Interbike Part Three: More from the desert

by Chipps September 24, 2009 12

A fixie with gears? Yep, public pressure has persuaded Sturmey Archer to come back out with their three speed fixed wheel hub.

Get used to the 'many clashing colours' look. It's all the rage these days.

The Felt Compulsion - now 150mm travel with 1.5 degree slackened off the head tube for proper 'big bike' performance.

The Felt Virtue One - 25.5lb of XC fun - with redesigned tubing, an integrated gusset and some slick graphics.

We can't help but love that graphic that goes right over the rocker. The company that applies the decals reckons they can only do five in a day as it's so complicated. And if you wonder why Felts now look quite snazzy, it's because they've poached the graphics guy responsible for the fantastic Lapierre range.

Another look at the Yeti ASR 5 - which we first showed you in our Eurobike coverage. A five inch XC bike? Or a light all mountain machine? Up to you.

Salsa's new drop bar for 'cross and adventure bikes - super wide (the flat bit is 46cm) with a really short drop, it should find many fans. It's called the Woodchipper and comes in normal and oversize.

Not a new Surly Endomorph tyre (though there is one of those) this is actually a 24in monster cruiser tyre fitted front and rear to a normal Surly 1x1. They did say they were versatile machines, didn't they?

Spotted on most of the Intense bikes - an SLX level direct mount front derailleur. Now you have a choice.

Now that's a pretty carbon seatstay. And it's from Titus.

Titus has a load of new colours and this completely new X-Carbon. 4in travel and a 4.8lb frame/shock in Medium

The full Titus X-Carbon

The Titus FTM was introduced last year - how about this brand new Titanium one?

Chipps says he'll fight anyone who doesn't think that this matt/polish finish isn't gorgeous. (He's suffering a bit from the desert heat, don't mind him...)

To our knowledge (feel free to prove us wrong) this is the first flared 1 1/8th-1.5in headtube that's been done in titanium.

Another flared tube, this time on the Carbon Ftm - still with 5in of travel.

Internal cable routing...

Moulded-in logos - it's the little things...

Under down-tube rock bash plate for the carbon.

The full FTM carbon

The same Ibis Mojo HD that we brought you from Eurobike. It's been stripped of its Stars and Stripes decals and remains a proto, though we're off to see Lopes' World Champs bike in the show hall tomorrow to see how they differ.

A detail that was hard to make out in our Eurobike coverage - the back end of the 160mm Ibis Mojo HD has a Maxle rear axle.

Just for Singletrack member bent_udder - a shot of the Kona Magic Link Cadabra bike up close. The bikes at Eurobike were bolted to backings with the drive-side outwards, so it was impossible to get in close. Here you are!

Smith Optics have some really great lens tints coming out for next year - oh, and they sponsor the current World Mr Peat Champion

Chopper aka Greg Randolph with the new gold mirror Serpico shades.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)