What's New at Sundance!

NEW JERSEY, NEW JERSEY!!!

They are finally back in stock !!

We sold out of the first order faster then we would ever have guessed. Obviously the 'version two' of our original jersey is a hit and second order just showed up.

Pull on some plain black shorts and you'll have the look of a jersey and shorts kit, black arm warmers are a perfect match also. I also listened to my wife and ordered tank tops for the women.

Quik Review Easton EC90 SL CARBON Clinchers

Mounted them on the carbon Serotta for last Sunday's ride up Fernwood. Tires mounted without levers no problem. You must make certain the wheels have the correct freehub body though and there are several to choose from. Was figuring hese would be "race day" wheels, you know harder days, impress your buddies days, except for Camarillo Crit Practice I'm not actually racing. That is why an 11/23 cassette was installed on these and of course the bunch decided Fernwood would be the ride on my maiden voyage with them. They are light. laterally stiff and climbed really well inspite of higher gearing then I would have normally gone with for Fernwood. I have been riding Easton EA90 SLs (Easton's top of the range aluminum wheelset) and the carbon 38mm aero rims poke themselves through the air noticably faster. The freehub was no noisier then anything else and the carbon rims did not act as speaker cabinets and amplify freehub and/or road noise. The very first impression was one of added smoothness to the whole bike and I suspect this is due to the reduced hi-frequency damping the carbon rim provide. The ride quality was great given these are aero section rims.Now the biggie... BRAKING. Always an issue with carbon rims but Easton has a new and proprietary process call Thema Tech that they claim gives aluminum like braking on carbon rims. Wow! by far the best brake feel I've ever experienced on a carbon wheel. The brakes are set up with the supplied Swissstop Carbon pads and levers do get squeezed just a little harded then the alloy rims but overall just great braking!! Now for the best part. in this world of $3000 plus carbon wheels these Eastons drop the competition like a bad habit with an MSRP of only $1799.

NEW ITEM !!! - LIMAR HELMETS

Update 4/21/2010: Customer feedback on this helmet from a very pleased customer brought to light an unexpected benefit. He loved how light it was and commented that he had ZERO neck tightness after a long ride but the big surprise was he noticed much less wind noise!!!

I was picking up more SMP Saddles from the local distributor last week and as well he should he dragged me over to a stack of boxes of new products that had just arrived. One of the new items was the Limar Ultralight Pro Helmet. I was not in the market for another line of helmets until he handed me one. "HOLY SMOKES!! This thing is the lightest helmet I've ever held short of the ancient leather hairnets from the good old days." I was sold. At 215 grams these helmets are lighter then anything you've held and you won't need a gram scale to feel it. This weight is a little heavier then the European version because the safety standards here are stricter and required a little more material. The other cool thing, well at least for some of you is the conservative look. No long pointy ducktail back side, no spoiler like wings, just a tastful, well ventilated, light weight lid. Come see them in person and try one on.

FIRST EVER BP & BP NIGHT WAS A SUCCESS !!

SATURDAY MARCH 13th AT 6:00pm AT THE SHOP

What is BP & BP Night? Beer Pizza & Bike Porn. Oh you know what I mean. All that really cool, light, shiny, hi-tech bike stuff that gives you a bad case of see-me-want-me-get-me. Here's how it worked. It was an after hours private event featuring Ladyface handcrafted beer, pizza from 'whom ever' and an industry rep with special products on hand to fondle and lust after. There were about thirty five people and that means we view it a smashing success and will make this a regular event. Ladyface Alehouse owner Cyrena Nouzille made a brief appearance to give the low down on what we were drinking and one of my industry reps was on hand so you could corner him and tell how fast you are and why his company should give you free stuff. Stay posted for the May BP & BP Night.

JOHN COBB SCHOOLS SUNDANCE FITTER!!!

The man who set-up Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond on their T.T. bikes came to Sundance Monday Feb 1st and Tuesday Feb 2nd. For two days straight he fit riders. Shop owner Ashton Johnson attended a F.I.S.T. workshop where John was teaching last October and was so impressed that he decided he needed to learn even more from 'the man' of bicycle fit. What better way then to bring him to the shop and be his assistant for a two day fitting marathon. John Cobb has many unique and practical tools in his 'fitter's toolbox' which Ashton will be using in the future.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE 29" WHEEL MOUNTAIN BIKES, WHAT'S THE DEAL?

