Brooks has added some interesting grips to its range of saddles and bags. The lock-on style grips are assembled by threading leather discs on to thin rods between the clamping ends. The leather bits are replaceable and the grips are said to mould themselves to your hands with time in the manner of Brooks’s famous saddles.
This custom Moots was built for ultra-endurance lunatic Mike Curiak for a 500 mile trip across Alaska. Front and rear wheels carry 4in tyres and can be swapped around in case of freehub failure. Custom titanium racks are mounted front and rear, 1.5l of water can be carried inside the downtube and each fork leg doubles up as a fuel bottle.
DT Swiss
The carbon fibre air can on DT’s SSD Carbon shock weighs half as much as the aluminium one, bringing the total weight down to between 139 and 165g depending on length. Which is very light indeed.
Also in the “bonkers light” category are the new 190 Ceramic hubs. Aluminium freehub bodies and axles combine with ceramic bearings to bring the weight down to 205g for a Centerlock-compatible rear MTB hub and 105g for a front.
Having already introduced the EX5.1d rim between the XR4.1d and FR6.1d, DT has now launched an XR4.2d. It’s a cross-country rim but is a couple of mm wider than the 4.1 to handle bigger tyres.
The EX1750 enduro/all-mountain wheelset has a 28mm wide rim, 20mm through-axle front wheel, DT’S RWS retention system at the back and bladed spokes. Claimed weight is, as the name suggests, 1,750g.
Stan’s No-Tubes has released a couple of new tubeless-ready rims. The ZTR Flow is a 28mm wide, 470g rim for all-mountain use while the ZTR Arch is a 24.4mm, 420g extra-stiff XC rim. Stan’s also does off-the-peg and custom wheelsets.
Reynolds’s carbon fibre MTB wheels, shown in prototype form last year, are now in production. The Topo wheels will be available in tubular or clincher versions, with the tubular ones being a bit lighter but rather limiting your tyre optiona.
Proceed
Bavarian manufacturer Proceed looks set to follow in Nicolai’s footsteps as a popular brand featuring a distinctly engineered aesthetic. The VRC Race DH/FR frame has 170-210mm of travel and rear QR or through-axle options.
The FST freeride/enduro frame has 150-177mm of travel and is available in Pro, Light or more economically-priced Trail versions. The Pro can be had with a 1.5in head tube if you so wish.
Finally for this update, a couple of carbon fibre derivatives of existing bikes. Titus’s Racer-X Carbon is very tidy looking, and features a replaceable aluminium bashplate on the underside of the dountube to help protect against rock damage.
As well as Giant’s Anthem Advanced race bike, there’s also a Trance Advanced carbon trail bike. Again, it looks great – if it rides half as well as it looks then Giant will be on to a winner.
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