With a carbon wheel around ever corner in Taipei, there were still plenty of familiar brands like Novatec and their Factor branded wheels to check out. They came to Taipei with a few things to show as well as some more in the works.
We also found some new road & mountain bike bars and stems at Control Tech as well as a couple of new pieces in their TiMania collection. Though not super new, they had their TiMania goods mounted up and they are definitely worth a look…
Novatec had a prototype of an alloy 27.5+ wheel (it was labeled “Pontoon”, but has yet to be named), that will have a 38mm internal width. It will be available in both boost and non-boost and should come in at just over 2000g.
Under Novatec’s Factor brand, they had a few projects unfolding. Up top is the new 27.5 Carbon 727 DH wheelset that uses a hookless bead with a 27mm internal width. The 727 DH wheels tip the scales at 2077 g and there is an Enduro version in the works that should come in sub 1800g.
Their 27.5+ offering has a 48mm internal width and comes in at only 2125 grams. They will be bringing even more new stuff to Sea Otter including a 35mm internal width “big enduro” as well as a 21mm gravel wheel and more. The new carbon offerings from Factor will run $1,800 across the board.
Control Tech had a few new items at the show this year including the alloy LynX mountain bars above. They will come in both 31.8 and 35mm diameters and both flat and riser versions. Their new forged mountain stem will hold the new 35mm bars as well as the 31.8 via the included shim.
Though nothing like many of the uber-carbon goodies they’ve shown us in the past, the Falcon bars and aero stem look to be good looking replacements for someone wanting to dial in their fit without breaking the bank.
We saw Control Tech’s TiMania items hanging on the wall a couple of years ago, but when I saw how it came together when mounted up, I thought it was worth another look.
Though we’ve seen the stem, headset spacers and bars, this headset was something new that ties everything together nicely.
Also something we had’t seen were these titanium stamped bottle cages. They, like the rest of their goods would look great on any Ti rig.
