Season’s greetings and welcome to this edition of Internet Rummagings where, rather than doing my Christmas shopping on the internet I once again have been rummaging around in the WWWLBS, to find shiny trinkets, tinsel and baubles to hang from your tre… sorry, bike.
This edition of IR will be a little different as, such is the pace of development at the sharp end of shiny and interesting bike things, I’ll be having a look back at some of the brands that have been here before that have made more newer and, crucially, shinier things. Don’t worry though, you can still get your fix of new stuff, hang in there.
Dward Designs
First up is Dward Designs, who were first featured in my very first rummage, and since then have massively expanded their range of products, now producing *deep breath* more top caps, chainrings (including a pair for Pinion gearbox users), bashguards, linkage bolts, more jockey wheels, two types of BB (and a tool for installing them) and just recently a limited run of bottle openers which, judging by the speed at which the first batches sold out, may not be quite so limited in the future!Â
As you’ll see from the below, he’s also developed a liking for spirals, perhaps to hypnotise buyers into buying more?
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These were the Pinion chainrings featured on the Prova Cycles hardtail at the Bespoked Show, earlier in the year.Â
A little more about the chainrings: they are available from 30-48t in 2 tooth increments, 3mm (boost) and 6mm (non boost) offsets, to fit SRAMs’ 3 bolt direct mount standard.
Regular readers will know by now that such fine work, with fine materials, does not come cheap and is very much in the ‘want’ rather then ‘need’ category, these chainrings are £360 for MTB sized options, £420 for everything over 38t.
For everything else in his range, prices vary from £40-£200, head to www.dward-design.co.uk. As for what’s next? What would you want machined in titanium?Â
***STOP PRESS*** As I write this, Dward has just released their first non titanium product, an aluminium seat clamp (the first Ti product was also a seat clamp), available in 31.8, 34.9 and 36.4 with Black and Gunmetal colour options and, due to the fewer machine hours it takes to make and the lower cost of materials, can be yours for £29.99. It even gets a logo.
KOM
Another brand from day one of Internet Rummagings is KOM hubs and, somewhat interestingly, what I’m looking into now is their prototype rotors. Specifically, these rotors:
They’re 2mm thick, but with a solid braking surface and are currently being tested, to see what can be learned. KOM also says that due to the larger bolt diameter (necessary due to the hub design) not drilling holes doesn’t add much weight compared to regular rotors, and holes over 4mm diameter in regular discs actually reduce the surface area for cooling anyway. So will the greater surface area or the pad to push against lead to better braking? Watch this space. There’s definitely more cool stuff to come from KOM. Keep an eye on www.k-o-m.co.uk
Williams Racing Products/Trinity MTB
Here’s where we first saw Mic, playing around with a ‘gearbox’ bike, lots of pulley wheels, bits of mechs, even a few batteries but now, things are looking a lot more polished. Maybe not production ready yet, but this is definitely one of those things that make me go ‘Corrrr!’.
Being very reminiscent of the Honda development DH bikes of yore, this design works by having a fixed chain line with the cassette moving back and forth to shift into different gears. The whole system is around 1400g (with DH race gearing, no big 52t cassettes here, yet), so 4-700grams lighter than a Pinion system. This is the first of four development stages, so I can only assume it will become more refined, lighter and/or with more range. I think this may help it take bike gearboxes towards mainstream adoption. Their Instagrams @williamsracingproducts and @trinity_mtb are the best places to find out more.
Right, that’s enough updating, what about the new guys?
Mythos
Around six months ago, I rummaged upon Mythos, who had come up with a new stem, the ELIX. It was very striking, as you can see here.
It’s made from 3D printed Ti, weighs a lot more than you’d think (150g) and costs a fortune (£500 inc VAT) so it almost made it into the feature as an ‘And Finally’ piece, but as it only comes in road lengths (100-140mm), it fell by the wayside.
By some Christmas miracle though, they’ve made it, thanks to their new offering, the IXO. A shorter, lighter (just) and cheaper (relatively) MTB version that comes in at 40 or 50mm, 147g and a *cough* bargain at £300 inc VAT.
My issue with this, is that 3D printers use really expensive and heavy ink, I’m told, and sometimes a horse, having been dragged kicking and screaming to water, will flatly not drink it. 3D printing is really cool, this looks mega cool, and can only be done with 3D printing, so it’s not completely redundant but there are vastly cheaper, vastly lighter stems that will likely function as well as this, there are even some lookers in there too. That won’t matter to the people that buy this mind, I just won’t be one of them.
BrakeAce
From form over function, to almost exclusively function now. BrakeAce is a small outfit from New Zealand, making a sensor/power meter to tell you when, and how hard, you are braking, with the aim of telling you where to do it less, in order to go faster. ‘Brake less to go faster’ sounds obvious, but having the telemetry to tell you where you are going wrong could be massively helpful, obviously to racers, but perhaps also to anyone who wants to learn to carry speed, or gain the confidence to not drag brakes.
They’re essentially a pair of power meters that, wirelessly, tell an app how hard you are braking and when, which is then added to GPS data on the app to show you when you have been the last of the late brakers, and when you’ve been a scaredy cat. One also imagines they could tell you if your brakes are binding. You can then use that info the next time you hit the trail, leave off here, brake harder there, you get the idea.
Clever right? Well, clever isn’t cheap. Whilst the pre-order was around £1000 for the set, these have now sold out, so you are looking at £1300ish for the full set, which makes it mostly the preserve of racers. I think the biggest market for this will be uplift centres and bike resorts, where people are coming on a compressed timetable, to allow them to rent them for their first day or two to get their eye in, and really make the most of the trails on offer – similar to renting a Shockwiz to get a good base tune on suspension. Hit their website for more info, or to buy when they start taking orders again.
Whaddaya reckon?
Anyway, that’s enough from me, I’ll let you get back to your Christmas festivities, and wish you a happy and shiny new year!