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TECH NEWS

Core Bike Show 2013: Castelli, 3T, Thomson and PDW

New products from Castelli, 3T, Thompson, Raceware and PDW

We're not done with Core Bike 2013, so here's another batch of new products from the show. There's a bit of something from Castelli, Thomson, Raceware, 3T and PDW. If you missed our earlier roundups you can read them here and here.

Castelli have a whole bunch of new clothing on the way. This (below) is the Climber’s Jersey (£80) and it’s incredibly light at just 91g.

It’s made from various fabrics but the main one is a 3D weave, a lot like many base layer fabrics, so that it doesn’t sit flat on your skin. The ridges allow air to circulate for improved drying, like you’ll find on many base layer fabrics. The idea here is that you can wear this without a base layer, and it’ll work to keep you dry in the same way.

The Climber’s Jersey is intended as a race piece so it’s a close fit. The Garmin-Sharp team have used it a lot in races and Castelli reckon the fact that the fabrics shift moisture so well and dry fast means that it performs well in wet conditions too.

The multi-panel Inferno shorts (£130) are intended to go with the Climber’s Jersey so, again, they’re very lightweight with plenty of mesh, although it’s not see-through – you’ve got to keep things decent. You get Castelli’s excellent two-piece Progetto X2 seatpad in these.

Castelli’s Pocket Liner jacket is a really interesting product that has been in development for an age – the Cervélo Test Team were involved in some of the original work.

It’s a waterproof made from eVent breathable fabric, and it has a zillion features. Most noticeable among them is the pleating that you get on the back and on the elbows to allow you to get a close fit with plenty of stretch.

You can close the front via Velcro tabs or you can use the zip, a storm flap keeps the draughts out or you can fold it back to let some air in via a mesh panel that runs alongside the zip. You get vents on the sides, Velcro closures on the sleeves and everything has been well thoughout. Unfortunately, Castelli reckon that it takes 4 1/2hrs to make each Pocket Liner jacket and that bumps the price up to a mighty £300. As an alternative, the Muur jacket is made from the same fabric but without all of the high-tech details. That one is £200.

This Elemento 7x (Air) jacket will be coming up in the Castelli range next winter, although it won’t be in this taupe colour, it’ll be in black and red, maybe blue.

As you can see, there’s more pleating here. The fleece-lined Thermoflex fabric uses a membrane that’s not breathable but all that stitching means there are plenty of holes for air to flow in and out. Again, there’s a lot of labour involved in this and that means the price will be £275. There will be a women’s version too.

We’ve told you about Raceware’s Garmin mounts before but they’ve now extended the range and got a major new UK distributor in Saddleback (the products aren’t on the Saddleback site yet but they will be soon). The Garmin Edge mount (£35) is available in various lengths and a whole load of different colours, all 3D printed.

There’s a time trial version (pictured), so you can mount your computer between your handlebar extensions…

…and there’s an adaptor so you can fit a Garmin Edge 705 to the mount.

Raceware have also been busy developing GoPro mounts, Zipp disc valve covers… all sorts. It’ll all be up on the Saddleback site soon.

This is the new Dios Thronous saddle (£35) from Portland Design Works (PDW) – Dios Thronous meaning ‘throne of the gods’! PDW wanted a waterproof saddle so they’ve made this one from injection-moulded EVA foam – just give it a quick wipe after rain and you’re good to go. Plus, there’s no cover to scratch or tear.

This alloy Bird Cage bottle cage is new from PDW too. It costs £13-£15, depending on the finish.

These Full Metal Fenders (£60) are another new product from the US brand. They’re anodized aluminium and they’re for use with 700 x 23 tyres. They’re designed to fit road bikes that won’t easily take most mudguards, coming with hardware that’ll get around brake callipers and under forks, and you get mounts for use on bikes with no mudguard eyelets.

Finally from PDW, there’s the new Excalibur rear mudguard (£27) for road and city bikes. It’s aluminium and fixes to your seatpost via a quick release mount.

