Price Dropper!

Sean over at Rawland sent me a message last night, keeping me up to speed with the happenings over there. Looks like they've dropped the price of the NEO-MOTO and still offer FREE SHIPPING to the USA. Order up some tires from them. ORDER TIRES
The first batch of Rawland frame should be hitting shore in June. Well worth the wait, in my opinion. The Sogn will now be offered in a disc brake option.

Because Soma Cares

Most everyone knows that Soma Fabrications had a prototype 650B bike names the B-Side at Interbike. 650BPalace reported the info back in October 2007, in one of our first posts. Well, it's been in testing since then, and popped up at a few tradeshows overseas. The Soma folks have it back and want some ideas on which direction to take the project.

Visit and comment on their blog parked at HTTP://SOMAFAB.BLOGSPOT.COM

The Nevegal in Coming

Kenda will be debuting the Tomac Nevegal in he 650B Format next month at the Taipei show in Taiwan! Then next at Sea Otter in April. 2 widths, 2.1" and a 2.3" will be the produced!
Read a few words here.
The Kenda folks, reportedly, we jabbering about the upcoming offering at Quality Bicycle Product's FROST BIKE a few weeks ago.
DOn't expect to see the tire in shops or available until April or even may. Tires take time to make and distribute. So don't bug Kenda just yet. THEY'RE COMING, FOLKS. Be patient!
Needless to say, Kenda picked a great tire to offer, as it has been voted #1 tire two years running!
That is all!

SUPER SECRET

Some SUPER SECRET info and images hit my INBOX yesterday!

Stay tuned for THOSE info and images when I get the green light to post them HERE!

Only on 650Bpalace.com!

Congradulations Pacenti Cycle Design!

NAHBS08 (11)
Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Congradulations in leading the 27.5" format with the stellar Neo-Moto tire, and landing the OE tire for Haro's Beasley line of 650B BIKES! Thanks Kirk, and Pacenti Cycle Design!

HARO: ON POINT

Beasley 1/9MSRP: about $1,100
Weight: about 27.5 lbs for the 18" size
Spec highlights:-Double butted 4130 cromoly 650B specific frame
-Custom full cromoly rigid fork
-Shimano Deore Shadow XT rear derailleur
-Truvativ Stylo 1.1 34T cranks
-Shimano M485 hydraulic disc brakes

Beasley SSMSRP: about $850
Weight: about 27 lbs for the 18" size
Spec highlights:-Double butted 4130 cromoly 650B specific frame-
Custom full cromoly rigid fork
Truvativ Fire-X 1.1 singlespeed crankset-
Avid BB5 mechanical disc brakes
Pacenti Neo-Moto 650B tires
On-One Mary Bar pictured
EBB equipped!

CARVER: Your stock is rising...

Caver Bikes will be offering an aluminum version of their, currently, TI Killer Bee and Bumble Bee frames. News was broke on WWW.RIDEMONKEY.COM by moderator MMcG. Thanks Mark!

Davis Carver had this to say:
"Since we use an eccentric BB, we can rotate it to the lower positionto get the correct BB height. We're using the X Fusion Velvet set at the 120to 110 range to get a 70 degree head angle.300 mm BB height and a 42.5" wheelbase. Seems to handle well with thestandard rake. I may try it with a Fox, just to compare.We are coming out with adedicated, standard BB(not Eccentric) aluminum BumbleBee and KillerBee framethat will retail at around $350.00. About three months or so."

WOW thats an awesome price that will be NEAR unbeatable.
Carver, your stock is rising.
3 months, just in time for folks to get on Stan's ZTR 355B wheels. Ponderous.

Igleheart Fork

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Sweet steel welds. Detail of the Igleheart fork.

Igleheart Fork

igleheartfork
Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Fan of Fat Chance? Igleheart contniues the making the Y0 Eddy type forks. This one was made for 650B. Sweeeeet.....

MORE TIRES MAKERS TOYING

More tires manufacturers are toying with the idea of the 650B format.
Both Schwalbe and CST have unofficially announced a possibility. If you do not know, CST is the Cheng Shin Tire company, who is the parent company of MAXXIS. If CST offers a 650B/584 tire you can bet MAXXIS will offer something too.
I spoke to Continental Tires at NAHBS, they are interested in the idea, but as of right now, they are running at capacity with their 26" and 29" MTB tires and can't keep up with demand on those. They would have to reduce production on something thats selling, to add something new to their arsenal, and wouldn't be happening soon. I'll keep my ear to the ground about these tid-bits and keep everyone posted as I know something!

