Teva Clipless Prototype Teva have been making serious in-roads to the mountain bike market in the past couple of years with their flat pedal shoes, especially with their high end Link which has fast become a strong favourite for many riders using flat pedals in all genres. So it was perhaps inevitable that the ambitious company would sooner or later look at the clipless shoe market and decide that they wanted a piece of the action, much as Five Ten did a few years ago. As it happened it was sooner, and they had the first prototype available for us to look at here at Eurobike. We took some time to sit down with Giles Cundell from Teva to see what influences had led to the new shoe, and to see when we could expect to see it on the shelves of your local bike store.
• Designed in conjunction with Crankbrothers for all-mountain use
• Stiff shank, unique plastic anti-wear section around pedal & stainless steel wear plates
• Lightened construction compared to Link: less padding around the tongue and less EVA in the midsole
• Spider rubber sole with inset lugs to provide off-bike traction while keeping strong visuals
• Unique cleat attachment method
• Available July/August 2013
Crankbrothers Mallet DHCrankbrothers also had something new on display at Eurobike 2012. After a season of testing the Mallet DH, first shown at Sea Otter, the production versions are now ready to be released. Having created the Mallet Mk3 Crankbrothers found that their sponsored gravity riders were wanting a wider body than the low profile mk3 could provide, citing that wider downhill shoes felt a little unsupported on the edge of the pedal. To counter this they went back to the drawing board and using the outline of the old mk2, they filled it with the engineering elements of the mk3 while also removing every last trace of unnecessary material. What this means is a much stronger axle, 5mm longer on this Mallet DH, and a needle-roller bearing inboard augmented with a DU bush at the outboard end of the body combined with weight not much greater than that of the standard Mallet. This increased Q-factor provides greater clearance to cranks when using bulkier DH shoes. The seals employed are also improved which should reduce the frequency of servicing for downhillers and their regular jet washing.
• Wider body apes larger dimensions of the earlier Mallet pedals
• Q-factor is increased by 5mm on each pedal thanks to longer axle
• Needle roller bearing and bush are protected by improved sealing
• Stonger cast steel wings
• Available now
As we now have a set of these to test out we’ll be fitting them to a bike just as soon as we get back to home shores. We will of course provide an update on they’re performing once we’ve had some meaningful time on them.
TevaCrankbrothers
Shoes look sick, unlike the moon boots that are 5.10's.
No thanks Teva.
Like the new mallets though.
I'm anxious as hell to give those mallet DHs a try