Friday News and Views

The bits of news to get you through your Friday and to the weekend! Read on.........

29"er Mid-West Meet-up: (Note: That's just a working name for this, I or someone smarter than me will come up with something if need be) The cogs are turning on this idea yet. Right now the status is that there are two areas involved in fact finding for hosting such an event. If another area expresses interest, than I will consider it. The idea will not move forward until there is a venue and a tentative date to hold it on. Right now, it looks as though spring '07, specifically May, will be the date. I'm still taking your ideas/requests in the comment section or at this address. (g.ted.productions@gmail.com) The idea so far is that there will be a fairly good sized, festival atmousphere with the possibility of vendors, demo bikes, and the like. My thinking is that if this all cannot be worked out, then I'm going to go waaaay under the radar with a super low key idea that I'm holding out on as a last resort. Stay tuned..............

Badger Cycles Dorothy: The Final Review: The Dorothy's final review will be posted on Twenty Nine Inches on Monday. Look for my views on this lovely frame there.

World Exclusive First Test Ride? Yep! Well...............it's scheduled anyway. The weather could mess with this idea, but I am excited about this opportunity to be the first rider/ writer to throw a leg over a new 29"er steed in a couple of weeks. It's going to be a fun time, and all the details on the hardware will again be found at Twenty Nine Inches. The more social aspects of the ride will be covered here.

Tires Are Appearing: Some of the much ballyhoo'd rubber for 29"ers is starting to become reality. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the Kenda Nevegal 29"er tires were seen at Milltown Cycles Wednesday. The tires casing was slightly smaller than a Bontrager XR front, but the tread pattern was wider than anything I've seen yet. The tread blocks were ramped for lower rolling resistance and the rubber compound was sticky. I rolled on these up and down the street briefly and my impression was that the knobs didn't squirm in heavily leaned over turns. This would indicate to me that the tread blocks were gripping mightily. I would suspect that these tires would be the cats pajamas out in some rooty, rocky terrain. In other tire news, the Bontrager XR, ACX, and Dry X tires are all about ready to appear in the Tubeless Ready System format. I'll try to dig up some info on that for you all soon.

Carbon Fork Testing Update: An update to my carbon fork testing has been posted on Twenty Nine Inches, so if you are interested in that, check it out. I'll be thrashing these forks for a bit yet and more updates will be coming.

That's all for today. Get out this weekend and ride your bikes, ya'all!