Gravel Cyclist

On Test: IRC SERAC CX Tubeless CX Tires

By JOM October 13, 2014

Recently, Gravel Cyclist met with the fine fellows from IRC Tires (Tyres) of Japan at the Interbike show in Las Vegas, Nevada. After the show, IRC kindly sent Gravel Cyclist…

Interbike 2014 Day 3 – More bikes & parts

By JOM September 13, 2014

One thousand most humble apologies for the delay in posting this entry. I sorted out these photos at the Charlotte, NC airport early this morning, during the last of my red eye flights from Las Vegas. I had the best intentions of posting the article as soon as I arrived home today, but a power nap, a longish bike ride, another power nap and errands, all took precedence. Excuses over, enjoy these photos. Now, it’s time to sleep, East Coast time.

Adequate tyre clearance for CX, but not for serious mud

Giant Revolt 0, Aluminum frame, a pretty cool bike

Giant Women’s Bike – Invite CoMax – 32mm tire there, not a lot of clearance

Phil Wood’s 13 speed cassette – hooked up to a SRAM twist shifter, it worked

FATLABs prototype Titanium not so fat bike

KHS CX550 – not a great bike for mushy sludge and gravel, but a tasty looking CX bike

Clearance isn’t optimal for serious mud and sludge

Interbike 2014 – Shimano XTR Di2 Electronic Shifting

By JOM September 13, 2014

During day three of Interbike 2014, I had a few moments to play with the Shimano XTR Di2 system. The system is officially known as Shimano XTR Di2 M9050, and continues the trend of Shimano’s naming standards. Simply put, the system is mind blowing! The shifter buttons offer the same tactile feedback you expect with the equivalent mechanical shifter, but with zero delay from button push, to derailleur actuation.

I didn’t try out the synchro mode of the system. Rather, I pushed the rear derailleur through it’s regular incremental steps, one click of the shifter after the other. The derailleur shifted as fast as I could push the buttons, or at a determined speed (customizable multi-shift) if I held down a shifter button. The front derailleur functioned flawlessly as expected.