A grab bag of new products and soon-to-be products spied this fall.
- By Steve Frothingham
- Published Nov. 26, 2008
In my travels this fall I’ve gathered a notebook and a camera memory card full of neat new products — or soon-to-be-maybe products — that have yet to find a home on VeloNews.com. Here is a buffet table full of a few of them:
Speedplay’s new mountain pedal
Speedplay founder Richard Bryne says he has no plans to replace the venerable Frog mountain pedal (“We never replace anything,” he said), but he has been showing a new offroad pedal and cleat which may hit the market next year. The new pedal looks fairly similar to others on the market, which is to say it looks very different from the spring-in-the-cleat Frog design.
The new cleat, however, looks more like an offroad version of the Speedplay Zero road pedal cleat, with float and release point adjustable with little screws. www.speedplay.com
The air-pumping hub
OK, I’ll be the first to admit this is not a racer product (although maybe at the goathead-strewn ‘cross races in the Southwest?). But it is socool. The hub pump from Defined Design adds just grams to the hub. A barely noticeable rubber tube runs from the hub to the valve. It can inflate a tube in about a half-mile’s worth of wheel rotations. You adjust it for your preferred pressure, up to 125 psi, so it will start and stop pumping to hold the tire there.
It weighs way less than any hand pump or even CO2 cartridge, and was elegant enough that it did not look out of place at the Phil Wood booth at Interbike, where it shared space with the revered component maker. You can get more information from defined@pacbell.net.
The battery-charging stationary trainer
The Kurt Kinetic Energy trainer will charge your batteries as you get a work out. It was originally developed for emergency and Third World applications, but it might just inspire you to get on the trainer everyday, just to keep your laptop topped off. It retrofits onto recent Kurt trainers and runs through an inverter like the Black & Decker Power Station to your electric device or battery charger.
It generates about .5 kilowatt hour in 2 1/2 to 3 hours of riding, which means it could run a TV or charge a cell phone. One hour of cycling will keep a refrigerator running for a half hour, which could keep your beer cold in a power outage. A complete Kurt trainer with the resistance unit will retail for less than $500. The unit also will be available separately to fit your existing Kurt trainer.
Storck’s new wheel — just right
You say your Zipp 404s aren’t aero enough, but your 808s are too hard to handle in the crosswinds? Well, Goldilocks, the Storck 69s might be Just Right. The 69s are made by Zipp exclusively for Storck. They have a 69 mm profile with a bigger bulge than the 404s. For extra style points, the rim dimples are the Storck trademark. A set costs $2700.
The bladder dryer
There seems to be quite the established market for cleaning and storing hydration bladders. The Zerogoo blows unheated air through your large- or small-mouthed Camelbak bladder and hose, drying it thoroughly to prevent the build-up of yuckiness. The $39.95 blower is available from www.zerogoo.com
The bladed spoke magnet
I first saw this one way back at the Tour of Missouri. It’s a simple, light, aerodynamic, nearly invisible way to mount a computer magnet to your bladed (or round) spoke. Simply use heat-shrink tubing to attach a magnet to the spoke. Of course, it requires removing the spoke to slide the tubing over, but if you are handy with a spoke wrench, or you are having a wheel built, it could be a slick way to go. Contact Guy Sisulak at spokemagnet@gmail.com.
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FILED UNDER: Bikes and Tech