The Core Bike trade show is the first major UK industry get together of the year allowing retailers, distributors and manufacturers - many of which coming from all over the world, the opportunity to meet up and talk shop. It also serves as the perfect opportunity to get up close and personal with all the latest products. Located near the world famous Silverstone race track, the Core Bike show is anything but your run of the mill trade show, lacking both the huge halls and bedazzling booths and instead, makes use of smaller rooms interconnected by a maze of corridors. These corridors have become the thing of legend within the UK bike industry, having the uncanny ability to get you lost and running in circles, not to mention the striking parallels they conjure up to that lovely hotel based movie, The Shining. Thankfully we made it out alive and here's a roundup of the random radness that we saw...
Hope TechnologyIdentiti Mettle PrototypeIdentiti, like many small bike brands, have in the past relied on 'catalogue bikes' to populate their range. 2016 marks a significant change of direction for the brand who have been busy designing and developing their own bike over the past 2-years with a scheduled release date for this summer. Michael Bonney, the driving force behind Orange Bikes during the Minnaar and Peaty years, is an industry heavyweight and wealth of knowledge when it comes to mountain bike manufacturing. Michael is heading up the project management and communications side of things while accomplished rider, racer and Identiti employee, Pat Campbell-Jenner, is heading up the development and testing side.
Designing a bike from the ground up doesn't happen overnight and existing within an industry that evolves at a rate of knots, future proofing a bike in the development stage is crucial. Right now Identiti is aiming for production bikes to roll out this summer with the possibility of two models in the range. Both bikes will feature 650B wheels, with one being a 160mm enduro smasher and the other, a 140mm travel trail ripper, but this is yet to be confirmed. They do however have more concrete plans for the Mettle, which will be available in three complete builds including two SRAM options and one full Shimano build.
Sunrace MX3 10-speed CassetteThere was certainly a growing theme amongst manufacturers offering their own cassette designs, but of all the cassettes on show, the MX3 from Sunrace could be a real game changer. Offering riders with an existing 10-speed drivetrain the ability to upgrade to a either 11-42t or 11-40t ratio 10-speed cassette that mounts directly to a standard freehub body. But what really separates this cassette from the crowd, is the price. Coming in at £59.99 and £69.99 (UK Pounds Sterling) respectively, the MX3 is cheaper than most of the gear extender sprockets out there right now.
DMR's Alpine Division AXE CranksRenowned around the world for their dirt jump products, DMR's Alpine Division range continues to go from strength to strength. The AXE cranks have been out for a few months now and are packed with more than just great looks...
X-Fusion's Revel-X USD ForksX-Fusion's head turning Revel-X USD enduro and trail forks feature a patented keyway system, which restricts twisting of the stanchions - a common problem which plagues this design's application in mountain bikes. X-Fusion's Roughcut HLR damper system handles the rough stuff giving riders a wide range of adjustment from high and low-speed compression and rebound damping.
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES:
• 20mm pinch bolt axle
• Available in 27.5 and 29 inch configurations (and they will take a 26" wheel)
• The Roughcut HLR Damper is a fully bled bladder and cartridge based damper which features high and low speed, independently adjustable compression and rebound damping adjustment
• Nvolve wiper seals reducing seal drag and increasing durability
• Claimed weight: 4.5 Lbs
• Travel: 27.5" Travel - up to 160mm / 29" Travel - up to 140mm
• 34mm Stanchions
• Spring: Dual-Spring Air System
• Damper: Roughcut HLR
• Adjustments: High and Low Speed Comp., Rebound, Air Pressure.
• Steerer: Tapered only
• Colors: Gold or Ano-Black
• Offset: 46mm or 51mm.
• Max Rotor Size: 203mm
Morgaw Trian Enduro SaddleThe brand Morgaw might be a new one to most of you and no, it has nothing to do with Middle Earth or Hobbits. Based in Slovakia, Morgaw's saddles are designed around a unified, self-supported platform that uses elastomer shock absorbers. These are designed to absorb the impacts and stresses created between the rider and bicycle while riding - they are not, however, intended to be a suspension substitute.
HT Components PedalsFrom making pedals for other brands for years to creating their own brand and putting them on some of the fastest bikes in the world, HT Components have come a long way in a short amount of time.
Nukeproof Mega Custom BuildHalo Wheels Go WideHalo's range of affordable feature packed wheels continues into 2016 with the release of their 35mm wide rim. Designed for the all-mountain rider and optimised for 2.25 - 2.8" tyres, these 35mm wide tubeless-ready alloy rims have a 30mm internal measurement, which will increase tyre volume to increasing comfort and grip on challenging terrain. Aside from their spec, the other exciting element about the new Halo Vapour 35mm is the price, with complete fronts coming in at £119 and rear at £180 (UK Pounds Sterling) or $183.58 and $275.38 (USD) respectively.
E-Thirteen Components TRS CassetteE-Thirteen's transmission components range is increasing all the time. Their stunning black anodised TRS cassette joins their existing crank, bottom bracket and chain guide ranges. All they need now is a derailleur, a chain and a shifter and they'd have the whole bundle...
MENTIONS: @ethirteen-components /
@dmrbikes /
@hopetech /
@x-fusion-shox
Seriously firm saddle, but absolutely disappears under you. Immaculately constructed and seems pretty tough (had a few crashes and it doesn't show them)
However, due to the firmness, you need to choose a shape you're likely to get on with.
Yes I am half serious..
~ Hope's single stainless steel billet cassettes - nice to see a long wearing cassette, what's the weight on these ?
~ X-Fusion's Revel-X USD Fork - will be looking for reviews
~ Morgaw Trian Enduro Saddle - looks promising for sit and spinners, US vendor's ?
