Wednesday, July 04, 2007

News and Views For The Fourth

Hey, it's the Nations Birthday, so I took the morning off. I'm a slacker, I know! At any rate, I hope you all reflect upon what it took to allow you your freedoms this Fourth of July if you partake of those freedoms here in the U.S.A. Enjoy what you've got, because not alot of other places have it.

Enough of that..........now on to the news!

Specialized presented it's full suspension 29"er recently in Mexico and you can catch a picture or two of it here. It's got the Brain rear shock, a new design that shares features given to the redesign of the 26"er version, and a Reba fork. Huh? I thought Specialized was into making it's own products for suspension. Apparently a 29"er fork was considered too big a risk or not feasable at this time.

An interesting thing mentioned in the text of the launch detals was that the head angle had been increased by one degree over the 26"er model for the 29"er version. Hmm.......purusing the Specialized geometry charts reveals.......confusion! At best, all I can say is that it would appear that the new Stumpjumper FSR 29"er is going to err on the slack side of the current geometry for 29"ers and will be a slower handling beast due to the Rebas 38mm offset. Great for bombing down SoCal down hill singletrack, but not so great everywhere else. The rear travel had to be reduced as well, or the chainstays would have been astronomically long, (they look a bit longish as they are). They went with a 105mm at the rear which calculates out to a shade over four inches.

It'll be interesting to see what the wheelbase and chainstay length actually are on this bike. I'm betting it's got limo-like proportions. Just judging from the pics mind you, I've got nothing against Specialized per se. I actually have fond memories of my 94 FSR S-Works bike. It's just that translating a design to 29"er dimensions is fraught with pitfalls and it looks like Specialized may have fallen into a few by the looks of it.

Finally, check out Twenty Nine Inches to see the new RST M-29 fork that I'll be putting to shame on the Dos Niner as soon as I get an adapter for the post mount brake studs on the fork. Everything is going to go post mount on forks, so I've gotta get tooled up!

Have a great Fouth of July and ride yer bikes!

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