Thursday’s Interbike Tech Report: Rocks for your shirt, cork for your sole, but no springs for your pedal.

by Steve Frothingham

  • September 24, 2009
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By Ben Delaney

2009 Interbike Report:
2009 Interbike Report:

Photo: Ben Delaney

With hundreds of brands crammed into the Sands Convention Center, there are plenty of products — ranging from the humbug to the showstopper, and from the truly helpful to the truly useless. We found three companies with some innovative improvements to current standards and solutions to common problems. Take a look.

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  • Diadora’s Unique Fit Insole is heat-based cycling insole made from cork. Once heated in a toaster, the natural material conforms to the foot’s shape in the shoe. Once cooled, the sculpted material keeps the foot stable, which reduces friction and therefore heat. Plus, cork damps vibration.<br />
  • The new $499 ProRacer 2.0 is the latest top-shelf offering from the company that has been making cycling shoes since 1981, when Bartolini won the Giro d’Italia, the Vuelta a España and the world championships in a pair of Diadoras.<br />
  • In 2009, defending world champion Alessandro Ballan will race worlds in a 285-gram pair of the green and black kicks.
  • The ProRacer 2.0’s have a rigid but thin (2.8mm) carbon sole that weighs 66 grams and includes a replaceable rubber heel plate.<div id=

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  • Diadora’s micro buckle adjusts easily up and down, which is fairly standard…
  • … but the buckle also pivots back should mud or other debris jam down into the ratcheting mechanism.
  • The ProRacer 2.0’s upper strap is removable.
  • The middle Velcro strap uses a cam lock to secure the fit.
  • Diadora’s ProTrail 2.0 is the off-road counterpart to the ProRacer 2.0. A unique feature is the included Multi-Pad (with red bumpers), which secures the contact for pedals like the crankbrothers Egg Beater.<br />
  • The Multi-Pad can easily be replaced when the red rubber wears down.
  • Time’s new iClic pedal uses a trigger-actuated engagement instead of the traditional spring-loaded engagement.
  • Stepping into the pedal triggers the rear carbon body to engage firmly like a ski binding.
  • The red part is the trigger. Four models are available, from the $460 Titan Carbon that weighs 175 grams a pair, down to the steel axle version.
  • The only metal parts on the pedal are the axle and the two bolts seen here on the bottom of the unit.
  • Time’s iClic cleat looks similar to the company’s RXS version, but the metal engagement is replaced with composite for this one.
  • Working with Garmin-Slipstream, Pearl Izumi has incorporated many of the elements the pro riders requested into its off-the-shelf products.
  • The ultra-breathable summer jersey is just one of the products that has come out of Pearl’s sponsorship of Garmin.
  • This black thinks it’s white. Or so argues Pearl Izumi, which extruded a reflective agent into the yarn. The technology, called In-R-Cool, is used in jerseys and bib shorts.
  • As a demonstration, Pearl has two bibs shorts mounted under a single heat lamp. The Pearl bibs with In-R-Cool (shown) give a relatively lower reading than standard bibs (next photo).
  • On a 90-degree day, standard black bib shorts can get pretty toasty.
  • There are rocks in this base layer. No, really. Pearl uses Minerale fabric, which incorporates microporous volcanic rock that is ground up and extruded into the yarn. The end result? Sweat evaporates quickly and, Pearl claims, the odor is pulled into the fabric.

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