Suspension specialists TFT and downhill mega-brand Iron Horse are not linked in any way except that a bit of news came out about both today. Firstly that TFT are being sold to “business partners Martin Palmer and Ian Kennedy” who intend “to ensure that TF Tuned becomes widely recognised as the only place to go in the UK and Europe for all matters relating to mountain bike suspension”. Tim Flooks is to remain there as suspension guru, maybe he’ll have time to come up with a way to fix my floppy Marzocchi 66 forks once and for all…maybe not, that might need a miracle.

Somewhat less palatable news comes from the US where the owner of Iron Horse (World Wide Cycle Supply) is  bankrupt. Official reports from anyone connected with Iron Horse make it sound like it’ll be business as usual but a posting on mtbr from a disgruntled ex-employee suggests it might be a bit more messy than that. Many people in the US were already angry that many IH bikes were only available through RScycle.com, an online shop owned by the son of the owner of WWCS.

Rumours must have been circulating for ages because Dave Weigel “surprisingly” decided not to renew the DW licence with Iron horse last July (which probably explains why IH were building up a 5-year supply of the popular, World Championship-winning DW-link frames for sale – maybe exclusively through RS cycles?), and is it just coincidence Sam Hill moved to Specialized when his contract expired last October?

Another Howies code though the email, another money-off voucher. Use FOOD23 if you want 20% off, but the whining bleats about still being a small company are starting to wear thin…

“I like us being small.”

…when they’ve been brought by Timberland (market value: $600 million). An interesting article on the Times Online website implies it’s not the money machine they thought it would be.

“Timberland is having a hard time right now”, says David. “My challenge to Timberland has been that if you have bought the car, you have to be prepared to put petrol in it.”

read the whole article at:

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article3727422.ece

Specialized Roval rim

NoTubes race 7000 rim

Specialized Roval front

NoTubes race rim front

It’s been brewing for a while but now it’s official, NoTubes have filed a lawsuit against Specialized alleging that their Roval wheels infringe NoTubes’ patent on their rims.

This might not come as a surprise to anyone who’s looked carefully at both Stan’s and Roval wheels, in fact we’ve had customers comment on the similarities. The news will be welcome to many in the US biking world where Specialized have, shall we say, a bit of a reputation for being trigger-happy with their lawyers.

We don’t normally put up press releases but here’s one from NoTubes:

————————————-

NoTubes.com Files Lawsuit

against Specialized Bicycle Components Inc.

BIG FLATS, N.Y. – Nov 12, 2008 – On September 15, 2008, NoTubes.com® filed a lawsuit against Specialized Bicycle Components Inc. (”Specialized”) alleging that certain rims and wheels of Specialized infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,334,846 (the “˜846 patent”). This lawsuit, styled K.G. Motors, Inc. v. Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc., is currently pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York.

As set forth in NoTubes™s complaint, Specialized is alleged to infringe the ˜846 patent by making, using, selling, offering for sale, and/or importing into the United States certain tubeless wheels and rims, including without limitation Specialized™s Roval brand wheels. The technology disclosed and claimed in the ˜846 patent was invented by NoTubes™s founder and owner, Stan Koziatek, while pursuing a better solution for tubeless bicycle wheels and rims.

————————–

Early September means Eurobike and so after a 1am start I found myself walking in through the front doors of a humongous ex-Zeppelin hangar for the annual showing off of shiny bits. Immediately I realised that I’d forgotten just how big the show is, it’s ridiculously massive with more exhibitors than I can count.

The exhibit most people seemed to be flocking to (and the most widely publicised with posters everywhere) was the new Truvative Hammerschidt geared crank. It contains a set of planetary gears which are either engaged reducing your gearing down by 1:1.6, or bypassed giving a straight through 1:1. Weirdly it also contains a freewheel mechanism inside the crank. I haven’t figured out why that’s necessary yet but I’ve tried to upload a movie so you can figure it out for yourself, click here and hope it works. You might need a codec or something. Anyway it seemed to work slickly and although I wouldn’t describe it as “light” it isn’t as much of a solid lump as it looks so form an orderly queue for turning your singlespeeds into 2-speeds, your DH bikes into 18-speeds, or your Rohloffs into 28 internally geared monstrosities (someone’s probably already done it).

