The Fort William World Cup had an extensive pit/expo area, with plenty of manufacturers showing off their wares and sundry vaguely prototypey race things lurking around. Here's a selection of stuff that caught our eyes.
Looking for a middleweight, disc-specific rim? It's been a notorious gap in the market for some time now, but DT Swiss is about to fill it with the EX 5.1D. Wider than the 4.1D, not as burly as the 6.1D, just the job.
Also from DT is this new downhill wheelset. It's vital to be visible in this market, and yellow was already taken, so DT has gone for fire engine red. Eyecatching.
Burgtec's "Penthouse Flat" pedals (can you see what they've done there?) feature nitrided axles, machined body, removable pins, sealed bearings, a choice of anodised colours and a £125 price tag.
Anne-Caroline Chausson wasn't at Fort William, but her World Championship-winning Commencal bike was.
Cove's latest downhill bike goes all sort-of-VPP style, only slightly different. Or a bit Maestroey, but slightly different too. Clearly we need a generic name for short-linkage bikes, we'll keep working on that. Nice colour, too.
Gamut chain devices come in two grades - the posh ones have lightweight polycarbonate bashguards, the less posh ones have aluminium. Rollers and guides are the same either way, and there are several versions to accomodate your particular frame/chainring requirements.
To go with DT's 5.1 rim, there's now a through-axle version of the 340 middleweight hub.
Hope had a particularly extensively anodised bike on its stand. Obviously the brakes were gold anodised, but so were the rims and SRAM rear mech. Pimpy.
The latest incarnation of GT's internal-transmission gearboxy downhiller was on display
Minnaar used this Honda in the 4X competition - it's vaguely in the style of his gearbox downhill bike, but with a regular derailleur. Showa shock out back and a debadged Pike up front.
Santa Cruz's super-swoopy Nomad all-mountain frame is now available in a choice of colours. We've sort of decided that the polished finish is possibly a bit high-maintenance, but we like this blue.
Saracen's XC racers were running these tidy-looking carbon fibre hardtails.
Rocky Mountain's venerable Slayer has been completely redesigned for 2006. Rather than being a sort of beefy, longer-travel Element it's now more of a lighter Switch. It occupies the same niche as the old bike, but the niche has moved - the Slayer now has 6in of travel out back.
Carlos the Slackal
