Welcome back to the 4th installment of the crank shootout.
New cranks that have been added for this round are Ax Lightness Morpheus, Extralite QRC2 and Rotor 3d. The next round will include the new Tune Smartfoot, Thm M3 and hopefully a production version of EE.
I’m really happy to announce the release of the first in a series of artist designed Fair Wheel Bikes kits. The first kit comes to us from artist Hunter King. Hunter is both a friend and a fabulous artist. Hunter designed the first two kits for us without any instruction, we just gave him a concept which was that we wanted something with a bit of a retro feel. Hunter took it from there and came up with this kit. Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think. Also for those of you wanting to see more of Hunters work take a look at Hunterking.com Read more
Many of us have been anxiously waiting for the new EE Crank from EE Cycleworks to be released. We’ve been covering the development since our first impressions during the crank shootout. Also, many of us know that it’s getting hard if not impossible to track down a set of the EE Brakes. This is why I’m happy Craig took some time out of his busy day to sit down and answer a few questions with what’s going on behind the scenes at EE Cycleworks. First I’d just like to say that when the EE cranks get released and when the updated brakes come into stock we will let you know! Don’t worry, we’re not going to let the big news fall adrift. Signing up to our newsletter will almost guarantee you early knowledge of anything big happening, not just with EE but around the cycling world and here at Fairwheel too. Read more
Please note that we have some new phone numbers. First let me say that the original Fair Wheel location is not moving, it’s been in the same spot for 35 years and will be there for 35 more years. But after 35 years, we have finally run out of space at the 6th st location. Actually we ran out of space a couple years ago and just struggled with it. That is no longer the case. We have moved both our retail internet division and our distribution division offsite to a new building about half a mile from the original. I also want to introduce some new employees that we are very excited to have joining us. Read more
HSC is making some of the nicest ceramic bottom brackets that we have yet seen. Now that there are so many different standards for bottom brackets we thought this a good time to try and differentiate the standards and help people figure out what is the right bottom bracket for them. Currently there are 6 offerings from HSC with more likely to show up soon. Read more
Kcnc has a ton of new products in release. The most recent to arrive and be added to our catalog is the new Majestic seat mast head. Made of 7075 Aluminum with 4 titanium bolts. Available in 4 colors, 2 offsets, and 2 lengths making for 16 options in each diameter. Currently available in 34.9. Read more
For several years we’ve struggled to find a good aluminum bolt tuning kit for derailleurs that met our standards. We’ve had some decent kits in the past, but with each of them there was always something that kept it from being just right in our minds. Some were missing pieces, others had mismatched anodizing between the bolts, and others still had bolts that missed the right spec. Finally, this problem is coming to an end. Several months ago we asked Far and Near to produce some bolt tuning kits to our specs, and now we have the samples to share with you. Read more
Madcow recently flew up to Portland to attend the Het Fairwheel Podium grand opening, and as per the usual with Madcow, he brought a few new products along with him. Some of the new small parts grabbed my attention, and I’m going to share those with you.
Parts of Passion Headset Spacers
I first saw the POP Headset Spacers while unpacking Parlee’s cyclocross NAHBS bike that Madcow helped spec. Even in black, the spacer caught my eye. First of all, it’s light. After a quick weigh-in for the 10mm height, they’re a bit (.4 g) heavier than the Soul Kozak spacer, and almost 2 grams lighter than most anything carbon. I also like the ridged look (a lot). They stack really nice, with little visible gap and the ridging carrying flawlessly. After Madcow dropped off a bag full of the spacers, I immediately understood why he added them to the shop. The colors — blue, red, gold, pink, copper, orange, silver, green and black — are beautiful, vibrant and deep.
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At Interbike last year we loosely tossed around the idea of a permanent gallery devoted to bicycles and components. That conversation, which at the time seemed to be just a bit of day dreaming, has now turned into an actual reality for us. We are proud to announce that March 4th and 5th we’ll host the grand opening of Het Fair Wheel Podium in Portland Oregon. A permanent gallery dedicated to innovation and art in cycling. Read more
Last year we partnered with Weight Weenies to revive the deceased weight listings. In just under a year we’ve managed, with the help of the members, to collect and add about 3000 new components to the weight listings. Now we’ve decided to take it a step further and find a way to put those listings to better use. That better use is an interactive spreadsheet that you can download to your computer and use to build a virtual bike simply by making selections from lists. Read more
