[The Toninator]

discovery was on these little gems at p_r. soft tail road bikes, next big thing?

 

[indieboy]

don't hold your breath on it

 

[DRB]

Maybe not the Trek but Klein has a bike with a very similar rear suspension design but in aluminum.

http://www.kleinbikes.com/us/road_bikes/reve/reve_xx/index.html

 

[indieboy]

Maybe not the Trek but Klein has a bike with a very similar rear suspension design but in aluminum.

http://www.kleinbikes.com/us/road_bikes/reve/reve_xx/index.html

they've had that for a few years now.....

 

[James]

Anybody remember the super-weird Bianchi FS bikes they raced in the mid-90s? Those were the days that MTB technology really infiltrated the pro peloton. If memory serves me correctly, both of the Bianchis broke, the down tubes cracked all of the way through.
1994, that was the year, a bunch of other guys were on the RS Ruby forks. Talk about unobtanium...
Here's something from '96:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/my_bianchi/RIM111.jpg&imgrefurl=http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/my_bianchi/paris%20roubaix.htm&h=426&w=320&sz=30&tbnid=2qglURQ-4EgJ:&tbnh=121&tbnw=91&start=20&prev=/images?q=Bianchi+roubaix&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=G

Oooooold skool...but cool...

JJames

 

[Silver]

Doesn't make sense to me. If the entire race was cobbles, maybe. As is, wider tires and a grimace seemed to get Boonen across them just fine...

 

[chriskaiser]

Yea I was also about to mention the Klein, we have one at the shop, but I haven't tried it out.

What is it? Is there an actual spring in there, or some sort of hydrolic shock? Or is it just a bushing, like elastomer or something?

5mm of travel! Time for some DH on that bike!

10' drop to flat, I bet it can handle it.

 

[Silver]

Elastomer.

cyclingnews.com has an article on it as well.

 

[Tashi]

Damn I used to want one of those forks. Note that celeste one though, the one that looked like a polished Mag21 Ti. Hot.

Then I finally got a mountain bike and stopped riding my roadie off-road.

Now I ride a CX off-road but I think that my aching back would like a little squish for a roadie though (Moots anyone?)

 

[Tashi]

For some reason when I look at that Trek all I can think is "Rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers"

 

[JRB]

Those are tasty looking.

 

[dhriderII]

even tho im not much on having a soft tail road bike ( be a man and go ridig, or go home) but i love the paint on thoose bikes the flames, i love it.

 

[Tashi]

I was a man, then I broke my back.

Now I'm an old man (that looks like a young one) and riding a soft-tail sounds better than staying home.

These flames are even hotter:

 

[caputo1989]

Is tha the new madone?

Nice

 

[sanjuro]

That will be out soon enough. 75% of people buying road bikes are never going to race. So why not get a little cushion. And if Discovery used it at P-R, these bikes are not slow or squishy.

 

[Bikebro]

The fork on the Bianchi was a production fork. The ruby had curved lowers and was basically an air sprung judy. The blue flame/white bike is an older oclv frame. Trek has some production alum bikes this year using the same softtail design, 2100c and 2300c I think. The rear brake bolt to holds it together and is pretty easy to take apart. The P-R bikes look like they just took some older team bikes apart and tossed in the shock unit.


Old surf bum that worked at my shop has had a Moots soft tail cross/road bike as his only form of transportation for around 17 years now. He has some strange carbon fork with an elastomer pivot at the drop out which replaced an old Amp fork drilled for a road brake.