For XC use, take a look at the Elite series. Available in red, gold, grey, or white, they can be had for as little as 1200NOK (about 200ish USD). They’ve garnered great reviews over at MTBR.com so why not give them a try?

If you’re a weight weenie, then the SLP (super light project) brake set are worth considering. They’re lighter than most other brakes out there and priced at a reasonable price of 1100NOK right now.

Questions? Just send a note to mike@hippiesport.com

Take care and have fun,

Mike
p.s. Although prices are listed in Norwegian Kroner, you can do a quick-and-dirty, back-of-the-envelope conversion by dividing by 6 to get the price in US dollars or divide by 10 to get the price in British pounds. Give or take a few dollars/pounds… (check out www.xe.com for an accurate conversion). Also, don’t forget, if you’re having things shipped to an out-of-Norway address, you don’t pay the 25% Norwegian VAT!

But what about coloured components you ask? At this point, our parts are coming either without anodization or with a black finish. If you like to see some funky colours, let us know. If there’s enough interest then we can offer an anodized finish as an option.

Bike shops today are filled with a near limitless selection of bicycles which can make it difficult to choose your new bike. As a result, we often make the decision on the based on colour and style only. Quite likely we’ll be happy with our purchase but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to understand how our bike is going to perform before we buy it.

Seat Tube Angle
The angle of the seat tube with respect to the ground is called the seat tube angle (imagine that). On road bikes, the angle may be as low as 72 degrees while on a triathlon bike it may approach 80 degrees. Although this doesn’t sound like a huge difference, it has a huge impact on both comfort and the muscles that get used when riding. A low seat angle necessitates a longer wheelbase and puts the rider in a more seat-back position (which is good for climbing) while a more upright seat tube allows the rear wheel to move forward somewhat (shortening the wheelbase) and puts the rider over the pedals more (allowing better power transfer when in a time trial position).

Head Tube Angle
Measuring the angle with which the head tube makes with the ground, the head angle of a bike, to a great extent, affects comfort. The steeper head angle requires a fork with less rake to keep the same steering characteristics which results in less compliance in the front end. On the road, a 73 degree head angle may give an acceptable ride over long distances whereas a track bike with a 75 degree head angle will probably make you very sore, very fast if ridden on the road.

Rake and Trail
The amount by which a fork curves away from the straight line through the steerer tube is known as rake. This, in concert with the head angle, determines whether a bike will have twitchy or neutral steering. Both have their place but it’s good to know which one you’re getting before you purchase a bike.
So how do rake and head angle relate to steering? Well, they relate through something called ‘trail.’ Trail is the distance of the tire contact point (with the ground) behind the point at which a line through the centre of the steerer tube would touch the ground. The greater the rake, the smaller the trail (for a given head angle) and vice versa. Increase the head angle and the trail decreases for a given rake. So, what is ideal? It depends what you mean by ideal but, if you want a bike that has neutral steering, then you want to aim for a trail value of about 60mm. If you want things to be a bit twitchy (to get out of trouble on the track) then you might want a trail value of about 55-57mm.

So, in summary, a shallow seat tube is more comfortable (although this may be subjective) then a steeper one. The same applies to head angle (not subjective) however rake and trail also need to considered to understand how a bike is going to steer. Look for a trail close to 60mm if you want bike that has a neutral feel. If, on the other hand, you ride on the track and need to avoid that inevitable crash in front of you, look for trail less than 60mm.

At first glance, one might think that a track bike is simply a road bike with a fixed-gear wheel and no brakes. This would be a natural thought. But, after watching riders hurtling around the not-steep-enough turns at Hålandsmarka, you quickly realize that something must be different. The scraping of pedals around the corners is disconcerting at best and, surely, someone must have thought that crashing hurts enough to rethink the idea of using a road frame on the track. And so it goes, a track frame is distinctly different from a road frame in a number of ways.

Bottom bracket drop
This is a measure of the vertical distance from the wheel centre to the centre of the bottom bracket. On a road bike, the drop may be about 70mm while on a track bike it may be 50mm or less. And, although 2cm may not sound like a lot, it may be enough keep us from laying our bike down in a corner.

Crank arm length
Decreasing bottom bracket drop by 2cm (from say 70mm to 50mm) gives roughly an extra 6 degrees lean potential before digging into the pavement. While this is an admirable improvement, we can do better if we also shorten our crank arms. If, for example, we move from 170mm arms down to 165mm arms then we gain yet another 1.5 degrees for a total lean improvement over a ‘std’ road bike of 7.5 degrees. Which a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows is equivalent to about an extra 5km/h on a small, shallow track.

So, it appears that, if you want to minimize your risk and maximize you speed at the track, you should keep a careful eye on bottom bracket drop and crank arm length when choosing a bike for the track.

mike@hippiesport.com