The short history is that a frame builder in Colorado by the name of Wes Williams rode around on a 'road frame' he made that had clearance enough for the widest 700c tire he could way back in 1989. This bike was his mountain bike for four and a half years at which time he found a Bruce Gordon titanium hybrid bike with a shock and 700c wheels. Wes was sold and started his own business in 1994. The rest is, as it is said, history. The 29er is here to stay and with good reason.

So what's the deal with these bikes anyway?!

The deal is that the bigger wheel offers more angular momentum, which is more mass at a larger radius that has greater surface speed. These factors mean greater gyroscopic stability. You also have a much larger (especially longer) tire footprint. All this science adds up to more momentum, more stability, better traction and a better ride.

Look, the heck with all the physics here, let me break it down into something easier to understand. Have you ever been out in a power boat in choppy conditions? As the boat starts to build speed it crashes into every white cap and the passengers feel every bit of it. Finally the boat gets up on plane and instead of crashing into every wave it skims across the tops of them and although the ride is not early morning glassy lake smooth, it is much better. This is what a 29er does. The big wheels roll over and through obstacles better and maintain forward speed better while doing this. The 29ers also have better traction for climbing, cornering and stopping.

Who do the 29ers work best for? Sundance customers of course! The road bike rider with decent fitness who is more likely to rely on that fitness to excel in the dirt, as opposed to relying on dirt motorcycle skills to fly down the hills, will love the big wheels. That's not to say the Niners don't descend, they do and really well, but seriously, for most of us, there is more to mountain biking than going down hill. Let's face, it most of us have to go work on Monday and being laid up at home because you had too much fun tearing down that hill on the weekend is not going to go over well with the boss. For all around fun, the big wheels keep on rollin'.

To help you make up your mind, Sundance has two Niner demo bikes. A Niner AIR9 hardtail and a Niner JET9 3" full suspension bike. We also are offering two Niner RIP9 4" full suspension Niners at a very special introductory price.

NINER RIP9 AT A VERY SPECIAL PRICE!!!

Dog used in cheap ploy to get your attention!!

Finally a floor pump to rival the good old Silca pump of days gone bye-bye. Presta valve only, no levers or thumb locks, just shove it on and pull it off, true one hand operation. Solid aluminum construction designed with a taller, thiner barrel specifically for less pumping effort at high pressures. Oversized high quality precision gauge that reads accurately up to 220 psi. Comfortable well shaped grips are easy on the hands.

EASTON'S NEW EC90 CNT CARBON CRANKS AVAILABLE NOW !!!

Easton's goal was modest. Make the best carbon crank in the world!! Within the bicycle industry, Easton is known for meticulous research and engineering, coupled with exhaustive testing at every step. This is why Easton produces the most dependable carbon products in the world and we are getting to test a set of the new EC90 Carbon Cranks before they even hit the market. A little sample of Easton's research can be seen in a comparison showing how the new cranks stack up to the rest right here. Proving once again that we are not a photoghaphy studio the above picture does not do the beauties justice. It doesn't hurt that their graphics are a perfect match to the Time Pro Team we have installed them on. Just on looks alone we'd give them a five star rating. Stay tuned as we will be putting these on the water board and finding out the real story.

Test result updates:

When we say test, we aren't a test lab with a bunch of scientists running around in white smocks. We're just bike shop rats who love to wrench and ride. If you are expecting charts and graphs, well sorry, no engineering sheepskins hanging on the walls here. We can tell how the product installed and give you our opinion of how it functions and feels. Installation, as always, with any crankset must involve a frame with a correctly machined bottom bracket shell. Have your bikes bottom bracket faced and chased by professionals, even if you are going to install a crankset yourself. Once our frame was prepped, the Easton ceramic cups screwed in by hand and torqued down with a solid, well seated feel. Both bearings turned smoothly and freely, indicating a good fit. Really the rest was easy. Follow the instructions, grease the right bits and it all slid together easily. As with any two piece cranks, seating the bearings into the cups is a must, as end play can result after a ride or two.

How did they ride? In a word NICE!! They are as stiff as they claim by our seat of the chamois sense. A stiffer crank is felt as a sensation that the whole frame is suddenly a little more solid especially down in the bottom bracket area. You might feel as if your foot is more firmly planted on the pedal and hard pedal efforts feel more secure. All these sensations are due to less crankarm twist mostly, but no matter why they are happening you know it is good. All these from a crankset that tipped our gram-o-meter at 596gr for crankarms and rings and 698gr with the bottom bracket. Nope, our scale has never been calibrated by The Dept of Weights and Measures, so these numbers are worth every penny you're paying for them. Please keep in mind that we received a pre-production sample so the weight might be off a little. The chainrings are made by a well known French manufacturer (we think Easton was feeling guilty about all the wine sales France has been losing to California). The rings are CNC machined from 7075 aluminum and given a T-6 heat treatment. They are called CT2 because they are finished with a ceramic top layer that is impregnated with teflon. We can tell you they are quiet and smooth and shift really well.

