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Interbike Report One: Let’s take a look round.

Press Launch

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Ahh, don’t you just love content systems that put the pictures in the reverse order… Anyway, we were going to finish here for the moment, but we’ll start here instead.

Interbike 2009-45
Race Face's cunningly named 'DH 3/4' shorts which are, as you might guess, 3/4s downhill shorts. They're made of thicker than usual fabric and now come with belt loops to hold them up when sodden. Ideal for the UK then.
Interbike 2009-44
Race Face's Decadence crank - an offshoot of their Cadence road crank (geddit?) - this is a two piece crank intended for the fixie boys. A clever chainring arrangement allows four different fixie chainlines from the same bolts and ring.

Interbike 2009-43
Not that people seem to cut bars down any longer, but if you want to, Race Face's cutting guide also tells you how much weight you're saving. 40mm = 20g
Interbike 2009-42
No longer Deus XC, it's just Deus, OK? And it's still a top-end group from Race Face, just that you might want to use it for more than XC.
Interbike 2009-41
That's how they do it? Mark quizzing Jon from Race Face with his Star Trek Tricorder.

Interbike 2009-37
If you've not heard of D3o, it's the hot new flubber-like material that's used in everything from tennis rackets to military armour. If you move it slowly, it's pliant and soft, but hit the ground hard and it immediately (though not permanently) hardens into a shell to take the impact. Race Face has been quick to adopt it and here is their new knee and upper-shin pad in D3o
Interbike 2009-36
This Race Face glove features D3o on the outer two fingers for tree-protection and back of the hand for flying branches.
Interbike 2009-40
One of the most interesting bits so far - a chainring saver/bash guard from Race Face. It's called the 'Half Bash Bash' and you bolt it on whichever side is your favourite descending 'chocolate' foot. This saves your expensive outer ring from rocks while still letting you run a triple and front mech. We like. Oh, and that's their new 'Sixc' (pronounced 'Six') carbon freeride crank. Only 30g lighter than their NEXT Carbon crank - so right on XTR weight then.

Interbike 2009-35
Like them or not, colours are coming back and Race Face are bravely out there. Non-80s colours are also available.

Interbike 2009-34
Marmite anyone?

Interbike 2009-33
Giro DJ Glove. Affordable, relatively crash resistant and out now.

Interbike 2009-31
More proof that girls get all the good colours - the women-only Xena glove from Giro, the parther to their men's Xen glove.
Interbike 2009-30
Chipps is currently regretting taking his hat off in the desert sun to try on some new Giro glasses. It was hot out there.

Interbike 2009-20
WTB are showing a brand new Wierwolf which Mark Weir refers to at the 'Receding Hairwolf' due to the redisigned, staggered side knobs which give extra traction in hard corners. It's available soon.

Interbike 2009-15
Chris King (the company) has been quietly making 'Cielo' road bikes for many years. There's now so much demand they're having a play with 'cross bikes and mountain bikes. This fork crown is completely machined, not cast...
Interbike 2009-12
Even the little (untapered - nice!) seatstays are capped with machined mojos.
Interbike 2009-11
The front of the Cielo mountain bike - how about that Inset headset and the polished ring reinforcements?
Interbike 2009-10
If you're a Sycip fan, you'll probably recognise some of this handiwork.

Interbike 2009-9

Interbike 2009-100
And which mountain biker has been running a SRAM Red road cassette on his bolt-through downhill bike? The current DH World Champ, that's who. More of this obsessively tuned bike later.
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.)

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