Spank have quite a lot of new stuff on show at Eurobike 2015; mainly in rims, pedals and wheelsets. Some of these developments come thanks to Spank bringing CNC production in house, and as a result SRPs on some of their product will be lower than before. Spank you, Thank Industries.
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While familiar in name, Spoon pedals are relaunching in three different sizes, a 90mm pedal for up to size 7 shoes, a 100mm to go up to 9, and a whopping 110mm platform for turning it all the way up to 11 (or more).
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After spending a while being quiet about their line of rims, new ones are also going to be available soon, built around ideas of somewhat narrower rims for racing and wider rims for comfort. I’m assured that after an extensive study of current tyre designs, these have been designed to work on most without creating tread mohicans or the dreaded concave knob.
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All rims retain Spank’s now familiar bead bite ridges to create greater friction where the rubber seats, and the Oobah profile with its distinctive central bump. The 30mm Subrosa is being dropped, as they’ve apparently managed to make the Oozy 295 trail stronger and more than a hundred grams lighter in any given size. Spank are also adding a plus-sized rim to the range, with an internal width of 33.5mm, which will apparently round off plus tyres nicely.
We briefly had a chat about Vibrocore bars, and found out a few new things about them too. Firstly, it’s not just any old expanding foam, so squirting some in your own bars is unlikely to yield the same result. Two years of lab and rider testing saw them go through various foams to find a closed cell one that attenuated vibrations correctly and wouldn’t separate from the aluminium. As well as that, they found capping the ends internally massively increased the durability of the bars. Previously, their bars would last around 400,000 cycles on the test rig. Vibrocore bars went on the rig for several days straight, and after two million cycles were still going strong. At that point, Mike tells us they had to turn the machine off to let it cool down.
Finally, Spanks wheelsets get a refresh.
Trail wheels arrive tubeless ready with tape and valves ready for your preferred goop and tyres. The hubs are straight pull, and before you groan about that, they’ve designed considerately and, being aware of what a heartache getting replacement spokes can be, ship the wheels with some spares in the box (It’d be worth talking to them if you need more, too).
As well as that, the hub flanges are machined so the entire wheelset only uses one length of spoke. Internals are now swappable between different wheels in the range, and while they come with steel freehubs as standard, they’re also XD driver compatible.
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I like e sound of bars that last a long time, wheels that seem about durability as much as weight, and someone who thinks about maintaining our fixing stuff from day one….
Which reminds me of a detail I forgot to put in the story, thanks Matt! 30 point engagement if I recall correctly. They could easily go higher, but selected that for longevity.