Quad品牌以超棒的刹车著称，现在Quad又出轮组与之相对应，但是，Quad轮组和其他的品牌轮组一样好吗？在第一，二次的使用中，轮组会发出“叮”的声音，但是经过几次的自身磨合后，这种情况就不副存在。轮组有一点点的弯曲，但是弯曲程度并没有过火，而且即使经过非常难的骑行后，给轮组的唯一损坏只是轮圈的一点点凹痕。
后花鼓有六个齿轮具，活动相当灵敏，不仅看上去很不错，而且附带快拆（QR)。整个轮组，不带快拆的重量为：1770g.对这个级别来说是相当棒的。
所以Quad轮组质量好，中等重量，坚固耐用。
After being thoroughly impressed by the Continental Mountain King I reviewed a month or so back, we decided to get a few sets of Conti’s freeride tyre, the Diesel.
Here’s Conti’s spiel about their Diesel tyre:
The Freeride Powerplant
A 2.5 tire has to withstand a lot of heavy freeride abuse, that’s obvious! The Diesel doesn’t just withstand a lot, it is lightweight as well. The Diesel excels not only on downhill stretches, but it makes things a whole lot easier when heading uphill too. A true all-rounder.
The favourable wire version was equipped with additional reinforcement for bike park use, where the only thing that counts is the durability measured in drops and jumps.
The version we managed to track down was the cheaper steel beaded, non folding, Taiwanese model. This version came in at a bargain 138 RMB (around $20 U.S) but weighed a portly 1200g a tyre!!
Mounting the tyre to my Atomlab rims was easy as pie, but riders using Single Tracks found mounting and unmounting for puncture repairs a bit of a chore.
Once on the bike and pumped up to 40psi they sit with a very rounded profile, this is due to the large volume of the 2.5 Diesel and also partly due to the tyre’s tread design. The design of the tread is again a group of odd low profile triangle shapes with very little in the way of sidewall tread, this gave us concerns over the Diesels cornering ability. The tread is directionally specific, as per the Mountain King, meaning the tyre sits in one direction for the front and the opposite direction for the rear.
On the road to the trail every rider using the Conti Diesel was amazed by how quickly they rolled along the tarmac, and we quickly lost the other riders using ‘bigger’ tyres. This is great for those of us who have a long asphalt ride to and from the local trails.
When we finally hit the dirt our smiles of joy due to the fast rolling on the road quickly dried, shriveled and fell from our faces when one after another we punctured! The first rocky downhill of the ride had two of us looking really gutted and worrying about the state of our rear wheels. The tyre is designed for freeride, so we are guessing smooth trails with lots of skinnies and ladders, but once your in the rough stuff the Diesels tend to give up and deflate, preferring to be gently pushed down by the rider rather than ridden! Not good! And it wasn’t just the rocks the Diesels had an interesting time with, but also thorns which they attracted by the dozen.
With all this practice changing tubes the riders who originally had trouble getting the Diesels on and off had become professionally proficient by the end of a single ride.
When the Conti’s decided to hold their own and keep the air from gushing out with amazing gusto, they rolled well and gripped well in hardpacked dirt conditions, they also climb very well too, however you take these babies around a loose corner at speed and they’ll have you sliding off the track and down the side of the trail!
As you can probably tell I am not impressed by the Diesel, they puncture easily and the front has little to no grip in the corners. However they do roll well. The only time I would recommend the Diesels is if you ride extremely smooth trails, with smooth jumps and transitions, and even then I would recommend a Maxxis up front, OR if you do what I and some other riders have done and ride with a DH tube in the back and swap the front for a Minnion or similar, this way you still get a bit of relief from the ride to and from the trial and don’t suffer from the puncture and traction problems.
Save your money get some Maxxis and suffer on the road rides.
Bikemen.net has a great first impressions/short review of Spinners 150mm travel Cargo fork. Spinner have really made waves over the past few years, with first producing one of the lightest XC forks on the market and now with their freeride/dirt jump range.
We will have some news about Spinners 09 range soon, but for the time being check out Bikemen.net for their test impressions and also a short video of the Spinner Eagle in action.
If you can’t read Chinese watch this space for our own review of the Cargo later this year.
Yesterday, March 23rd 6 brave riders braved the stormy conditions to ride at the TV tower. Well stormy is a bit of an exaggeration, light showers a warm breeze and muddy trails were the worst yesterday had to offer. Muddy rides are always more fun than in the dry, familiar smooth lines become gloopy slippy ruts, and grippy rocks turn to natural slip and slides. Luckily everyone managed to stay on their bikes this week, although Ash managed to slip while walking up hill (did it bruise?) and Kuni had a huge bruise to show off from last Sunday’s ride when he snapped yet another brake lever. 
The Continental Mountain Kings performed well in the mud and on the slippy rocks, they actually felt better in the wet than they do in the dry loose stuff, a good all rounder then! good job Continental. Unfortunately I managed to get a puncture on the downhill. I can’t blame the tyre as its done the same downhill 4 times before with no problems, it was a combination of picking the wrong line at the wrong speed and imagining I was Nicolas Vouilloz riding in the BOS suspension video, which I’m not. The combination of the two resulted in a flat and a very badly buckled Atomlab GI rim (looks like a wheel build is in order!).
