On Test: 2012 Niner AIR9 Carbon RDO!

We were high on the list for this bike, but since we had the parts and needed only the frame we ended up getting bumped a couple times.  No problems, though, because she's here now and she's beautiful.

Out of the box we weighed everything that was different from the EMD9 this is replacing.  When going from the EMD9 you not only swap to a carbon frame, but the headset is now integrated instead of a Zero Stack pressfit.  Honestly, I dig the pressfit headsets, but it's incredibly easy to change bearings with an integrated headset, so I'm not too broken up about it.  Also, the integrated FSA headset is roughly half the weight of the Cane Creek pressfit that was in the EMD9.

Also different from the EMD9 is the bottom bracket standard.  The EMD9 uses a standard English-threaded bottom bracket where the AIR9 Carbon RDO uses a PressFit30 bottom bracket.  This opens up the possibility to use lighter BB30-compatible cranks and larger tube junctions.

We'll have a first-ride review coming very soon, as well as apples-to-apples weight comparisons and some build notes coming very soon.  Stay tuned....