Interbike!

[Greenbelt]

Since my bike shop owner can’t go this year, I’m going to take notes for her on all the coolest bikes to buy next year! For one thing, I intend to ask a lot of questions of the Kona and Jamis and other makers about why they don’t engineer more of their CX frames to have a disk brake option for us humble commuters who prefer the CX ride to a touring setup!
http://www.interbike.com/

Any questions you want me to ask various display folks? Anything you’ve always wanted to test ride but couldn’t find locally? (Of course, I’m not a racer or rock jumper or anything, and not very engineering savvy in general. So while I should be OK at evaluating features of bikes for the average person shopping for a commuter or recreational bike from a consumer point of view, I’m not really able to really evaluate high-end stuff or many tech features one way or the other.)

Topic

[Greenbelt]

[video=vimeo;29174104]http://vimeo.com/29174104[/video]

[Greenbelt]

These were some of my favorite displays from various small entrepreneurs, some of which I liked (Brubar!), and others I intend to try:

http://www.stuffitts.com/
http://www.brubar.com/
http://www.bikewrappers.com/

[bikenurse]

@KLizotte 8189 wrote:

Tell the manufacturer wizards that they need to come up with a cable and u-lock design that is super strong and super light. Hauling around a heavy duty U-lock is a form of weight training I could do without.

And tell them they need to produce more bikes for short women. Trust me, any lady under 5’2″ has a hard time finding frames that fit properly, esp since most bikes seem to have a men’s style crossbar.

Kathy – the vertically challenged

I talked to some of the manufacturers about women’s bikes. Really – most of them were just a different color…. however, I did ride a sweet felt carbon women’s model (Greenbeltbike has a picture above) that fit me like a glove (50cm – my road bike is a 51 and my cross bike is a 49)…. The cockpit was slightly more compact and the down tube slightly more angled. And it was a nice color even! I am 5’5″ so a bit less vertically challenged. Here’s the bike (the one I road was blue/white – great paint job) http://www.feltbicycles.com/USA/2012/Fit-Woman/ZW-Series/ZW6-21039.aspx

[Author]

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