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Fabric Chamber tool 2.jpgThe 6 coolest accessories we've spotted this week
We've been out and about at bike trade shows this week and here are six of the most interesting new accessories that we've seen.
SeaSucker Hornet bike mount
We already reviewed the SeaSucker Talon bike mount for carrying your bike on the roof of your car, and concluded that it was excellent; now the brand has a new model called the Hornet for carrying your bike on hatchbacks and SUVs.
The SeaSucker design uses suction cups that attach to your car. You put them in place, pump the air out via a little button, and the vacuum holds them in place. It’s a system that works really well.
The Hornet is a new design with two suction cups that fit to the back window of a hatchback. These hold the bike upright by the handlebar, wheels pointing backwards and saddle resting against the back of the car. Straps stop the hanging bike from moving around.
The whole system lives in its own little bag that’s small enough to fit into the car’s glovebox.
The RRP is £159.99.
Fabric Chamber multitool
We really like the look of the Chamber multitool from saddle specialist Fabric, largely because it’s super neat. We first showed you this last summer, and it’s now available.
Chamber is a little aluminium canister that contains six double-ended bits that you can fit to the stainless steel head. Once you have one of these in place, the body of the canister itself acts as the handle for the tool as you do your fettling.
You get 13 different functions (2mm hex, 2.5mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, SL3, SL5, PH1, PH2, T10, T25) covering most bolts that are likely to need adjusting while you’re out and about.
Two different versions of the Chamber are available, one with a fixed head (£29.99) and one with a reversible ratchet (£34.99).
Hiplok FLX lock
Hiplok is about to launch a new pit stop lock called the FLX. It’s a combination lock with a 90cm retractable cable that you can use to attach your bike to an immovable object if you stop for a mid-ride coffee.
This isn’t one of Hiplok’s highest security devices, the idea is just to deter an opportunist thief from jumping on your bike and riding off while your back is turned. Hiplok claims that the FLX is just 100g so it’s hardly going to weigh you down.
One other neat feature is that the FLX has its own little LED. It hooks over the top of a jersey rear pocket to help get you noticed as you ride.
The FLX isn’t out just yet but we do know that it’ll be priced at £29.99
Cannondale Airport Carry-on Pump
Cannondale has a nifty floor pump that you can fold flat. Both the handle and the base fold in/out. It’s really intended for taking in your hand luggage when you fly, although the design might be handy for any other situation where you want to take up as little space as possible.
The barrel and handle are both alloy while the lever-less EZ Head works on both Presta and Schrader valves.
Cannondale reckons that the pump offers 160psi although we’ve not tried it out yet. We’ll try to get one in for review here on road.cc.
Price? £39.99, and available now.
Feedback Ominium Trainer
Feedback’s Omnium Trainer will be available soon. It’s an unusual design in that you take your front wheel out and mount your bike’s forks on a tripod stand.
Your rear wheel runs on two aluminium drums that offer progressive magnetic resistance.
The Omnium weighs 6.21kg and measures just 66cm x 18cm x 20cm folded down (manufacturer’s figures).
We don’t yet have a UK price.
4iiii Sportiiii head up display
The Sportiiii is a head up display from Canada’s 4iiii that you can add to your existing eyewear to help you stay within your chosen training/racing zones.
You can position the device where you like thanks to a universal mount that fits to the right arm of your glasses and what 4iiii calls a ‘flexible boom’ – the visual section that bends around the front.
The idea is that you sync the Sportiiii with other ANT+ devices and use the 4iiii app to preset your target zones. Those zones could be based on your heart rate, power, cadence or speed/pace, depending on what you have connected.
A series of multi-coloured LEDs, along with verbal prompts, help you stay within your target zones. A green light tells you that you’re currently within your chosen zone, other lights tell you whether you’re above or below, and by how far.
4iiii says that the Sportiiii’s battery lasts up to 17hrs between charges and that it weighs less than 10g. It records your workout data in .FIT format for uploading and analysis later.
Do you need this when you could just mount a small ANT+ head unit on the handlebars? Maybe not, but it’s interesting tech and something else that we’ll try to get in for review.
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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22 comments
The thing that would really worry me about the Sea Sucker, since everyone seems to say "It really will not come away from the window" is "What about the enormous pressures on the glass?" If the window that it's attached to pops out or breaks it's going to be immaterial how well it sticks to the window.
I've seen a hatchback with a hang on carrier (including straps attached to the rear bumper) with 2 bikes attached, where the stresses were so great that the hinge pins had sheered, leaving bikes, carrier & tailgate smashing to bits on the road.
The Hiplock lock cable, based on the photos is so thin. I got through a cable about 10 x thicker with a pair of wire cutters in under a minute (it was securing a gate & I'd lost the key).
So to the Cannondale pump...."we’ve not tried it out yet." So why even show it? we can all look at pictures & say what we think - that's just what I'm doing now -
Whilst I'm "on one" If you are really worried about the stresses placed on the front forks whilst in the Omnium trainer I think you should be very worried when you're out on the road. Forks are a critical item when it comes to safety; all properly engineered critical items are normally massively over-engineered. If you are worried about damaging you precious carbon fibre forks in a trainer perhaps you should wonder what will happen if you're descending a hill at 60+mph & your forks break. Alternatively have a dedicated trainer bike with steel forks.
