New IF Shots

A few new shots have recently made their way out of Independent Fabrication HQ I thought I'd share...

First up is an SSR MAX with blue/gray panels beautifully painted.  My love runs deep for the SSR having owned one in the past and currently riding an SSR MAX made like this one.  The panels turned out beautiful, though I'm still hung up on raw.

Another SSR MAX with an interesting 3/4 paint with well-executed jersey panels incorporating some raw stripes showing through.

A silver Corvid caps things off nicely.  Again, I'm personally a fan of raw on this carbon frame, but the silver turned out much better than I would have expected.  The new script is all class and I can't help but to assume once built this bike will be stunning.

That's it for now....

In Stock: Tate Labs Bar Fly

To be honest, I wasn't sure what the Bar Fly was really for.  I'm pretty happy with the current Garmin EDGE 500/800 mount.  I don't spend too much time staring at the head unit while riding, so glancing down during an interval didn't seem like too much of a bother.  On top of that, the Garmin mounts are only $10, versus the $40 MSRP of the Bar Fly.

Last year I actually had the chance to get a tour around Mt. Tam with the crew from Above Category, and at that time was able to see the Bar Fly in prototype form.  At that time it was clear these guys were on a mission to make something different but also perform to the exacting standards they expect on all of their builds.

Upon arrival, presentation is as expected from Tate Labs and Above Category.  Clean packaging, somewhat minimal with just enough hidden detail to make you appreciate it.  The packaging is highlighted by the Bar Fly photo mounted to a Baum.  Instructions on the back are almost unnecessarily thorough, but who hasn't received a new part and rushed to install it but ended up scratching something?

Installation is simple requiring a 3mm allen and a single bolt.  Construction is solid with the mount made of Delrin, the same thing Wheels Manufacturing is using for their BB30 adapters amongst other things.

Once mounted, it's pretty amazing how much tighter the Garmin 800 fits into the mount than with the standard Garmin mount.  With the standard mount the Garmin slips in quickly and has a firm "click" when in place.  With the Bar Fly it takes much more pressure to install the Garmin and much more force to turn the Garmin into place.  It doesn't have the same type of "click" when in place, but it does still stop when correctly positioned.

The Bar Fly puts the Garmin in a position that at first ride made me nervous.  The EDGE 800 isn't a cheap computer and hanging out in front of my bars made me a little nervous, but after a few minutes on the bike I forgot about that.  The mount is perfectly secure so far and has quelled the fear of losing my computer.

Most importantly, the Bar Fly allowed me to adjust the angle at which the Garmin sits.  This seems to be most important to those using negative-rise stems or high-rise stems.  Personally I use a -10 degree stem, which isn't extreme, but it can leave the Garmin with a lot of glare.

After about 20 miles with the Bar Fly, I'm starting to "get it".  Surely it's not the cheapest option, but it is US-made and of the highest quality.  When mounting it up to a hand- and US-made, custom frame, a few bucks for a nice computer mount shouldn't be too big of a deal.  The ability to adjust the angle of the computer is more important to me than having it mounted in front of my bars, but both of those things made the computer more readable than the stock Garmin mount.

If you've ever experienced glare, or found yourself craning your neck to read your computer, this unit is for you.  Maybe you just want something new and a little different?  This fits the bill.  It's a nice mount, it's well made, it offers a level of adjustability not previously available.

Review: Mavic Cosmic Carbone SLE Exalith Wheel System

Our boy Gavin spent a little over a week on our demo Mavic Cosmic Carbone SLE wheelset to help us add some dimension to our product reviews.  Gavin is the perfect guy to test wheels for us, really.  He's got the ability to really put a lot of watts through wheels, he's been riding for quite some time, and since he doesn't own the wheels we can trust that he'll be more objective.  He was also given free reign to ride them as he saw fit on whatever ride he saw fit.  Here's what he came away with:

First ride - small group ride, tempo pace mostly with one good sprint, ~35 miles. Weather: not friendly. It started pouring about 10 minutes into the ride - the kind of rain that when you're driving, you pull over because the sheets of water are pounding the windshield and you can't see anything. We rode anyway, and I figured this would surely be a good test of the Exalith braking surface and Mavic's brake pads. The braking can really only be described with one word, and that word is 'great'.  Really, just as good in a downpour as when dry.
 
At the designated sprint point, they held up well - they are just as stiff as my everyday Ksyrium ES wheels, no flexing to rub the brake pads under a 1250W effort. 
 
The only downside was a flat rear I picked up at around 25 miles. Small piece of glass I probably picked up in the gutter from all the rain runoff, unfortunately it made a fairly large cut just off center on the tire… I probably wouldn't use the GripLink and PowerLink as regular training tires, but maybe I'm just used to running one set of GP4000s for the last year and a half with no flats. Water does tend to collect in the tires as well; probably from the valve stem cutout. I did go through standing water that was deeper than the rims, so I wasn't too surprised. The only way to get the water out is to let the air out and put the tire off.

 

Second ride - solo, regular North Shore route. Seemed a bit easier to hold speed - as far as aero-ness, they're certainly better than my everyday set when rolling along at 22mph+ in a group or not. They are a bit on the heavy side, so require a bit more effort to spin up, but once you're cruising, they just want to keep rolling.

Third ride - group of 15, rotating paceline, long portions maintaining 25-27mph. Coming from non-aero wheels, the ease of holding a high pace in the group was a different feel. I did a lot of coasting and soft-pedaling when a few wheels back from the front. I did get constant comments on what the braking sounded like, from "bottle rocket" to "plane landing" so there's that.

Pros - Great braking in all conditions, black braking surface looks cool, stiff, more aero than box-section wheels
 
Cons - Braking noise is odd, a bit on the heavy side, may collect water under severe conditions

There you have it.  For $1700 you get the Exalith treatment on your Cosmic Carbone SL wheelset which turn it into the SLE.  For $1000 less than the SLR, you gain a little weight and lose the carbon spokes.  Gavin's take on Exalith mirrors mine so far, the braking performance is unparalleled.

First Rides: Schwalbe Rocket Ron 29 x 2.25 EVO Pacestar Tires

This year I've made it a point to try as many new 29er tires as reasonably possible.  When I started with 29ers, I loved the Maxxis CrossMark.  The tread is still really nicely designed, but weights of tires has come down a lot in the last 5 years.  At well over 600g per tire, that weight no longer constitutes a race tire in my opinion.

My search stayed with Maxxis originally, and I fell in love with the Aspen.  It's a fast-rolling tire with more cornering grip than the CrossMark with a weight that's almost 70g lighter than the CrossMark, the Aspen was a big hit.

Of course, since I'm on a roll, there's no need to stop with "good enough".  Being a fan of Schwalbe treads on CX tires, namely my FMB Grippo XL sporting the old Racing Ralph tread, I decided Schwalbe was the company to turn to next.  Their tires aren't cheap, which is why I carefully selected the first Schwalbe tread to try.  The Racing Ralph is ever-popular, but with rain predicted when I was placing the order, I decided on the Rocket Ron.

The Rocket Ron 29 x 2.25 EVO with Pacestar tire is much higher volume than I am used to, measuring 2.22" at the casing and 2.32" at the tread.  Being used to a 2.1" tire, this was a change for me.  The height of the knobs was way out of my normal comfort zone having spent so much time on super-fast-rolling XC race tires, I wasn't sure what to expect.  Claimed weight is 520g per tire, actual weights were 525g and 531g.

When mounting the Rocket Ron on my NoTubes Crest rims, the tires popped immediately into place, formed a great seal, and didn't have any sidewall air leaks.

I don't toss this out there very often, if ever, but this is a "hero" tire.  You may or may not have heard of "hero dirt", the kind of tacky soil that makes anyone corner like a pro.  Well, this tire allows a guy like me to have that connected-to-the-trail feeling I assume XC pros feel every day.  The tire also rolls unnaturally fast, with very little resistance.  I was absolutely stunned at how quickly this tire gets you down a nice trail.

On the flip side, the size and spacing of the knobs made me believe this would make for a good mud tire.  Their first ride was in an XC race that probably shouldn't have even happened because of the trail conditions, but it did.  I assume any tire would have been a disaster, but this tire did disappoint that day.  Since then I've found myself on the trail in a couple of muddy spots and the tire has performed respectably but not incredibly.

The Rocket Ron tread is an aggressive all-conditions XC tire.  In my opinion it's not a mud tire, and it's not the absolute fastest XC race tire.  If you need to choose one tire for all conditions, this one will be tough to beat.

As an aside, I have had a few issues with glass on this tire.  I firmly believe the glass that cut these tires would have cut anything, and I believe I just found myself in some bad conditions, but it should be noted that I did get a few cuts very early on.  The tires did eventually seal  with Stan's NoTubes sealant, but it makes me nervous to be riding a tire with a few big cuts and would really irritate me to have these cuts on a $95 tire (EACH!!) if it were my only set.  Again, I think the glass would have cut any tire, but not every tire is $95.

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....

RECALL: Salsa Minimalist Rack

We've only sold a handful of these, but please be aware: the Salsa Minimalist Rack is under recall.

If you own one of these racks, come see us so we can get it taken care of.  I don't have details yet on what Salsa is doing as a repair/replacement, but play it safe and let's get it fixed.

More details can be found here.

Coming soon: Niner Jet9 RDO Spy Shots!