carbon bikes.
What makes said rider a gigantic douchey hypocrite is calling out other riders for choosing carbon.
Again, IF you support the electronics industry by upgrading your smartphone every two years when your contract renews, and/or continue to upgrade your computer/laptop every 2-3 years (like I can virtually guarantee the vast majority of us do), then you need to STFU about the choice of materials that other riders make .
If on the other hand, you still have a flip phone from 2005, and you still have the same desktop computer you got as a graduation present...then I think you can get away with some outspoken anti-carbon call-outs.
I, by no means, am going to stop RIDING MY F#%*ING BIKES. I will however, try to do the best at reuse, recycling, minimize fuel consumption, etc. when I'm not doing so and dreaming about that next new bike
That's not surprising though, because it doesn't matter - ride down anything rougher than a tarmac road and the feedback from the trail will completely drown out any feel of a several-gramme wheel imbalance. I reckon I might be able to tell on my road bike, but even then, old/cheap bike computers with wheel magnets make no noticeable impact on wheel balance, so why would you expect to notice shaving 3 gramme off your valve stem?
I'd be willing to bet most professional teams don't bother either, considering they're usually preparing 6 wheels per rider, per race run, before you even consider practice and quali runs.
I'm looking for a 150mm budget dropper that is easily serviceable or at least readily available spares than wont cost a fortune, Atm im on the fence with Manic,TRS+ or the Highline 160m.Looks like the Highline cartridge isnt that cheap to replace and I'm tempted to go for the TRS+ just for the sake of simplicity and ease to service.My favorite would be the Manic thought if someone can confirm a release date and real cost of a new air cartridge that is supposed to be a cheap one and if they would be readily available for purchase.
Recycling of any FRP is not true recycling.
How dare I!
Let's say you vacuum heat leftover stuff to separate the fibers from the resin. The fibers that are left are of no practical use. They will have lost their initial strength in strand and will have to be reformatted to use again. For glass ,this may be possible. Carbon? Not so sure. The strands are grown. Can they be re-grown at that point? Or can the carbon be used in other things like steel? Don't know. So, partial materials reclamation with more processing needed.
And what happens to the resin? It is waste product. GARBAGE.
Maybe you can chunk and chop it and use it for plastic bags or toys? Regardless, it will never be able to do what it first did when it was catalyzed again.
Here is an excerpt from an interview with a company who is trying to make hardened resin recyclable:
"Epoxy is a thermosetting material (thermoset). Thermosets are formed from a chemical reaction when a resin and hardener, or resin and catalyst, are mixed and then undergo a non-reversible chemical reaction to form a hard, infusible product."
From www.materialstoday.com/composite-industry/features/can-epoxy-composites-be-made-100-recyclable/>;
Not very green, and certainly not sustainable in its current use. Note the non-reversible statement. No going back. These guys seem to have an idea on how to change that, but nothing has been brought to market yet.
Also, if there was a practical use for used plastics beyond the very narrow band of recyclable materials used in the consumer industry (grocery bags, packaging, etc.), then someone would be making money off of it.
The saying in boating is Fiberglass is Forever. Consider that the next time you buy some trick components. (Assuming you care about things like sustainability. (full disclosure, I am NOT an ecofreak and I really don't care what you by.))
Me? I use carbon bars, and a carbon seat post. I wouldn't consider a frame though as it is basically irreparable in the event of damage. AL frames can be fixed in some instances depending on the damage and are generally a little more resilient to incidental bumps and bangs.
Due to there varying elasticity.
I want to know more about this thing. Purchaseable anytime soon?
www.6dhelmets.com/product/atb-1t-evo-trail-helmet