I’m back in Welly now and the first On Your Bike Expo is in the books. The Spoke/ABD pump track was super fun to both build and ride and by the looks of the people riding it and hanging out in the Spoke/ABD camp it was definitely one of the highlights of the expo. For me seeing multi-sporter Richard Ussher stomp a backflip into the Airbag was up there.
I went for a good scout around the booths yesterday and found a few little gems worth mentioning. Over in the Blue Shark booth they had a bit of 2012 Troy Lee schwag on display and the Air Gloves look like they could be winners for 2012. I’m a bit of a glove whore and after trying these on I can ensure you that they are the business. They have a super thin and ultra breathable lightweight outer with a couple of tiny bits of rubber protection, but the party is in the back; you see the whole palm (including the fingers) is one piece Clarino leather. NO seams at all.
They also had this swanky bearing press for the ultra home mechanic (or shop). It’s from Enduro and comes with all the adapters for most common bearing sizes.
http://vimeo.com/32063677
Now we’ve mentioned the Enduro XD15 bottom bracket in the past, but this was the first time I’d seen one in the flesh. They roll seriously smooth out of the box. Both of the built up Blue Shark demo bikes in the booth were sporting them and were spinning almost as free as this unit (not connected to the chain).
Sun Ringle’s new SRD 26″ carbon wheelset was also turning a few heads. It features a 26 mm rim width, it’s built with Wheelsmith spokes, rolls on premium cartridge bearings and weighs in at 1555grams.
And to add to Blue Shark’s bling factor they had this sexy red Intense M9 on display. It’s enough to make me what to pull out my unworn full face helmet.
Yeti’s SB66 is well and truly here and Kashi at Yeti has all the frame colours in stock: white, turquoise, black and this rad looking green.
There were a few interesting things over at the Gloworm stand. Branching out from lights, they had headsets, bottom brackets and this rad looking flat pedal, the Talon. Dirtjump slayer Lewis Jones liked the look of them and put a set on his bike that day. They will be $99.
But the real head turner was Gloworm’s new X2. They only had a prototype on display (well it wasn’t really on display) but this thing is crazy; it’s 1200 lumens and is seriously small. It’s CNC’d from a single block of aluminium and is so light that the helmet mount will be going on the front of your helmet, not the top. Gloworm are offering pre-order specials on this thing at $199 (retail will be around $239). Hit them up here if you’re keen. Also worthy of note from the Gloworm Easiup is the fact that they are now the distributor for Elka shocks.
Meanwhile back at the pump track, young Hamilton shredder Ryan McPherson earned himself a brand new ABD Derelikt frame for landing a front flip into the airbag. Watch out for this kid, he’s coming up for sure.
At the start of the weekend Kelly and Brook had the same number of Twitter followers, so enlisting Spoke’s Twitter community we started a bit of a battle and as it stands Brook has 250 (although riders like Steve Peat have come to his rescue) and Kelly has 151. If you want to make either of them feel better or find out where to stalk them, sign up to Twitter and follow them. Hey, you could follow us too…