So to the iii iii sportiiiiiii .Firstly what makes anyone think that by adding "i" to anything/everything it automatically becomes cutting edge technology? As the review says "Do you need this when you could just mount a small ANT+ head unit on the handlebars? " I would add when a display is so close to your eye it means you will not be focusing on the road. A switch of focus from road to a largish display on the bars & back again can be made very quickly ,but we are not used to/programmed to look at things so close to the eye. Add to this the "series of multi-coloured LEDs" distractingly close to your eyes and it seems to me a recipe for disaster.
Perhaps the answer is take your bike to the start of your ride on the back of your car. When the window to which the carrier is attached breaks & your bike smashes to pieces on the road you won't have to worry about whether your forks are going to break, or if you are going to be distracted by leds.....The chamber multi tool looks quite cool, although equally effective & much cheaper alternatives are available. matthewn5 note it is available with a ratchet for an extra £5!
What he said ^^^
Pity the multitool head isn't a ratchet. Now that would be useful.
I'm pretty sure the SeaSucker Hornet bike mount would be illegal (at least in Spain) - how do you stop the bike covering the license plate? Not to mention that a full-sized bike would stick out loads...
Maybe it's just my state of mind but every time I see Hiplock FLX my brain thinks it says hip flask.
Now thats a much more useful thing to take on a ride...
Like the Multi Tool and the functions it offers but have a couple of questions to ascertain if it will be worthwhile carrying this neat kit to replace a mess of tools.
The long double ended bits are very useful but look heavy, any idea how much it weighs?
There is a combination of 13 different Driver Types or Sizes, where is the extra Driver hiding?
According to fabric's website, the tool weighs 162 grams.
As for the 13 functions, "Seated securely within the Chamber are 6 double-ended bits and an 8mm over-bit."
I used to have some of those omnium rollers. They were alright but the lack of flywheel means that they have no 'road feel' at all. They folded up small though so would be easy to throw in the back of the car for warm ups but to be honest I'd rather use rollers as the omniums weren't the best of either rollers or turbo.
There's a new internal magnet-based flywheel-thing - these definitely aren't just 'rollers', it's a proper turbo. It increases resistance as you get faster, like fluid-damped ones do. I'd give it a go - it's highly rated by loads of pro's and amateurs alike.
Not a substitute for a proper trainer/rollers. I don't feel comfortable sitting on rollers in a busy car park before a race and I rarely arrive sufficiently in advance of the start to have time to find an out of the way space to set up my rollers. So these are perfect for a 15/20 blast before the start to get/keep warm.
Feedback Omnium is a slightly updated version of the old SportCrafters Omnium trainer (SportCrafters - or its product - has been bought by Feedback, I believe). The latter have been available in the UK for some time, see Planet X where they are available for £199.
It's the same basic idea but Feedback have made loads of changes to improve it, including through-axle compatability, much better legs, etc etc. The Planet-X ones must be very old stock that's selling through, there's a reason they are at that price.
I looked at the photos of the Seasucker Hornet on Amazon; I really wouldn't want to trust those things with holding my £3000 Aprire, especially with the contact points being the brake hoods and saddle on a race bike....
it's the handlebars, not the brake hoods. the saddle just rests against the car although one other option is to get a third cup for the saddle, that's about another £40
it's the same tech that glaziers use to carry huge glass panels weighing hundreds of kilos. having used the seasucker talon i'm not in any doubt as to whether it's up to the job
I'd be concerend that you'd damage the forks when using the omnium trainer - seems like there would be a lot of stress through the fork mount, especially when mounting/dismounting the bike.
Only the same force as you would put through them on the road - probably less - its just swapping a QR spindle through your wheels hub for a QR spindle attached to the trainer, and you are not subjecting it to the jolts from riding over the pot-holes that our roads have to offer.
Here's a better link than the one in the article - QR clearly visible in the second image in the gallery:
https://www.feedbacksports.com/shop/omnium-portable-trainer/#prettyPhoto
But when you have a front wheel in the stress on the fork mount is minimal - the wheel isn't fixed to the road and can effectively pivot displacing any lateral movement.
This trainer fixes the fork so any lateral movement would have to be dissipated through the flex of the fork legs/mounts. Surely the fork is meant for use with a wheel so wouldn't be designed to deal with these stresses.
Why would it be any worse than riding on the road with a wheel in?
Concentrated bending stresses at the dropouts due to side to side rocking.
Presence of a wheel = lots of movement = low stresses, rigid mounting = lack of compliance = high reaction forces.
The Hiplok FLX lock (minus the red light) looks very much like a ski/snowboard lock I picked up about 20 years ago for less than $10.
Much more useful than a light on the lock (who doesn't have enough lights already) would be a LOUD alarm that gets set off if the wire is cut.
Here you go. It's also considerably cheaper.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171367150356
Agree on the alarm point.
I'm pretty sure I once saw a video of a thief being able to steal a bike locked up with a cable lock simply by holding onto the frame and wrenching it away hard and fast. Lock broke or cable snapped under the very sudden force. On that basis, I can't believe that Hiplok FLX with its tiny little cable would require much of a tug to break it (although I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong)