Number 783

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INTERBIKE ! Outdoor Demo Day 1

Welcome to Interbike everyone! The swan song for Las Vegas. Next year ( actually, just 10 months away ) the big show will be in Anaheim California. We will be bringing you some highlights of the next 4 days worth of activities at the close of each day. And there will probably be some B-Side material that will be posted after the week is over.

Ridden

Look's top of the line 695. Look brings some real innovation to their 2011 line-up with the 695. Look's innovative integrated seatpost system is a carry over from last year but the new stem and the new one piece crankarm-to-spindle-to-crankarm deserves a blog post all to themselves.
After giving it good beating on the road, the bike does indeed prove itself to be very stiff. Lighter wheels on the test bike would have been truer to what a real life race set-up would likely be, but even with heavier hoops, the bike was very light. This frame, fork, stem, seatpost, and crankarm combo weighs a good chunk less then a Scott Addict with the same Dura-Ace parts.






Ridden:

Mad Fiber's newest contribution to the wild and wacky world of boutique carbon wheels. These tips the scales at just over 1050 grams. Mad Fiber is a new company and are selling direct to the consumer for right now. They were here at the outdoor portion of Interbike to drum up some good press and hopefully some good word of mouth.
Light? Yep. Stiff? Yes. Slighly unpredictable? Yea, a bit. They like to squirm around if that makes any sense. The sensitivity is no doubt a result of having a super stiff and responsive rim "breathlessly" attached to the rest of the bike. With such a light wheel. You feel the effects of inertia more. All that means though is that these wheels will take some getting used to and after that, there's no problem. If they hold up strength wise, Mad Fiber has a winner here that can drop a nice race bike into the 13 pound range no problem.

Ridden:


The Scott Genius LT ( long travel ).
How do you make 2010's best all mountain bike better? Bump it up to 7 inches of travel front and back. This bike was a joy to ride and it went everywhere. We even took it on the downhill shuttled run for some gravity assisted fun. It handled steep steep descents no problem, dropped 4 footers and climbed like a beefy race bike. The Genius LT with it's on the fly adjustable fork rake setting and a gravity dropper seatpost is truly a do it all.



Some smart looking new carbon cross rig's from Fuji.









Norco has some new models coming out, like this great looking road bike.









It wouldn't be Interbike without some weird stuff.... Here, some very widely set TT bars.









Novatec has always flown under the radar. Here a new set of wheels with oversized, hollow carbon hubs.












Lastly, some ironic humor.... Catching the venerable Lennard Zinn at the Look booth to learn about the 695's new stem system and having it end up 4 guys messing with an initially confusing and intricate system.

And we thought the French lived simply...









More to come tomorrow!