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Carbon off-road wheels by Bontrager. The 29er wheelset, as reported by Velonews, is weighing in at 1570 grams. Called the Race XXX Lite, these wheels are Tubeless Ready.

As with all things carbon, weight (or lack thereof) is typically the most discussed feature. The new Race XXX Lite wheelset weighs in at 1,450 grams for 26-inch and 1,570 grams for the 29” version. The carbon hoops are constructed of Bontrager’s new High Compression Molded process that creates uniform thickness throughout the rim. As clinchers, the rims feature what Bontrager calls Hard Tooled Hookbead Technology (HTHT), which creates precision carbon hookbeds and rim walls that require no additional machining after the rim is molded. They can be run with traditional tubes but will come with Bontrager-designed tubeless rim strips and valve cores for those wanting to run Bontrager’s Tubeless Ready tires or UST tires.

For more info, click here.

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As most mountain bikers know, carbon fiber has been used in building frames, forks, levers, cranks and just about anything you can think of. But when I recently took a job at TAI Sports, the world of softball and baseball opened up to me. First of all, I haven’t played softball since I was in elementary school and at that time we had wooden bats and only the rich kids had aluminum bats.

But when I started seeing softball bats made with some sort of carbon composite, I was intrigued. Khoa is a HUGE fan of carbon and even asked if I can get him a bat just for the fact its carbon. He like I, doesn’t play softball, but these bats are just pretty.

Here’s a few bats.

These are Easton bats that use “Carbon Nanotube Technology.”

One of the questions Khoa had about these bats since they are carbon, “Don’t they break?” Well yes and no. As long as you don’t “shave” or “roll” them, then they could last a few seasons. But these bats are pretty strong and our company hosted a bat testing session for Worth Bats and I got a glimpse of how much power some of the softball players can dish out with these carbon bats.

Anyhow, this post has a little something to do with mountain biking since the common denominator is carbon. So I thought to myself, when will someone come out with carbon derailleur or brake housing…but I remembered that Nokon has!

Personally I’m not one to go out and get carbon parts, I’m just too broke to do it. But I do admire how it has revolutionized the biking and softball word.

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Bikepedia.com has some 2009 bike pictures up. Since I’m a 29er guy I thought I might share the new 29er I saw on there, the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29er. Last year, Specialized came out with the Stumpjumper FSR Expert 29er but for 2009, they’ve added a lower spec’d Comp version.

The 2009 Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29er, picture via bikepedia.com

The Comp version, we’re hearing, is going to be priced in the mid $2′s and the Expert is dropping in price from $4,100 to over $3,000. The Expert is also loosing the Brain, but getting a Fox front fork.

The 2009 Stumpjumper FSR Expert 29er, picture via bikepedia.com

For more info on the Comp, click here. For more info on the Expert, click here.

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Well I am sure you all heard things were rockin’ here in California today. RL and I are about 10min from Chino, (the epicenter). Today’s earthquake is one of the strongest ones we’ve had in a long while. There’s lots of videos circulating out there but this one caught my attention. Happy to know that there were no casualties that I have heard of from the quake but I don’t know if I can say the same of the bikes……

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As promised I created a video of our adventures in Temecula, specifically at the Wellington Ranch. Alex, the little fella in the video is so much fun to watch. That guy can ride, and he’s only 13!

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