Luckily Ash was there to keep us entertained while I undid 8 nuts and bolts which hold my Banshee’s rear wheel in place.
We completed the ride a little slower than usual due to my puncture, but the weather had warmed up and we met up with James, so we decided to ride again. This time through the same rocky section I got the puncture before the Conti’s held there own against my bad line choices, and continued to stay puncture free for the rest of the ride.
The last downhill at the TV tower is a fast pedally one, with great natural berms on each corner ending in a twisty steep chute, not unlike a short toboggan run. The first time round I followed Ken down and was amazed by the similarities and differences we have between our riding, we both chose different routes, but on the first time down we were pretty evenly matched. The second time however Ken really opened up and seemed to pedal all the way to the bottom, there was no way I could keep up! Amazingly fast and amazingly smooth!!
The Continental Mountain Kings continue to impress me, the chunky knobs dug in to the mud well for great grip in the turns and the climbs, and the wide spacing of the tread meant the tyres could shed the dirt quickly and easily.
Overall it was another great ride, with great conditions, great riders and great tyres!
You can read a full review on the Continental Mountain Kings here.
I introduced the new Mountain King from Continental last week, but in case you missed it here is a quick description.
The Mountain King is described as a high volume, lightweight all purpose tyre. It is available in 2.2 and 2.4 inch widths for both 26 and 29 inch wheels. The model on test is a 2.4×26 inch version, although when mounted to the wheel looks more like a 2.3.
Test Conditions
Ok, last bit of waffle before I tell you about the performance of the tyre. I believe its important for you guys to know the type of bike a product was tested on and in what type of conditions so you have a better idea of how it worked and weather it would be suitable for you. The bike used was/is a single speed Banshee Scratch hard-tail, built with durability and strength in mind i.e heavy! And the trails, steep extremely rocky downhills, which usually end in twisty loose camber forest sections.
Now for the tyre
The first thing you notice when you pick up the Mountain Kings is how light they are, they’re not the lightest tyre in the world, but compared to the Maxxis I usually ride there is a noticeable difference. Another impression was just how thin the sidewalls are, this and the weight of the tyre made me feel a little sceptical of the ‘Protection’ label on the side of the tyre. Mounting to the rim was very easy, and they seated perfectly first time.
My home is surrounded by ‘mountains’ only a short ride away. Within 10-30 minutes I can be off road in a forest or hiking to the top of a 10 minute brake fading downhill, problem is I have to ride along the tarmac to get there. With the old Maxxis the road sections of my rides was an absolute nightmare, but the Continental Mountain Kings are amazing! They just roll with no sigh of drag or slowing down! For me on a single-speed, dragging my self up a steep tarmac road is a real workout, but with the Mountain Kings I could actually take a break on the ups and roll up a while. Just to give you an idea of how much quicker they are on the road I waited for over a minute for my fellow riders after a 10 minute road section.
Now its all well a good saying they roll so well on the tarmac, but will this translate into a fast rolling off road tyre? Well the answer is yes! The start of our normal ride is down a fast twisty forest section, the surface is covered in loose gravel and sand with the odd jagged rock jutting out here and there and a few drops for good measure. I pedalled into the first section as I would do normally turned right then into the left, I was amazed just how much speed I had managed to carry through, on my old tyres I would have to get a few pedal tuns in here and there to keep the momentum, but with the Mountain Kings I was actually rolling so much quicker I had to use the brakes more. The next turn is to the right and down 2 stuttered drops with rocks placed haphazardly before and after. I turned into the corner and automatically regretted not leaning in to it more, the Conti’s were begging me to throw my bike in to corners faster and lower than my old tyres, it felt like riding a different bike! Down the drops and over the rocks i expected the walls to squirm and flex about, but nothing of the sort happened they just kept on rolling around the trees, through loose off camber corners and up short uphills.
The next section of the ride would be the true test (for me) of the tyres, the downhills are faster, rockier and have claimed the life of many a ‘lightweight’ tyre. The first section of the downhill starts as a 100 m sprint on smooth ground then over a small rock garden in to a left hander a straight a right then in to the super rocky section. I sprinted off remembering not to get to carried away, due to how well the Kings could roll, I got to the rock garden and manualed over, as I would do normally, turned down the left (still carrying too much speed) down a short straight, round the left hander and in to the super rocky section to the end before another uphill. I got off my bike squeezed the rear tyre and was shocked to still find it fully inflated and begging for more! The manual over the rock garden didn’t faze them and neither did the rocky section.
I’ll just skip the next downhills and tell you about the climbing. The Mountain Kings are directional specific meaning the tread is the same, but they are fitted in one direction for the front and one for the rear. By this time I knew the climb to the last downhill would be easier, just due to the weight saving and the rolling resistance, but actually climbing off road you can feel them digging in to the trail searching for every possible ounce of grip available.
