Tiong Hin Bike Bag
Finally, I manage to upload some photos of our bike bag I took earlier on. As shown, you can basically put your whole bike in just by removing the front wheel. With the bike bag, it provides you the convenience to travel around, especially in Mrt, or aboard.
This bag is now retailing at $48 so get it fast!
Leon Seow’s Bike Check
I received an email today from Mr. Leon Seow with photos of his recently assembled Pivot Mach 4 and no doubt, he’s happy with this bike. He will be going over to Australia tonight to take part in a 3 day XC race competition and I’m very sure this “2009 Best of MTBR” Mach 4 will get him the result he wants…
Good news for Titus Fans!!!
Crank Brothers have reinvented the wheel! With their latest design, they started from a blank sheet of paper to come up with the most innovative wheel ever. The design of the new Crank Brothers Cobalt Wheelset eliminates the need to drill any holes in the rim, replacing them instead with a unique extruded internal/external radial centre rib. The un-drilled rim is a lot stronger and is also inherently suitable for tubeless tyres.
Spokes are attached to this central rib section in matched pairs to more evenly distribute the tension from each spoke and allow for easier truing, which can be done with a standard spoke key. The aluminium freehub body on the rear hub features 6 pawls in two sets of 3 engaging 48 times every wheel revolution to ensure near instantaneous pickup. The hubs also feature oversize cartridge bearings on an ovesized axle for strength with light weight.
Titus riders you can now get a pair of the wheelset to match your frame. The wheelset are now available in Iodine Orange, Iodine Iron, Cobalt Champagne, and Cobalt Blue. Grab it fast while stocks last… 
Review on Titus FTM
EVOLUTION IS A FINE THEORY FOR NATURE, BUT WHEN IT comes to bikes, Intelligent Design reigns supreme. As much as we like to personify our bikes, they don’t just “evolve” on their own into lighter, stronger, faster beasts. Instead, bikes are given life by designers and product managers, and in the case of the Titus FTM, those guiding hands managed a near-miraculous job.
The FTM began life years ago as the Titus Motolite, a widely acclaimed Horst-link bike with 127 millimeters of travel. But as trail bikes grew from 4 inches of travel to 5, losing weight in the process, the Motolite was left in the evolutionary dust. It was replaced this year by the FTM, a modifi ed version that boasts an extra 13 millimeters of travel while trimming a bit of fat in the process.
The new model, made by Sapa in Portland, Oregon, features car- bon seatstays and asymmetrical chainstays with forged and CNC’d dropouts. The seatstays also lose a structural bridge that was prone to clogging with mud. Those changes shave 230 grams from the old rear end, yet the bike remains every bit as stiff, Titus claims. The FTM also jumps up to a larger 30.9-diameter seat tube to accommodate adjustable-height seatposts. The geometry stays mostly the same, but the bottom bracket was slightly lowered to keep a 69.25 headtube angle with the longer travel fork.
Despite the increased travel and the new name (FTM stands for “Full Tilt Moto”), this is not just a Motolite built for bigger trails. This is a decidedly lightweight trail bike. The bike we tested came with a 140-millimeter Fox TALAS RLC 15QR fork, but the rest of the kit screamed XC: Magura Marta SL brakes, FSA Team Issue carbon cranks, Maxm carbon post and carbon Ritchey WCS bars. With pedals, the bike weighed 27 pounds.
When it came to ripping around the trails, the FTM, like its orange anodized finish, was as hot as the Arizona sun. It scorched climbs, and even with the sag set at 30 percent of travel the bike delivered a solid pedaling platform and reacted quickly to pedal input. Climbing will never be an effortless task, but everything from ledgy switchbacks to steep and loose fireroads seemed a little more tolerable aboard the FTM.
The suspension also offered smooth small-bump absorption, and despite the lack of a seatstay bridge, the FTM tracked true while cornering. The geometry was spot- on for most terrain.
The FTM doesn’t pretend to be an all-mountain bike. This is a pure trail bike, and it excels at its job. Anyone who likes to rip singletrack, sprint up climbs, and possibly enter some endurance or XC races should give the FTM a spin….
“The FTM is a Near-Perfect Evolution of the Trail Bike“ – By Bike Mag after testing on the new Titus FTM
Review on Titus X
The Titus Racer X, while always popular with cross-country racers, has been a top pick for trail riders who expected lightweight performance but didn’t need more than four inches of travel for the trails they rode or the way they rode trails. The created a problem for Titus. Keeping the Racer X competitive with its cross-country racing brethren was tough to do when Titus knew that a large percentage of the Racer X rides would never head down a banner-lined race course. Rather than push the trail-riding Racer X faithful towards the longer travel Titus Moto Lite, Titus came up with a better solution, the Titus X.