This is the new Ionic seatpost from 3T. The Italian brand has just revamped its seatpost range and all the posts are now divided into two families: the Ionic and the Stylus. Within each family, there are the usual three 3T levels: Ltd, Team and Pro.

The Ionic uses 3T’s own DiffLock splined clamping mechanism which was on the Palladio post previously. 3T say, “DiffLock is a highly-accurate method of setting saddle angle requiring only lightweight clamping by side-mounted bolts. It is especially useful where the rider may wish to make adjustments to saddle setback – doing this does not change the critical saddle angle.”

Geddit? You can move your saddle fore/aft without messing up the angle. The Ionic is available in 27.2mm and 31.6mm diameters and with zero or 25mm setback.

This is 3T’s newest handlebar, the Tornova. It’s the result of feedback from the many professional cyclists who ride the Italian company’s parts, and combines a deep round bend of the Rotundo with a ergo tops of the Ergonova. The drop is 139mm and the reach is 83mm. It’ll be available in Pro (aluminium), Team and Ltd (carbon fibre) with prices ranging from £79.99 to £299.99.

Here’s the unique Integra Team stem, the aluminium, and therefore more affordable, version of the Carbon Ltd stem. Both have an optional Garmin Edge mount in the front. Without the mount a smooth cover gives the stem a very sleek, very aero look.

 

This is the rather lovely looking Token E4 carbon bottle cage. The design is intended to make getting your bottle in and out super-easy – but we’ve not used it yet so we can’t comment on how successful it is.

We’ve not used the single-pivot Token BR7230 Sharkfin brake callipers (£155) either, but they look pretty and they’re very lightweight at a claimed 211g per pair. They’re CNC machined aluminium with titanium hardware. Anodizing is well overdue a comeback, if you ask us. We’re fully behind it, although maybe not so much purple this time around.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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10 comments

Avatar
Fluffed | 11 years ago
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I had them too on my ten speed, they weren't really any good. You couldn't apply enough force to stop from any sort of speed, and they reduced the amount of cable pull available to the main lever as well. They also had a nasty habit of falling off. I got rid of mine pretty sharpish I think.

Avatar
pedalpowerDC | 11 years ago
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I suppose MAMILs are keen on short and shallow (reach any further and they'll throw out their backs), but racers still use deep drops.

Avatar
Alb replied to pedalpowerDC | 11 years ago
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pedalpowerDC wrote:

I suppose MAMILs are keen on short and shallow (reach any further and they'll throw out their backs), but racers still use deep drops.

True, but I certainly know which market I'd be going after if I were Thomson.

Avatar
boardmanrider | 11 years ago
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Those Token brakes are a dead-ringer for my Planet X Ultra light CNC single pivot brakes. Even the center mount has the same name on it! I would even go as far to say that the pads are the same.

Anybody asking? Flipping good brakes, very good value and worth getting

Avatar
Ben Burns replied to boardmanrider | 11 years ago
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boardmanrider wrote:

Those Token brakes are a dead-ringer for my Planet X Ultra light CNC single pivot brakes. Even the center mount has the same name on it! I would even go as far to say that the pads are the same.

Anybody asking? Flipping good brakes, very good value and worth getting

I was about to say - they look very familiar....

Avatar
Joselito | 11 years ago
0 likes

ubercurmudgeon wrote
OK, who is the joker who is handing up a pair of bibshorts to David Millar instead of a musette full of food.

May contain nuts.

Avatar
Alb | 11 years ago
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Someone needs to tell Thomson the current trend favours shallow drops  7

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ubercurmudgeon | 11 years ago
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OK, who is the joker who is handing up a pair of bibshorts to David Millar instead of a musette full of food. No wonder he hasn't won much lately.

Avatar
VecchioJo | 11 years ago
0 likes

auxiliary/bar top/cross top brake levers aren't suicide levers

this is a suicide lever

just sayin  1

Avatar
notfastenough replied to VecchioJo | 11 years ago
0 likes
VecchioJo wrote:

auxiliary/bar top/cross top brake levers aren't suicide levers

this is a suicide lever

just sayin  1

I had them as a kid. Why were they called suicide levers? Always thought they were a safety measure...

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