eThirteen, Hive Show New Wheels, Chainguides, Flat Pedals

The Hive, which includes the e*Thirteen and REVL brands, had a broad assortment of new products for 2012 at Eurobike.

For hoops, they had three models. Above, the TRS+ wheels are for trail bikes and full suspension 29ers. They use the larger Chub hubs with carbon bodies on alloy flanges. U.S. brand manager Chris Costello said they did stiffness impact studies compared to other hubs with smaller (normal) flanges. Compared to their stiffest competition (pun intended) they saw improvements in lateral stiffness of up to 30% depending on wheel size. They use DT Super Comp triple butted spokes with 28 per wheel. They use 21mm IW (inside width) Scandium rims. Weights are 805g/957g for the 29er wheels and 755g/895g for 26″.

The new collection also include DH and XC wheels, plus pedals, chainguides and more…

LG1+ DH wheels also use a Scandium rim but it grows to 23mm IW and has a deeper profile. Despite the apparent heft, the rim weight is about 540g and a complete set weight of just 2,050g. They’re 32 hole and get the really, really big Chub hubs that offer better spoke triangulation thanks to the super tall flanges.

The XCX+ wheels are a 24 hole wheel with DT Super Comp triple butted spokes, 370g 21mm IW scandium rim. They’re tubeless ready and come with a 3M rim strip and valve stem.

The hubs have 52mm flange on the front and 56mm on the rear drive side. That height plus the wide rim should make for a pretty stiff wheel that’s crazy light.

The freehub body is engineered in house and has two engagement teeth on each of the three pawls and 60 teeth on the ratchet ring for a minute 6° engagement – super fast. Wheels weigh in at 657g and 787g front/rear for a total of 1444g for the pair. Rim is also available separately in both 24 and 32 hole drillings, or 28 hole for 29er rim (410g).

Everything but DH wheels are available in late September, DH is November. They’ll have the usual range of axle options for wheels in the category, but the DH wheel is 150 or 157 only. The others get the 135×10 standard that uses DT Swiss’ RWS axle in a standard dropout frame.

There are two models of the new flat pedals: LG1+ and Race. The LG1+ gets a steel spindle and pins – 468g – $129. The Race gets a ti spindle and pins – 380g – $189 (smoke gray, below).

Another flat pedal, right? The specialness is an aluminum frame with polycarbonate plates on the platform surfaces. The benefit is that the polycarbonate outer surface slides off rocks and terra firma better, which is really only important on the outside edges, but it also takes impact better than alloys. Thrash it all you want, then just replace the cover plates and you get a pedal that looks new. They have adjustable Spin Control by tightening the outer lock nut to control how freely they spin when your foot’s off the pedal. Comes with two sets of pins 4mm and 7mm.

TRS Dual Chainguide addresses the apparent inability of chain guides to handle the new 2x double cranksets (which is probably why MRP / Truvativ just launched some, too). Comes in two sizes to handle up to 36t or 40t max chainrings.

It has a replaceable polycarbonate fin to keep the chain from falling off the inside of the cranks. The swappable lower roller let’s it mount with either a crank- or direct mount bash guard. $149 for alloy backplate and $89 for stamped steel. Steel one is 218g.

New REVL road brakes get a revised quick release and a redesign that uses spacers between the pads and arms to work with today’s crop of wider rims. It also gets a new square spring that keeps it shape better and holds it’s position within the body of the brake. Weight is 115g per wheel. MSRP is $399 / pair and includes titanium mounting bolts. Available late this year. The QR works similar to a click-retractable ball point pen so it’s super simple to release the brakes.