One of the most interesting things from our point of view was a load of new stuff from American Classic. They have really pushed the boat out this time with a complete re-design of all their graphics and a big pile of new hubs including 15mm and 20mm bolt thru front hubs, and 10mm and 12mm rears for DH bikes. The current XC hubs remain unchanged apart from the graphics and the small steel inserts you’ll see below which prevent the cassette digging in to thefreehub body. Don’t hold your breath, these hubs won’t be available for quite a few months.

One of our other major suppliers, NoTubes, didn’t have much new stuff to show but there was a new Raven tyre (like the Crow but with a bit more tread) available in all sorts of sizes – 2.0 and 2.2 in 26″, and a 29er version, and a skinny cyclo-x version which actually looked pretty knobbly with the scaled-down tread.

This year it seemed like everyone was bringing out lightweight disk rotors, slightly ironic (or maybe opportunistic?) since NoTubes have just discontinued theirs. Some of the rotors looked like they might just work, while others (especially the carbon / aluminium hybrids in massive 260mm!!!) looked plain scary. Here’s a few:

More to come tomorrow….

Maybe it’s the credit crunch or the high price of diesel but there’s everything to play for in the cut-throat world of bicycle trailer manufacturers. Visit the Carry Freedom website and hit ctrl-a to show the vitriol-laden hidden text…. professional? Probably not, but maybe it made them feel better….

Just in case they see this and take it down, here it is in full:

This is what we think of other bicycle trailer makers.

The Bob Yak bicycle trailer is dated, difficult to use, but unbeatable of road.

The Weber Monoporter bicycle trailer is slick but not durable, and handles as

 badly as all monowheel bicycle trailer s.

The Burly bicycle trailer is overpriced and not durable enough.

The Bykaboose Geko bicycle trailer is very cheap; you get what you pay for.

The Bike Hod bicycle trailer is nice, but overpriced and dated.

Maybe ‘Change is good’ but surely you can change in the wrong way, like 50% of your favourite magazine being owned by an asset management company in the city, how can that be good?

What am I on about? Dirt Magazine’s most recent editorial tells of how Dirt have ‘joined forces’ with some other action sports publishers to create a new publishing group called Factory Media. ‘Buy into’ and ‘joined forces’ seem to be popular terms for hiding larger misdemeanors, as investigations show 4130 and its associated titles were bought by Factory Media, a company recently set-up from a management buy-out of Action Sports Media.

The Source magazine reported this buy-out and aquisition as being funded by Electra Quoted Management, an asset managment firm who have a 50% share in Factory Media.

Fears of change for the worse don’t appear unfounded as big company ethics seem to be kicking in already, with subscription reminders awash with call centres and anonymous addresses; we all know Dirt HQ is in Dorset but the letter is footed Factory Media in London, the address on the top is Sittingbourne in Kent, the email address is …servicehelpdesk.co.uk…who?, the phone 0844 (a new non-geographic number, less costly than using a freephone number for your business apparently). Adverts for road and kids bikes and cars have already invaded the pages.

Maybe its because I have a vendetta against Dirt for certain misdescriptions of our product but glossings over only annoy me more. Maybe I stand to be corrected and these sites http://www.electraquoted.com/ are a figment of my surfing.

Will I send them my money? I don’t think so even though I have every issue since 2001 issue 29. I know it’s all been done in the name of progress and going monthly but sometimes its not always in the right direction. Often we see in the industry niche brands taken on by bigger players only to discover that they are niche for a reason and maybe, just maybe there aren’t that many more downhillers out there that will read Dirt.