It’s a sign of the times. It used to be that the 29-inch mountain-bike was the thing of the fringe elements of the cycling world. No more… at least if the tech expo at Sea Otter was any indication.

... and is quickly ready to roll for a commute

Major labels – Mavic, Hutchinson and Manitou among them – have recently embraced the concept and have rolled out a host of products including tubeless 29er wheel and tire sets and new long-travel 29er forks.

Another theme is that of the event itself as well as many of the products promoted at it being ever more green. Clif Bar ran all of its vehicles for the event on recycled-cooking-oil Bio Diesel, Pedro’s provided only biodegradable cleaners at the Sea Otter Bike Wash, the event distributed recycling containers everywhere and bought carbon credits and wind energy, and companies like Toyota and Bike Friday promoted their environmentally-friendly means of transport.

Since through-axle forks have appeared on lighter and lighter bikes, it makes no sense to limit 20mm through-a

SRAM’s big splash was last year at Sea Otter with the introduction of its Force and Rival road groups with DoubleTap dual-control levers. The company is introducing more road options this year, like carbon power-meter cranks, carbon bar-end shifters for aero extensions and carbon bar-end brake levers for aero base bars.

The SRAM Powermeter Pro crank is the first time that SRM has collaborated from the initial design of a crank with a crank manufacturer (the Dura-Ace and Cannondale Hollowgram SRM cranks, by contrast, were existing cranks that SRM machined to fit its system). It has the same +- 2 percent accuracy as SRM's Scientific products. SRAM's Ron Ritzler says that it is completely waterproof under the worst riding conditions. Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada's Pete Lopinto said "Now we don't have any change in Q-factor when we switch from our power meters to our standard cranks."

Big bamboo: Craig Calfee's new bamboo mountain bike is wrapped with hemp at the joints (sorry).

Craig Calfee has been experimenting for many years with bamboo as a framebuilding material, and he has even discovered that hemp has the stiffness and strength of Kevlar and now uses it as a structural material to hold that bamboo together.

NuVinci’s smooth continuously-variable transmission built into a rear hub has seen continued refinement and subsequent wide acceptance on European city bikes. In the USA, it may require putting it on really sexy bikes rather than on commuter bikes to get market share here.

The bright red Ellsworth limited-edition (#18 of 500 total that will be made) ,000 NuVinci CVT-equipped crui

NuVinci designer Don Miller was a marketing guy who used to race bikes when he showed that he has an incredible knack for engineering and invention when he came up with the NuVinci continuously-variable transmission (CVT). He says his signature is on the hub, and the NuVinci name comes from the fact that Leonardo DaVinci drew sketches of a continuously-variable transmission way back in 1490.

Miller chose to use big spheres inside the NuVinci CVT that are tilted between the input plate and output plate to vary the gearing. This results in a surprising level of efficiency for a wide variety of applications besides bicycles. A NuVinci transmission with enormous steel balls promises to greatly increase the efficiency of energy-producing wind turbines and will allow the blades to start turning at a wind speed below 2mph (compared to 6mph for current models), and its wide range and smooth ratio increase means that it won't have to be shut down in high winds the way most turbines must be.

The Manitou Minute 29er through-axle fork now joins the White Bros. BW 1.3 as a long- travel fork for a 29-inc