2008 Mojo SL

A Sub 5lbs 5.5" travel frame, No Way!.......YES WAY! Or should that be YES WEIGHT?

More details on http://www.ibiscycles.com/, but the bike sure looks sweeeeeet!

Bullit

A Picture Says A Thousand Words;

Sneak Preview

Ok, the new catalogue pages for the 2008 V10, Stigmata and Chameleon.
Yeah, I know, the pictures are small, you guys ask for too much, it is, after all, a sneak preview!

Joe's Corner

Have you been loosing sleep worrying about your axle path? This should clear things up.

August Edition. It’s easy to claim that something sucks. And it’s easy to claim something else is “better”. But it’s hard to prove that the claim is true. And it’s even harder to define what “better” is. However, you need to do both.This is the first in a series of articles in which I’ll talk about what we at SCB know about bicycle suspension technology and what we’re working on for the future. After years of developing and selling suspension bikes, and watching the industry evolve with us, we think it’s time to take stock of what is happening right now and what we can all look forward to. We plan to come clean about things we’ve learned and things we don’t completely understand. Along the way we’ll debunk some myths, explain some commonly misunderstood concepts, and generally give a sense of where we are and where we’re going.Bicycle suspension is complex. We’re not interested in taking years of experimentation and accrued knowledge with our group of dedicated engineers and techs and converting it into a simplified claim that is drowned out by the chorus of “me too” heard annually at Interbike.

Axle Path Don’t Matter No Mo’: Part 1 of a Series.

Here’s something that nobody wants to hear: Axle path doesn’t matter for bicycle suspension. At least, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as some people say. It’s true. Axles move up and down, and everyone can imagine that they follow a certain path, so it’s an appealing thing to think about. But unfortunately, describing an axle path as “vertical”, the classic “near-vertical”, “s-shaped”, or “rearward”, is an over-simplification of the suspension system. It’s also dead wrong. Santa Cruz once published a postcard showing the axle path of the original V10 as being “S-shaped”. It was misleading and technically incorrect, and we apologize. We even have a US patent that covers that specifically: Patent # 5628524. But we no longer employ it in our designs, because it doesn’t really matter.Basically, the center of your rear wheel can’t move much more than 20mm in distance from the center of the bottom bracket or your pedals feel like they are getting tugged around a lot. It has taken some time, but this is something known and understood to us, and it should be known to everyone else making suspension bikes. This is especially true for multi-ring set-ups, because smaller chain-rings make the cranks move more for a given amount of chain growth. Our V10 has more than 30mm of chain growth, but since it’s meant to be ridden with a big ring all the time, pedal feedback isn’t such a big issue. Check out this image.So, the endpoint of your 5-inch travel bike can be anywhere from no chain growth to 20mm of chain growth. When you combine that with the fact that any effect in compression has an opposing effect in rebound, there aren’t many legitimate options from the bottom to the top in that range. Not enough that it’s really going to mean the difference between a good bike and a crappy bike. Or that something “pedals great” or “is neutral under braking” – whatever that means. That’s bogus. It’s what marketing guys, get paid to do: Make up a simple, believable reason why a product is superior. And then repeat those reasons over and over until they become accepted as common knowledge despite the lack of real justification. The truth is that axle path should be a result of other parameters, not a goal in itself. Therefore, axle path doesn’t matter.

More in the next installment: Instant Center Migration.

Stigmata

Righto, I've been away, need to catch up on stuff. So for the time being you can check out the new Stigmata. More info to come.........

This is the info Santa Cruz have releases so far;

Santa Cruz, making a ‘cross bike? Is this some kind of joke? Hell no! We are based in Santa Cruz, California, after all, and that implies a winter’s worth of mucky run-ups at the Watsonville fairgrounds, sand pits at Fort Ord, and that sketchy off-camber bit at Soquel high school. ‘Cross is part of the landscape here, and we wanted bikes with our name on the tubes to throw over our shoulders between October and January.So we took Easton’s new EA6X tubing and came up with a super lean (1300grams for a 54cm frame, with powdercoat), no-compromise (we don’t need no steenkin’ rack or fender braze-ons), race ready ‘cross frame. It has a low BB and tight geometry, and tons of tire clearance. She carves turns hard enough to leave scorch marks, and we can hardly wait for winter.

What Mountain Bike give new Heckler 10/10

I've been a BIG fan of the Heckler form the first time I saw one way back in 1996 (I think).

Anyhow, What Moutain Bike gives the 'all new' Heckler a 10/10 review.

OK, I might NEED one of the new Hecklers in my bike stable!

Read the review here;