Bike Hugger 

Pedaler’s Fair is this weekend at their new location: 2407 1st Ave in Seattle.

Pedaler’s Fair is an annual marketplace for Washington based, bicycle-inspired small businesses to exhibit their goods. In its first year, Pedaler’s Fair hosted 23 exhibitors and received over 1,000 guests. In addition to exhibitor booths we had live music, workshops and presentations.

In town this weekend and plan on stopping by.

Hardened drivetrain

While media events are carefully constructed to keep journos on topic and the staff on message, there’s the occasional one-of bike or pet project that shows up in the mechanic’s tent. Like this Saxo Bank Classics bike. This wasn’t part of the SRAM 11 + Hydro launch. It was built a few seasons ago. Look closely and notice it’s actually a Tarmac SL4 with Roubaix legs. Sure you can buy what the pros ride, as the industry’s marketing will tell you, but really what they ride is uniquely laid up for them and from the “special” molds.

Downtube as big as a 40

To survive the rigors of the cobbles, the Tarbaix also has a cold-forged derailer hanger, and not one you could bend with your hands. Examining this bike, I said, “wish Spesh would release a bike just like this without the Zertz.”

Call it the Roubaix Elite, whatever, or a Tarbaix.

Not much room there for a tire

We’re already planning another ride on the Strip, a Mobile Social Interbike, with the crew from Tern. This one was in Taipei earlier this year.

HELLO! Hydro

This week SRAM officially took the wraps off of two new key products, hydraulic disc brakes and a new 11 speed drive train called SRAM 22.

To test their new hydraulic road disc brakes, SRAM says they sent test riders down the Stelvio wearing 150 pound packs for a total weight, with bikes, of more than 250 pounds. As they told the assembled media at the 22 launch, they did this repeatedly with no boiling or fade. It was also mentioned that if hydraulic brakes ever did boil over, they only fail if you release the lever. SRAM, which has been developing the new hydraulic system for the last two years clearly learned how to avoid some of the most common issues with hydraulic brakes and high speed braking. I imagined in the initial test runs was a bit like the trench run in Star Wars with a call to the headset of the rider that said, “you’re running hot, don’t let go!” Then they re-calibrated and tested again.

Full-meal deal, demo bike

Sending a pack of journalist up into the hills and down the steep canyons above Westlake Village meant SRAM is fully confidant in their new road disc brakes, or in their insurance carrier. I can assure you these work to bring a rider to an on-the-dime stop at a light or on a twenty percent drop before a hard left into S-curves at 40 mph. These are game changers. For decades the biggest developments in bikes has been to go faster and with little development in how we slow, modulate, or control speed. Even the newest brakes, like the EEs on a Venge, are about how light they are, not how well they stop.

An Evo with Hydro is one hot setup

What a weekend! Seattle got hail and snowfall in the city, and Hugger-in-Chief Byron got down to Cali for the SRAM’s “22” launch. What’s “22”? That would be the number of speeds the new SRAM Red and Force groupsets offer. In the equivalent of tying a coconut to a pair of swallows, SRAM offers a drivetrain that allows the rider to utilize all 22 possible gear combinations, all without rub or the need to trim the front derailleur. SRAM wants you to know that they are bringing a true twenty-two speed drivetrain to the rider, but that’s not why you’re going to read this post. You’re gonna read this post because of the hydraulic brakes.

I really don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now that I won’t have the opportunity to use a really condescending voice when I explain to novice bike shoppers that the correct nomenclature for a road bike is expressed as a “ten speed triple” or an “eleven speed double” because the extreme crossover combinations are not usable. Already on most SRAM equipped bikes with the recent YAW-type front derailleur of the 2012 Red group, you can hit all the cogs cleanly from the big ring, and all the cogs save the first position cog since the chain hits the big ring on its way from the inner ring. An educated guess is that SRAM engineers increased the spacing between the rings to get the inner ring out of the shadow of the big, and then further tweaked the YAW derailleur, which uniquely translates slightly on a vertical axis as it moves laterally outward. Like 10sp Red, the new Red22 and Force 22 do away with front derailleur trim positions; you slam it up or slam it down and the system does the job with no further ado.