I could go on to tell you about the rest of the ride, but lets just leave it there, as they performed flawlessly in every situation and didn’t let me down. Not only did they perform well, but they improved my riding experience, they let me throw my bike around, go faster in to corners and let me think about what was coming up in the trail next rather than ‘can I get a few more pedal turns in?’.
Another area in which they impressed was the fact that now my lardy Banshee has lost a few pounds I can actually do bunny-hops again without giving myself a hernia.
Overall I am thoroughly impressed with the Continental Mountain Kings and can’t wait to try another Continental tyre out on my full suspension bike.
As the title suggests this is a review of how the Mountain King performed in the dry, once the trails get gloopy and muddy we can test them in the wet.
Thanks again to Colmax, the distributors for Continental and many others here in China, for fixing us up with the tyres for test.
As the weather is getting warmer we are getting more and more time on the bike, which means we can play about on some new stuff! Along with our long term MacMahone Emblem test, we’ll also be testing a number of other components. One of these is the Kowa 160ss suspension fork.
The model shown here is the current incarnation of the fork, a newer improved version will be available from the 21st of March, which is said to be stronger and also has some improvements.
Anyway we had a few minutes play around on the current Kowa this morning and were pretty impressed! Please bear in mind this is an initial impression, and by no means should be regarded as a full test (this is an on going test and we’ll post our conclusions when we have come to them).
The Emblem is MacMahone’s slope style/ freeride/ do it all bike. The frame offers 130mm of rear wheel travel through its intricate 4 bar linkage and Manitou X3 air shock.
The attention to detail, which has gone in to this frame is second to none. The welds are all perfectly uniform and smooth, in fact the Emblem probably has the best welding of any frame I’ve seen over the past few years! The anodized finish is extremely tough as is sure to look just as good after a few seasons of hard use as it does new. Even the seals on the bearings are green to match the decals!
The cnc’d components on the frame are also of jaw dropping quality, with any material not needed machined away to cut down the grams, but not sacrifice the overall strength. There’s even a special machined piece behind the ’seat tube’ in case you wanted to fit a front mech, but unfortunately there are no chain guide mounts on the bottom bracket shell.
When putting a bike together you can usually tell the quality of a new frame by how easily everything goes together. The Emblem is a perfect example of this, all of the faces were perfect , and all the components went on with no worries or clearance issues.
Once built up I took it out for a quick spin around the block. My initial thought was just how well it pedaled with no noticeable bob. This is probably partly due to the SPV rear shock, but as I hadn’t really set it up properly the suspension design must have played its part too. Down a few staircases and off a few small drops the suspension soaked everything up well, even with slightly snug (read new) bearings.
We’ll be riding and testing this and another Emblem over the next few months so keep posted for updates and rider impressions.
KCNC is not a brand most riders will be familiar with. They are a Taiwanese brand, who design their products in the UK and Europe then have the parts made at their CNC shop in Taiwan.
The FR-1 comes in two versions, an ISIS drive model and a K-Type model. The K-type uses KCNC’s own K-type Scandium bottom bracket with external bearings (like Shimano). This helps spread loads further outboard and help prolong the life of your bottom bracket. The Scandium axle mounts to both crank arms in the same manner as an ISIS crank, but has a smaller diameter and deeper splines.
The crank arms are made from beautifully machined 7075 aluminium with a 4 arm replaceable spider. The arms don’t feature steel inserts for the pedal threads, but this seems to be a bit of an old school approach to making quality, durable cranks.
The FR-1 also incorporates KCNC’s patented ‘Double Hollow Hole’ design, which basically means the cranks have two long holes running the length of the arms, reducing weight and distributing stress more evenly.
The FR-1 is available in 3 lengths, 165-175mm and weigh in at an amazing 920g with K-type bottom bracket, granny ring and bash guard.
Visit the KCNC website for more on their great line of products or contact Marechal International, the distributors for KCNC in Asia.
When your up in the mountains or in the middle of a forest you don’t want to get stuck there because of a loose crank bolt, flat tyre or even a broken chain. Thankfully clever bods at companies such as SKS have designed and built multi tools to provide back up if we’re ever caught short.
The Toolbox Travel sits at the top of the SKS multi tool range, and is packed with all the functions and tools you would expect to need, with a few added plus points thrown in for good measure.
You may recognize the look of the 3twentysix, its the same tread design as the 80’s BMX favorite the Comp 3. Atomlab have rereleased it in 24″ and 26″ in either a 2.1 or 2.3 width.
I’ve been using the 3twentysix tyre for a while now and as a street dirt jump tyre it works amazingly well. The low profile knobs and wide spread make for a very quick rolling tyre.
I even tried them on a few of the local trails to see how they would hold up. Obviously they aren’t really meant for trail riding but I gave them a go anyway. They performed well on smooth hard packed surfaces, with gentle turns, anything more aggressive and I would be forced to spend more time repairing punctures than riding.
Overall they’re a great tyre with a great look for street and dirt jumping, which like I said before is what they’re designed for. For anything more aggressive go for something with a thicker carcass and more sidewall tread.