Make no mistake about it: the Titus X is not a trailbike. This bike was redesigned specifically for cross-country racing. That includes a mechanically formed, butted 6069 aluminum frame mated to asymmetrical, hydro-formed aluminum chainstays and a totally new, one-piece, carbon fiber seatstay (that is responsible for the largest weight savings on the X over the Racer X). Forged and machined dropouts hold the rear wheel. A one-piece, carbon fiber swing link is another weight-saving item. These changes have reduced the X’s frame weight a little over half a pound compared to an identical-sized Racer X… Read More >>
“A Race Bike for Those Who Want To Win” – MBA Reviews the 2009 X
New offerings from Answer, Manitou, and SUNringlé
Hayes Bicycle Group have had a low profile for the past couple of years but they’re hoping to come back with a bang at this week’s Sea Otter Classic…
After legal wrangling to reclaim their trademark and name, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company have spent the past few years acquiring smaller firms and slowly building their portfolio. They now own Hayes Disc Brakes, Answer, Manitou, Wheelsmith and SUNringlé, have sorted out the manufacturing side of the business and are promising an exciting range of new products. “The Answer brand will make an aggressive comeback in 2010,” marketing manager Denny Yunk said. “New grips, gloves, pedals, bars and stems will debut this spring – some at Sea Otter, and others soon after.”
Answer
According to Yunk, the Answer brand has been sitting patiently in the corner for a few years. The company plan to introduce plenty this year, including: cross-country and downhill grips; aluminium and carbon fibre ProTaper handlebars in widths ranging from 660mm to 780mm; a direct-mount downhill stem; low-profile platform pedals; and gloves for cross-country, trail and downhill…
Manitou
Absolute+ is a new, twin piston chamber (TPC)-based technology featuring independently adjustable high- and low-speed circuits. “It will appear in model-year 2010 Manitou forks including R7, Minute and Drake,” Yunk said. “It’s also retrofitable into all non-Manitou Racing Development (MRD) forks from model year 2007 forward. A lightweight MRD version of the Absolute+ damper will be introduced later this year.” MILO (Manitou Integrated Lock-Out) is a new lockout lever designed for forks equipped with the Absolute+ damper. It has a super-low actuation force and works with every known brake/shifter combination.
Sun Ringle
New versions of its Jumping Flea and Dirty Flea front hubs for forks with 15mm axles. The 199g Jumping Flea is intended for trail and all-mountain bikes, while the 173g Dirty Flea is aimed at lightweight cross-country applications. Their new top of the line wheels get the SRD (Sun-Ringle Racing Development) treatment in the guise of carbon fiber rims and new hubs for the SRD Carbon Wheels. In addition to this, they’ve completely redesigned their Black Flag and Charger wheelsets (both 26″ and 29er for each) with better rims and hubs and flashy new looks.
Titus Racer X Exogrid Check
The patented Exogrid Technology adds another dimension to the already proven performance of the Racer X. The multi-material makeup of the frame’s down tube works to absorb the small washboard bumps encountered at high speed that the suspension can’t respond to. When you combine the lightweight downtube with the most efficient rear suspension platform in cross country today, the end result is a thing of beauty…
FTM Bike Check
While many companies shifted their full or partial production to countries like Taiwan/China to obtain cheaper material costs, Titus continues to produce high-end quality frames that are made in U.S.A. Titus is also one of the few companies out there that continues to work and offer their lineup in all 3 materials – Aluminum, Carbon, and Titanium. No doubts, that’s why their new FTM frame is one of the favourite trail bikes in the market and is also one of the best-selling frames at our store.
Philip’s Firebird Bike Check
Philip’s been riding Pivot Mach 429 for a while, but when he need a bike that climbs amazing and descends with the best of them, he couldn’t resist building a new Firebird bike up. We started with the Firebird frame and 2010 Fox fork, and got it custom-built up with all the parts he desired…
Melvin is proud to build this bike for Philip. As shown in the photo, he’s making the last adjustment to the bike before we delivered the bike out…
Dorado MRD review on WhistlerMountainBike.com
WhistlerMountainBike.com just posted their review of the Dorado MRD. 
Author: Chris Armstrong | Created: 2009-10-08 06:46:47 | Location: Whistler, BC
In case you have been under a rock for the last two years the Dorado’s are the flagship fork in the Manitou line. The first think that you notice about them is that they have inverted stanchions, i.e. the tops are fixed and the lowers slide up into them, opposite to all other forks on the market.
Inverted forks have different characteristics than traditional forks. Fork flex is greatest at the triple clamps on all forks; by having larger diameter tubes to clamp it decreases the flex in the fork. Also since the cartridge is above the legs it decreases the un-sprung weight. Stanchion size is 36mm, with thick plastic lower leg protectors keeping the muck off of the important parts.
