Day two of the 2004 Interbike Exposition kicked-off with hundreds of enthusiastic retailers packing shuttle busses and heading 35 miles out of Las Vegas for another day of road, mountain and ‘cross bike test rides in the Nevada desert.

With attendance numbers nearing and possibly surpassing last year’s numbers at the increasingly popular Outdoor Demo, manufacturers were kept busy setting up rides on Bootleg Canyon’s miles of tricky singletrack and twisty paved roads. Here’s a look at what made news today.

Giant News
One thing is standard at Interbike, no matter what the year. It’s the question: “See anything cool, yet?” In years past, it could be a struggle for an answer, but this year it was pretty easy to respond. “Maestro.”

While Giant had planned to release its new suspension design a few weeks prior to the October 4-8 Interbike trade show, it was unable to produce ride-able samples in time for the press. In fact, it was only a few days before the opening day of trade show that Giant received its complete 2005 shipment of full suspension bikes. So while Lennard Zinn and I have spent some quality saddle time with most of the bikes seen rolling through the dusty lanes of the Outdoor Demo (i.e. Specialized, Trek, Litespeed), we had to spend some serious time in line just to get a shot at trying out the Maestro.

Company engineers have worked diligently for two years to achieve something quite remarkable - create a full suspension platform that not only pedals efficiently, but is laterally rigid, utilizes a sensible spring rate curve, is light and is independent of chain or braking forces. It’s a tough laundry list to fill, for sure, but according to Giant’s Senior Product Manager Dennis Lane, “I think Maestro addresses just about every shortcoming of even the best suspension designs on the market.”

Giant will offer three models of the Maestro in 2005:

Trance: the manufacturer’s “trail bike” with four inches of front and rear wheel travel.

Reign: Giant’s rougher condition “freeride” bike with six inches of front and rear wheel travel.

Faith: The full-bore “extreme condition freeride” or “light condition downhill bike,” the Faith boasts a full eight inches of front and rear wheel travel.

While Giant still showed off its NRS cross-country racing line, Maestro is the manufacturer’s first suspension platform that crosses three suspension categories in 2005, and promises to cross into full-on downhill and cross-country racing in the future. Simplifying one’s suspension pitch is a common thread for 2005. Whereas Giant dealers would have to explain five or so different designs in 2004, they’ll have far fewer designs to explain with the departure of the VT and AC suspension designs. Simpler is better in ‘05.

Impressions? On the loose, rocky and unforgiving trails of Bootleg Canyon, I found the four inches of the Trance’s travel to feel as if it were five or even six inches thanks to the bike’s progressive compression stroke. I felt no noticeable pedal kickback (even when climbing in the granny gear) and found the suspension to remain almost 100-percent active under pedaling and braking. Frankly, I’ve never used a suspension system that’s lived up to the “fully” active claim before this - even Specialized’s respected Four-bar linkage or VPP designs. For a first ride impression, I give Maestro the highest grade for stepping up to the challenges of suspension activity, pedaling independence and lateral stability – and doing so in a way that puts a lot of the competition to shame.

Fuel Grows Up
Not to be outdone by Giant, also Trek chose the Outdoor Demo to launch the latest generation of its popular Fuel line. Called Fuel EX, Trek product manager John Riley calls this four-inch (front and rear) travel bike, “a natural extension of our product line. It’s important that we build bikes to suit every type of market segment, and we found that we had a gap between our 2004 Fuel and Liquid bikes. Fuel EX fills that gap.

With the exclusive use of a RockShox Motion Control suspension package, sealed bearings in the pivots and an all-new ZR9000 frame, the Fuel Ex is designed to provide a ride quality totally different than the previous Fuel. The travel is said to be offer increased small bump compliance, while the additional travel allows for improved stability and faster riding on even more aggressive terrain.

Also present at the Fuel EX product launch was RockShox product manager Sander Rigney who helped explain the development of the new RockShox MC3 and MC3R rear shocks that were specifically designed for the Fuel EX. He explained that the key to Fuel EX performance is the use of front and rear RockShox Motion Control suspension that is targeted to minimize suspension inefficiency and is completely externally tunable without the use of a pump or tools. A new handlebar mounted PopLoc Dual switch activates both the fork’s and the rear shock’s Motion Control damping which the rider can easily tune from full lock-out to zero compression damping with the turn of a dial before the ride.

Each of the three models has an all-new, fully gusseted ZR9000 aluminum frame with a two-inch lower stand-over height and new windowed dropouts with integrated disc mounts. The Fuel EX 9 has an OCLV Carbon rear triangle and it was the frame that Chris Eatough used to win his fifth 24-Hour world championship title. In addition to the Fuel EX 9/$3300, EX 8/$2530 and EX 7/$1760, two women’s specific models will also be available; the Fuel EX 9 WSD/$3300 and Fuel EX 7 WSD/$1760, both which use WSD Hayes disc brakes.

Bontrager
While looking through the Trek tent, I happened across two very cool new Bontrager components: the Bontrager XXX Lite Carbon Clincher wheels and XXX Lite Carbon OS Stem.

Interbike: Another day in the dirt

The made-in-the-USA OCLV carbon-rimmed wheels (with carbon hub made by DT) weigh 1290 grams and will cost $2500.

The mountain/road oversize stem weighs 135 grams and will go for $250 and is produced overseas.

Pedal Power
In the new tradition of giving those brave enough to venture out into the 90 degree heat of the desert a special treat, the Crank Brothers also unveiled some interesting new product and surprisingly it wasn’t a new pedal design.

The brothers Crank

Photo: Chris Milliman

Called Cobalt, Carl and Frank (the Crank Brothers) proudly showed off their new mountain bike crankset that features a unique bi-material construction. Using a hollow forged 7075 main body segment and a stainless steel top cap, the ISIS compatible cranks are said to be, “lighter, stiffer and stronger than current XTR cranks,” according to the Crank Brother’s marketing manager Andrew Herrick.

While Herrick later conceded that the weight of Cobalt should be “darn close” to XTR, he indicated he wouldn’t know for sure until true production version were ready to go. Designed for the cross-country racing market, Herrick indicated that a road version might also be in the works down the road.

I Think I Saw A Yeti!
File it under the, “the more complicated, the better” suspension design, Yeti showed off its latest downhill project bike called “303.”Named in honor of the Colorado area code where Yeti is located, the 303 uses a unique linear rail suspension system where the series of linkages and pivots roll along steel “rails” to provide a fully tunable compression rate made possible by altering the shape of the rail. From fully linear to radically progressive, racers will be able to tune their rates according to course demands. Production versions should be available before the 2005 race season commences and will most likely pump-out 9 inches of travel.

Look for reports straight from the show floor starting Wednesday afternoon.