CYCLING NEWS on NAHBS

Cycling News pushlished an online article about NAHBS 2008, with a write-up about 650B.

CYCLING NEWS

Haro is SERIOUS

Some factory spy photos of the Prototype 650B rigid forks from the HARO camp!
Thanks to Jill on MTBR, Haro's brand manager. SWEET

Jay from SyCip talks with MTBR

The beautiful 650B from SyCip.

"All 650Bs have been sold before it leaves the shop" I love that.

Carl from Vicious talks to MTBR

Vicious 27.5" Ti beauty!

NAHBS08 (7)
Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Ventana El Bastardo in Kirk Pacenti's booth. He had some sweet lugs there too. Check out www.bikelugs.com for more!

NAHBS08 (13)
Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Kish Titanium 650B Complete

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Kish Titanium CS clearance

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Steve Garro's Coconino complete, built for his wife.

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Coconino stay detail

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

650B Townie from Pereira Cycles

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

SyCip SS detail

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

SyCip 650B Rigid featuring an integrated Stem-Bar combo.

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Rando from Southwest

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Vicious 650B Fork

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Originally uploaded by Cracked Headtube

Vicious SS clearance

NAHBS Coverage: Round One

Check out my Flickr Page
650B Palace on FLICKR

Pacenti Rocks!

Kirk Pacenti has a write up, following the NAHBS 2008 on MTBR.com

View it HERE

NAHBS 2008 Day One

I did my best to take as much in as possible. Today was industry day at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, in Portland, Oregon. Wow, what a day. I'm beat. There are numerous frame builders with 650B'd bikes, both MTB formatt and the rando/touring/ townies!
For now here are just a few:

Vicious Cycles Mambo Sun in Titanium. The graphics on this frame are stellar, and very low key.

Kirk Pacenti has this at his booth:
Ventana purpose built FS 650B "El Bastardo" (Kirk had to leave the pedal's off because the temptation is too much, this hasn't been ridden yet!)

Kish Fabrication Ti:

Alexis Dold's Villin mtb SingleSpeed

I have loads more, so check back again very SOON!

Expect to see bikes from Yipsan, Coconino, SyCip, Pereira, Southwest, Waterford, and more!

Made it to Portland!

I'm finally in Portland for the 2008 NAHBS. It took me 29 hours to get here, but I'm here. Getting off my final flight I met a couple fixie guys from SLC, we rode the MAX and chatted a bit. They're in town for the show too. Tomorrow is opening day so be back for photos this weekend! As for now, I'm gonna dry my shoes, build up my bike and warm the toes.

Just talked with Stan....

650B ZTR 355 Rims have been ordered from their overseas manufacturer, and are still expected to arrive sometime in APRIL. I'm on the list. There was fightin' going on over at MTBR's 'odd wheel' forum over whom was gonna get some of the first rims. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks to Stan and his crew over at NoTubes.com for really getting on the ball with 650B formatt. Yes, there are other companies doing the same, but Stan has a nice product and the tubeless is in such a demand, it's almost a must for NoTubes. Rim weight will be around 370g.

One is the Loneliest Number

Again, surfing the web, I found this gem.

The owner used a 29'r Rick Hunter unicycle and converted it to a 650B Uni, probably the first. Talk about an ULTRA-NICHE

And so, I salute you.

WT*? 650B?

Something weird I found on the inter-web.

(CLICK HERE)

The lighter side of 650B

I was browsing Rivendell's page, and wanted to feature this.

The Rivendell Saluki.

This is the bike that inspired Sean Virnig of RAWLAND to design and manufature his frames. I really like the color of this bike, so 650BPalace readers: plan to see this color more often. Rivendell calls it butterscotch. I'll call it burnt orange.

Just so everyone knows, Panaracer also produces a few 650B tires designed for road/touring/commuting use.

1.Nifty Swifty- 32.8mm wide

2.Col de la Vie- 38mm wide

3.Fatty Rumpkin- 40mm wide

Many folks out there have been converting 700C road bike to 650B commuter types. Reason being, the larger volume tires offer more cush, and still allow room for fenders.

A fine example can be viewed HERE

can YOU handle something INTENSE?

Intense Tire Systems is SERIOUSLY looking to break into the 650B market. They are gauging interest via email. Check them out at http://www.intensetires.com/

This will be a serious step forward for the platform. I smell 650B VPP.
Intense, welcome to the club.