The second day of Sea Otter rolled around in predictable fashion, as Fridays tend to do. Nothing new there. What was somewhat of a novelty was the weather, however - rather than the usual unpleasant mix of swirling winds, dust storms and torrential rain, we had nothing but blue sky and sunshine. It being still a weekday (and therefore relatively quiet in the expo area), and with the race schedule full with more rounds of practice and amateur events, I took it upon myself to hunt out some of the new products being released. Not that it was hard, there was new stuff everywhere. First up, SRAM - no further details of the high-end XX stuff, but the rest of the range is looking colourful...
"Design your ride", they're saying. You can now get colour-coded Noir cranks, X.0 shifters and mechs and ever PG-990 cassettes. Imagine the horrible clashing schemes you could conjure up...
There's no purple in the line (yet), but there's orange, green, gold, red or pink to choose from.
Greg Herbold shows off his latest 'bling' - a necklace made from X-0 thumb triggers in all the available colours.
Orangey X-0 with Crank Brothers' Iodine wheels looks ace.
Every journo had a secretly hidden packet of sweets under their chairs... if this had been Skittles I would've won an X-0 groupset. Still, free chocolate, can't complain.
New Elixir CR Mag brake lever - redesigned lever, enlarged pivot with snazzy see-through detail and a magnesium body for even lighter weight. Think of it as a replacement for the Juicy Carbons.
Truvativ brought out their lovely Noir bars last year, this time round they're adding equally shiny seat posts to the range - available in straight and layback, "Team" and "World Cup" flavours.
Not as sexy as carbon but still handy to have around - Stylo stems.
Not enough SRAM on your bike? Lock-on style grips in white or red.
New Matchmaker clamps offer more adjustment options for those who like clean control layout.
The Revelation fork gets the work-over the rest of the Rock Shox line has already had - Powerbulge bushings for longer life and stiffness, more tyre clearance to run up to 2.5" rubber, and a whole bevvy of options - 130-150mm U-Turn or fixed 130/150mm Dual Air, taped or standard steerer, QR or 20mm Maxle Light. Should make a fun fork even more so.
Newly released for the Monarch rear shock line is this Dual Air option, so tuning small bump and big hit compression should be even easier.