Thanks Olly
Hope's website: "Larger four sprockets machined from single aluminium billet, Smaller seven sprockets machined from single billet of steel"
edit: I just saw you meant the cassette part, but the question then becomes whether e*thirteen is paying I guess.
Also, why is the Sunrace MX3 10-speed Cassette a big deal? Praxxis has been at this for a while and it is about the same price. I have one and, although not as good as XT, runs well enough and is basically bullshit (see adapters) free.
Btw Morgaw is not based in Czech Republic. Its a Slovak/Polish company based in Slovakia.
as for why not use a double, at least personally: shiftrings have much worse chain retention than even non-narrowide singlerings, the solutions to deal with that make noise & add weight, the current 1x drivetrains give me enough range to do what I want, it allows better suspension pivot placement, it allows better behaving suspensions(since they don't have to optimize for 2 wildly disparate chainlines) & it's simpler. Oh, & I think it looks better, too.
But give me a good gearbox bike over a 1X derailleur any day, they're just still too hard to get my hands on.
“The smaller you get, the bigger the polygon effect,” said Henrik Braedt, a design engineer who worked on the development of the XX1 cassette. This effect exponentially decreases relative to the number of teeth on a cog. The addition of one tooth, along with carful machining of the tooth profile mitigated the polygon effect."
Think he's an arm chair bike rider?
Maybe try one yourself and then report back with your own actual experience.
The very bad news is that the cassette will be selling for £175 (prob around $325CAD), a cassette and freehub body will be £225 if memory serves.
I honestly don't see the point to this now. it was a great idea 5+ years ago when they first started showing prototypes, but at this point, with both 11 & 10 speed cassettes available for XD drivers, it's only going to sell to people who want it because it's made by Hope, or if they manage to price it cheaper than some of the other options on the market.
Good job they found a couple of wheels, or they might have just used Frisbee's.
CANT FIND IT FOR SALE IN THE US, ONLY UK ....
Get a micrometer and measure a worn out chain. The side plates are the same length as a brand new chain. Chain "stretch" is caused by wear on the pins.
you can buy halflinks in 3/32" if you want. buy one and try it on a geared set up. It wont work very well at all to start with, and it'll get rapidly worse with use.
Why don't you try actually measuring a worn out half link chain instead of just repeating what you read on the internet?
I'm a professional bike mechanic. I have fitted literally thousands of half link chains. I have a whole bin full of stretched half link chains. I can post you a few kg's worth of them if you like? I can even chuck in a couple of my spare micrometers if you like. (at your expense naturally...)
How can you back up your claims? Or are you just basing them on what you have read on the internet?
However simple common sense will tell you a steel plate with a 2 kinks halfway along its length will straighten out under pressure.
Perhaps try this. Fit a brand new half link chain to a fixed gear bike (these put far more strain on a chain than average) preferably with a very small front ring (again, to increase the stress on the chain). Pull the rear wheel back until the chain is taught, and do the wheel up tight enough that you can be sure it will not shift in the dropouts. I promise you within days your chain will be super loose. I have experienced this exact thing hundreds of times. Now do it again with a normal chain. It will take months to develop anywhere near the same amount of chain slack.
"Common sense" might tell you that the half link will deform but actual knowledge of the materials and forces doesn't back that up. The amount of force on a bicycle chain isn't enough to produce even a measurable amount of elastic deformation and not nearly enough to produce plastic deformation which is what would be necessary if what you claim were true.
If the half links were to elongate from the bends being pulled to a smaller angle it would cause the outer plates to come closer together and as the chain wore out there would be more resistance as they began to put pressure on the inner plates. But that doesn't happen, half link chains wear in the same way as any other chain.
What I am saying is doing the above experiment (and no im not saying pull the chain as tight as a guitar string before you start claiming thats why its stretching) will make it blindingly obvious how much faster half link chains stretch than regular ones. I work on a lot of BMX's and fixie/singlespeeds. Every single one that I see that regularly has a half link chain used on it, has a) a ton of chainring wear, and b) a chain that sags about an inch and a half unless it was tightened last week. I see all different qualities of chain. Some are ruined literally within hours, some impressively (in particular Shadow Conspiracy) last up to 6 months before they absolutely need replacing. I convince as many people as possible to use good quality standard style chains, and their problems all but disappear. Unless they have to deal with a particularly poor chainline, heavy mileage, or grinds, any standard chain that lasts much less than a year is unusual.
I'm unsure about your elastic/plastic deformation claims. I can bend half link plates with my fingers. (not standard link plates tho, somewhat unsurprisingly). The kink in the plate is a massive stress raiser. What you say is true for a standard chain as the link is not resisting any twisting force, only stretching forces which steel is far better at dealing with. A standard link chain will almost always snap by an outer link cracking around the pin hole (unless poorly fitted, in which case the outer link will fall off the end of the pin). Half links almost never snap around the pin hole. They always snap at one of the kinks in the links.Why?
Yes the straightening of the link does cause an almost imperceptible change in the geometry of the pin/plate arrangement. It wont really tighten them with any great force, it will just change the angle the plates meet the pin at. funnily enough this change will be the same for both inner and outer plates, which means no real extra friction. Ever wonder why the pins on every half link chain ever made (especially Shad Con) are much looser than any standard type chain? Perhaps its to deal with this slight deformation.
Halflinks are great if you do a lot of grinds or have short dropouts and need the adjustment they offer, but in my experience of many thousands of both types of chain, they don't last anywhere near as long under normal use.
Pretty sure everyone else is getting pretty bored of reading all our rubbish now. If you think it'll work, try it. I don't think it will.