It’s April Fool’s Day, and the bike industry have risen to the occasion, rolling out some stair-dropping, blackout inducing, outside-the-box products. Prepare to have your horizons broadened, your minds expanded, your eyes watering and your ears bleeding, with these forward-thinking innovative solutions to problems that don’t exist, from Starling Cycles, Industry Nine and Guerilla Gravity.
Starling Tellum
Starling Cycles challenges you to flip your understanding of mountain bike design with the all new Starling Tellum. Following swiftly in the tracks of the Starling Twist traditional mullet is the reverse mullet Tellum, with the nimble 27.5″ wheel out front, and the big gyroscope 29″ wheel out back. Joe McEwan says he “didn’t quite get the science right” in the design of the Twist. He has rectified those errors in this here Tellum. We’ll allow the man himself to explain.
Though no geometry chart is published (sadly), Joe says the bike is made with no geometries compromises, built around Starling’s fast, compliant and simple steel single pivot frames.
From Joe
“I think I was mis-lead in the way I applied the science. I started from a clean piece of paper again and thought ‘how do we properly do this? I have talked a lot about gyroscopic stability, the forces that keep a wheel in-plane, and how this is the only significant difference between 29” and smaller wheels. A bigger wheel is more likely to stay in-plane and not get deflected off line, it is also more stable when leant over in a corner. It is these factors that people translate as “better at carrying speed”.
“But conversely they also make the wheel harder to be manoeuvred in and out of line choices. With the Twist I took the industry standard mullet solution and applied the wheel stability science, concluding it was better to have a big front wheel for tracking, and a small rear wheel for manoeuvrability. Essentially applying science to a pre-existing solution.”
“With the Tellum, I took a different approach, if we start with the science, what solution do we end up with? What we want is a manoeuvrable front wheel, allowing it to be moved in and out of line choices, picked-up and put where we want – after all the front wheel is where steering occurs! The rear wheel then just follows on. If the rear wheel is stable it just trucks on and keeps the speed, there is no need for a manoeuvrable rear wheel.”
“The solution, the Tellum, just works. The science is right, the bike is right!”
“I hope that my approach inspires the bike industry to flip their established notions of bike design and look at how they can do things differently. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a World Champion on this sort of bike soon?”
The Starling Tellum is available now for pre-order through Starling Cycles with a limited run of frames being built to order. Pricing and further information is available on request.
Industry Nine Hydra Frequency Adjust Ratchet
Time to whack up the volume with i9’s new Hydra hub with its frequency adjust ratchet. The unmistakable buzz of i9 can now be “silent but deadly” at .5 db, to “blackout inducing” at 150 db. Turn it down for what?
Whether looking to ride in silence or want to make your presence known on the trail, the all-new adjustable Hydra drive mechanism is Bluetooth connected for on-demand tuning. Just be careful, cranking the Frequency Adjust Ratchet to 11 is not suitable for all riders.
Guerilla Gravity Townhill Hardtail
From the same team of Guerrilla Gravity mad scientists that brought you the four-bikes-in-one Modular Frame Platform comes the Municipal Haste, a category-defying townhill bike. If you’ve ever eyed a loading dock drop or 6-stair gap on your way to the dive bar, the Municipal Haste is there as your own personal beer-pressure support system. Think of it as your own little shotgun-riding devil, pointing out every curb-cut huck or speed bump jump. Embrace every two-wheeled bad decision with gleeful abandon and an adolescent disregard for safety.
It may be April Fools Day, but that didn’t stop GG “launching” the Shred Dogg 650b trail bike on April 1st 2017. With the Municipal Haste, Guerrilla Gravity is so convinced that you’ll have 11% better shreds that they are now offering 11% off all Municipal Haste frames and complete bikes, plus free shipping inside the US and Canada. Framesets and complete bikes set sail within 4 weeks, customized to your component specifications.