At $699 for the crankarms with chainrings, these cranks not only excel in the stiffness to weight ratio but in the dollars to performance ratio. The ceramic bottom bracket is $200 and the standard bearing is $80. Only offered with the standard 53/39 chainrings in 170, 172.5 and 175mm lengths. Come on Easton, the Santa Monica Mountains ain't flat like Florida. We want compact gearing also. Click HERE to link over to Easton's page on the very cool and new EC90 Carbon Cranks.

OMG !!!!!!

Time Sport gives Sundance a sneak peek of the top of the range bike for 2009. OMG !!! Look out Lamborghini. This is the trickest, coolest looking, most technically sophisticated piece of bike porn we've ever seen. It is availible sometime in August and only a small amount more money than the current top of the range Ulteam.

I'm going to live vicariously through Danny !!!!

Local fast guy and rising star in the peleton, Danny Finneran, is now a member of the US National team after only two seasons of racing! Danny is in Belgium racing for the good olde U.S.of A. He recently competed in the Course de la Paix Junior / Junior Peace Race in Czech Republic. The picture below is of Danny posing with the podium girls BEFORE the race. Jeez........ must have made some impression to be asked to pose with the girls before anybody won anything.

Let's see; you're seventeen, staying at the US Team's Belgium training center, racing in Europe and hanging out with podium girls. I'm living vicariously through Danny!!!

WHEELS WHEELS WHEELS WHEELS WHEELS

WE HAVE DEMO WHEELS YOU CAN RIDE

No upgrade offers a bona fide performance gain like a new set of wheels. When I started racing there was an old saying that stated you'd rather have a pound added to your bike's frame before adding an ounce to the wheels. This is especially true with all these little bumps we ride over called the Santa Monica Mountains, lighter wheels and climbing go together like 12% grades and lactate build up. Sundance now has an extensive fleet of demo wheels. The collection includes the new Dura Ace 7850-C24-CL reviewed below, the Reynolds Assault carbon clincers, Torelli's Bormio wheelset (a $400 per pair Ksyrium weight super deal), Topolino's newest CX 2.0 carbon/kevlar spoked sub 1400gram wheelset, American Classics 350 Sprinters, the tried and true Mavic Ksyriums (an older model but still a valid test) and finally Easton's fantastic EA90 SLX (I have done two Furnace Creek 508s on Easton wheels).

We charge $15 per test to cover our cassette and tire swapping time but when you buy your new wheels, we apply those charges to the purchase.

THE BIG DAY IS FINALLY HERE.

YOU FLY IN FROM MEXICO TO PICK UP YOUR NEW SEROTTA BUT YOU NEED A TRANSLATOR.

Carlos arrived from Mexico the first time for the fitting with his son along to translate. When it came time to pick up his new custom Serotta CX-Ti tri-bike, his son could not make the trip and my Spanish is nonexistent. Carlos needed us to provide someone to translate for him. Imagine his surprise when he arrived to find his translator is none other then Toyota United Fast Man and recent winner of stage one of The Tour of Georgia, Ivan Dominguez!!!! Ivan is a positive role model and a great diplomat for cycling. If all the pros were like Ivan, our sport would be in great shape. THANKS IVAN and congrats on the win in Georgia and for wearing the leaders jersey for two days.

MICHELIN'S NEW PRO3 RACE TIRE !!!

The Michelin Pro Race series tire is only clincher tire ever to be ridden to victory at Paris-Roubaix, a race noted for it's unforgiving destruction of bicycle equipment, especially tires.

Michelin's Pro3 Race brings new meaning to the word grip. The claim is that a new dual-compound tread derived from the Moto GP division delivers 20% more straight line grip than the Pro2 Race and the new shoulder rubber offers a huge 40% improvement in cornering adhesion. Michelin says the Moto GP Silica Energy rubber compound is made in a "dual co-extrusion", which along with the 127tpi casing allow the tire to be more deformable. This helps maintain grip on coarser pavement while reducing rolling resistance. For added security, the Pro3 Race casing gains a new High Density Puncture Protector (HDPP) nylon belt, yet total claimed weight is still highly competitive at just 200g for the 700x23c size. We weighed several on the shop scale at under the claimed weight!!

