Sea Otter 2012: Magura

Magura was at the Sea Otter, doing its usual tech support stuff, but also showing off a few of its 2013 goodies.

The road world was equally excited and puzzled by Magura’s new road product; a full hydraulic road rim brake for time trial bikes. However the slightly niche offering meant that it didn’t have to worry about integrating shifters into the system and it could help alleviate the oft-circuitous brake routing that time trial bikes have in the name of aerodynamics.

Now, to add to its road offerings, Magura is doing a cable actuated, hydraulic rim brake version for more normal drop bar setups. This now means that it’ll work with your preferred gear shifting levers, but allow you hydraulic (rim) braking. So the cyclocrossers needn’t get too excited, but it might be of use to racers and tourists. It does seem a bit of a stopgap though as it doesn’t do away with the unpredicability of rim braking in the wet and the reliance on the destruction of your rim sidewall for braking friction.

Magura has entered the 29er fork wars with its TS8 suspension fork. With 32mm stanchions, it comes in 80/100/120mm lengths (set lengths with internal travel adjustment available) and 9mm or 15mm thru-axle. There’s the usual range of Magura options with the DLO Dynamic Lock Out and the Albert Select optional platform damping adjuster.

Magura was pretty ahead of the game in saying that it was going to product 27.5in/650B forks. Here’s the TS8 650. It’ll come in 120 and 150mm lengths and has Maxle Lite 15mm lowers. There’ll be TS8 and TS8SL versions of the 27.5 and 29in forks with weights for the SL100 forks being approx 1299g for 26in and 1630g for the 29er.