More from Eurobike

Finally, the Giant TCR Advanced Team is to be available in the US. I listed the TCR as one of my favorite bikes back in March, but at the time I was bummed that the integrated seatpost model was only available in Europe. Speaking of Europe, I am ready to add the new Scott bikes that were just shown at Eurobike to my favorites list. The Addict road bike features an all carbon (dropouts, bottom bracket shell, everything) frameset. With a frame weight of 790 grams (that’s slightly under 1.75 pounds), Scott was able to build up a 13 pound bike for the show. Nice! Too bad I don’t have an extra 11 grand lying around to drop on a new road bike. Scott also showed the Spark, a lightweight carbon full suspension mountain bike. The bike uses and integrated molding process, which means that the top tube head tube and down tube are all made in one piece. The frame weighs in at 3.9 pounds. Wow, that is really light for a full suspension frame. In fact, my first lightweight steel road bike frame weighed more than that.

The big new/old news from Cannondale at the show was the 30 mm bottom bracket. Cannondale has used the size for years, but at Eurobike they offered it up as an industry standard. Drawings and specs are available on the bb30standard website. It will be interesting to see who jumps on board. For some good commentary on the subject, check out this Guitar Ted post. Another interesting idea that Cannondale showed was the integrated stem steerer on the Carbon Rush mountain bike. Check out this 6 minute podcast video from BikeBiz for more info on that and several of the other products at the show.

Of course, Eurobike winding down means that Interbike is right around the corner. I can’t wait to see more new product at the biggest of the bicycle industry tradeshows.

Photo from cyclingnews.com

Posted

September 7, 2006

Miscellaneous

James

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2 responses to “More from Eurobike”

jorgensen

September 8, 2006

FSA had listed in their website catalog a similar orconcurrent version of this a while ago, their rationale was thatalong with a stiffer spindle it provided larger diameter bearings that would have a longer life.

Long ago, when lightweight was the holy grail, and Teledyne BB spindles were made, the problem was they flexed too much, so increase the diameter for stiffness. Bicycling! mag in 1973 or so also ran an article where someone had machined a spindle from two parts, silver brazed them together and ground the bearing surfaces all in an effort to get a stiffer spindle, of course, that design was of only marginal improvement as it necked down to “standard” diameters outside of the BB cups.

I like the size, not so hot on the press in bearing plan, I see the replay of the 1 1/8″ and 1 1/4″ headset battles again… now if Mr. C and Mr. S could agree…

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James

September 11, 2006

No doubt the idea of a larger diameter spindle and bearings makes a lot of sense. I am not really so opposed to press in bearings, like those found on most BMX bikes. I think that is a better option than bearings outboard of the bottom bracket shell (like Shimano Hollowtech or FSA’s MegaExo).
Those designs are stiff, but they increase the Q factor of the cranks. The first outboard bearing design that I remember was the one that Magic Motorcycle did in the mid 90’s, but the idea has really taken root in recent years.

It will be interesting to see if this turns into a replay of the headset diameter battle. I am not so sure that anyone (mainly Shimano) will bite on Canondale’s offer to build products to their larger standard. I wish them luck though. I still have an old Canondale mountain bike with an 1 ¼” headset that is set up as my single speed. It’s out in the garage with my Betamax player.

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