We’ve just got off the phone to big chief Adrian Carter from Pace with a huge long list of stuff they’re doing for the future.
Having admitted that their small company spent a few years doing more racing and less development than they should have, the Yorkshire R+D think tank is now running at full speed ready for next year. Detail tweaks will appear on all the current line up of Pro Class II, Air Force II and RC31 forks, as well as a new heavy duty aluminium legged version of the RC31 rigid fork. Work on the Invert upside down fork has been put on the ‘back burner’ though as Pace work on their new RC40. This is a totally new fork with an all carbon lower assembly that involves some very clever thinking and several patents, and a totally new (for Pace) damping system. Travel is designed to be 120mm, adjustable down to 80mm and the fork is slated to be cheaper than exsisting models when it hits the market next spring.
Another suprise is news of a range of ultra durable, high quality headsets in standard and integrated formats, using 7000 series aluminium, stainless steel and angular contact bearings. Again these are due to the shops early next year.
Their big long term project was the one they let on about last though. Pace are finally getting round to building a full suspension XC bike! It’s at the drawing board and materials analysis stage at the moment and Adrian was keeping tight lipped but it’ll have 100mm of travel in a simple, low maintenance superlight format using a “material that as far as they know hasn’t been used in bikes before”. After detailed interrogation they revealed it isn’t chocolate fudge, iron or horsehair but the figures they’re working with suggest it’s 50 – 100% stiffer than aluminium. Obviously we’ll let you know more as soon as they build their first prototype.