Sunday, February 21, 2010

QBP Frostbike Show favorites

This past weekend was the Quality Bicycle Products annual open house. This is a trade only event that the megadistributor throws each year at this time. Lots of shops attend to see the newest stuff from many of the Vendors. Of course QBP's house brands are well represented.

There were a few things that quite impressed me this past weekend.

If you're an avid cyclist, one that rides road and trail, you are most likely familiar with Salsa's grand Fargo. A bike of many talents and abilities ridden by many talented and passionate riders[see Gnat, Meiser, et all]. Salsa saw that while there were plenty of racks out there that could suit a bike this this[and the new Vaya for that matter], there just wasn't a 'perfect' rack out there.

So they made one. Well, actually, a few. Low rider, standard rear, light front. All made of aluminum, able to carry medium loads[a solid figure isn't known quite yet].
Front:
new rack
Front mounted on the rear:
new rack
Don't ask about the seat post collar mount, I forgot to, so I don't know.

These will also look really quite nice on the Peregrine!

Salsa also introduced a couple nice new forks. One we knew about, Gnat has been riding the Enabler fat fork for a bit now. It is a production item, and will be available soon. There are three bottle mounts on it, similar to the Fargo fork, the racks you see are works in progress, but are going to be Salsa items.
Salsa Enabler

The other fork is the yet to be named, but promises to be quite popular. Suspension adjusted, 20mm drop outs, Maxle axle. There are quite a few custom forks out there now with this system, but promise to cost a ton. This fork is estimated to cost $120. WITH the Maxle. Really. They're going to have a hard time holding onto this fork.
maxle rigid fork.

A newish entity from the Qship is Allcity. Thus far, the primary product from them is hipster fixie...crap. Certainly nothing I'm interested in, even though they admitedly look pretty cool. And now they come out with this:
All City SS CX

Neat touches are the hidden fender mounts, fancy track ends with built in adjusters and good tire clearance. The example they had built up was specced quite nice, with Avid's new ultimate Shorty and Force cranks.
All City SS CX

Its late, and I'm going to bed. Enjoy the pictures. Thanks for looking. Oh, and don't forget the Cabin Fever sale!

Listening to: sweet silence!

2 comments:

the technIAn said...

Is that lovely 20mm axled gem going to be a 29er tidbit? If so, I would love one for my Karate Monkey. I knew I used those purple Halo hubs for some reason.

Head Honcho said...

Yep, it is a 29er fork! I kinda want one even though I don't have a bike for one, nor do I have a 20mm hub laying about. But I still want one. Retail should be in the $140 to $160 range. Not really sure on availability yet, but it will be this season.