04 Apr 2007

As anyone who has spoken to Brett or Erin at the races, we’re kinda/sorta/maybe sponsored by Maxxis, which is why we pimp the Crossmarks whenever we’re asked. I say kinda because really it’s just the Aussie Maxxis distributor looking after us and our raging tire habit. I’ve known those guys for well over ten years, so it’s really cool that can help us out.

Anyway, yesterday there was a knock at the door and there was Wardie with another box full of tires. This time however there was a suprise in the box - some Crossmark 29×2.10’s.

So how do they look? Like big Crossmark 26’s. How do they ride? I’d hazard to guess like big Crossmark 26’s. Yep, that’s how excitingly revolutionary it is.

As some of you might know, the 29er thing is not even on the radar here in Australia. Apart from Shannon at MTB-Precision in Qld and the odd shop here and there, 29er’s pretty much don’t exist. I’ve never ever seen one at a race. Ever. My new LBS - Goldcross Cycles, Puckle St. Mooney Poonds - actually has some in stock which came as a bit of a suprise when I went in there looking for some 29er tubes. They were that white GT thing whose name escapes me at the moment.

Naturally, although they sell the bikes, they didn’t have any tubes. Yep, that sums up the Aussie bike industry. “We could special order some for you” said the pre-pubescent behind the counter. “Okay, so how about some 700c x 40 or so? Got any of those?” I wondered. “Will those fit?” Came the reply. “Of course they will. They’re not perfect, but they’ll get me out of trouble.” “Cool”.

So the kid opened the draw and it was full of Tioga tubes. Doh. I coulda just got them off Wardie.

Tie-OH-gar!

Speaking of which, I had the pleasure recently of working on the Ad campaign for the new Tioga pedal. Currently the boys have got a ‘Spider’ thing going on with there now being a ‘Spyder’ pedal to match the “Look Ma, No Padding!” saddle.

Excuse the rubbish mobile-phone photo (That’s what we call ‘Cell Phones’ here), but you know what, I actually think it looks pretty funky. It always helps when the product if funky when you’re trying to design an advertising campaign for it. There’s nothing worse than trying to upsell a shit product. Anyway, I wish I could tell you more about these. I actually thought they were already on the market, but apparently not because I got a few e-mails from people wondering how much they were, how much they weighed blahblah blah and I actually don’t know. I do know that they are pretty darn light and will apparently be available in two different sizes.

Also recently I got some pre-production samples of some new offroad tires. They’re both designed as part time off-road tires for the ‘enthusiast’. ‘Enthusiast’ is one of those words that get’s a bit Lost In Traslation when working with the Japanese. I actually think their definition is closer to ‘Weekend Warrior’ or ‘Hack’ than ‘Enthusiast’. I mean, I’m an ‘enthusiast’ but I wouldn’t use either of these tires for anything. The square-ish one I can see working well for Trials or some form of Urban Prankstering, but the other one looks like ….. a knobby XC tire they’ve tried to put on a diet. By ‘modern’ standards the knobs are too big to be a fast rolling XC tire, and the pattern is too aggressive for the ’sometimes offroad’ or as I prefer, the ‘80% paved, 20% unpaved’ urban explorer.

So anyway, that’s the next job to do inbetween designing Thylacine’s.

Hey, the team might have a raging tire habit, but it’s not half as bad as having a raging bike company habit.

Posted by brett @ 7:08 am

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