I've been on a pair for about 200mi and here is my take. The small tread cuts will likely remain, but they are just that, "tread cuts" and are nothing to be overly concerned about. Tread cuts in softer compound treads are just the price paid for better grip. The Pro Series tire sidewalls have always been excellent for blowout resistance and flat resistance seems good also, no flats yet (knock on wood). The ride quality of these new tires comes a step closer to providing that sew-up ride feel, something Michelin tires have not yet offered. Not quite as tubular feeling as the Vittoria Open Corsas or Vredestein, but getting very close. The claimed grip? I keep pushing them harder and harder and have not had a "pucker moment" yet. Honestly the grip does seem really good. The final word is that these are Michelin's best yet and are likely to unseat the Pro2 as the best selling tire at Sundance.

SHIMANO'S NEW DURA-ACE WH-7850-C24-CL

AKA THE CARBON 1380

I'm getting to ride a pair with the new Michelin Pro3 tires.

These wheels are a new and ground breaking set of hoops, using existing technology that has until now, not been applied to bicycle wheels. The Carbon 1380s are extremely thin walled box-section aluminum clinchers clad with multiple layers of hi-strength carbon fiber. How thin is that aluminum rim? Try .6mm that's .024". The carbon cladding structually stiffens and strengthens the rim resulting in a 24m deep rim that weighs only 380 grams! The total wheel set on the Sundance scale was 1402gms which is only 10gms over Shimano's claimed weight. Ten grams by the way may well be within the tolerance of error for our scale.

Shimano decided to move the spoke nipples from the hub back to the rim where they thread into the rim. This is a good thing as it will make wheel truing easier. The rim is also wider, 22mm vs. the typical 19mm. This means more resistance to pinch punctures, a better contact patch for more grip in the corners and less "falling off center as the bike is leaned over.

UPDATE AFTER A FEW MILES

I've got about a hundred miles on these and can better assess the ride qualities. For ride quality, the gold standard at Sundance is Topolino. We have sold Topolino for several years with the promise they will make your bike ride better. They do!! The Shimano Carbon 1380 wheels can legitimately be compared to the Topolinos for ride quality. Very nearly as well damped and 7 out of 10 for vertical compliance as compared to the Topolinos. Lateral stiffness (flexing in a way that the rim touches the brake pads) is excellent. Carve down Decker making sudden changes in direction or come off the saddle a little over geared and yard on the handlebars and no unwanted flex is felt. Spin-up (that feeling the wheels weigh nothing when you accelerate) is amazing with these wheels! 380gm rims are the main reason, but wheel stiffness is also part of the equation. These things spin-up so well, you may find yourself goading the guy in the Vette to a drag race across the intersection. These hoops are new and long term durablity is yet to be determined, this said, Dura Ace wheels carry a three year warranty. Light wheels make your ride feel lighter and livelier, deep dish aero wheels make your bike faster on the flats. I spend most of my time at speeds where light means more then aero, so I'm giving these hoops a thumbs up!!! Expect to shell out about $1300 a pair; a good price for the weight-performance-warranty-quality.

New toys at Sundance!!!

Easton Sports newest bar with all the right grooves. Only 232 grams in a 44cm width (actual weight on shop scale). Fantastic transition on the top of the bars out to the hoods, very flat and very comfortable. Did you know Easton carbon bars have a lifetime warranty?

How to leave a big carbon footprint the right way.

Shimano's Thermo-form carbon soled R-300

Customer and friend of Sundance, Steve Berman suggested several more titles for this mini-review. Thanks Steve!

"The right fit for carbon-based cyclists" or "The sole of carbon-based cyclists" or "Good for the sole of carbon-based cyclists."

I have been wearing a pair of Shimano's top of the line carbon soled shoes for two seasons now. First the R-215 and now the R-300. I have a wide foot (double 'E') and often have to buy cycling shoes one size up to accommodate that extra width. The new Shimano R-300 comes in a normal and a WIDE but I'm a sceptic and although my first pair of R-300s were the wide version, I still ordered them one size too big. Well, my feet were swimming in them. This is where the molding process saved the day! Molding process?? Yep, just like ski boots the R-300 can be heated and vacuum formed for a beautiful custom fit. Once my 'too big' shoes were molded for me, I could still play piano with the toes, but there was no heel slippage nor any fore/aft foot slippage. Amazing!!! These 'too big' shoes I managed to grind up on the asphalt belt sander one morning. Perfect excuse to buy a new pair in the wide, only this time in my normal size. Wow, what a fit! After vacuum forming the new pair, it is as if the shoes are perfectly broken in from day one. I can also crank down the ratcheting buckle strap super tight without discomfort.