Tech News – June 2, 2006 Edited by John Stevenson Got tech? Send press releases, news, and tech questions to the Cyclingnews tech desk. Ivan Basso Speedplay in the pink TT headgear real estate Basso's victory marks grand tour win for Cervélo, Speedplay, FSA & Zipp Sponsors of Ivan Basso and the CSC team have been celebrating this week in the wake of the Italian's dominating victory in the Giro d'Italia. Basso took the lead with his stage 8 victory and held it all the way to Milan, protected by a seemingly impregnable CSC squad. As well as taking the overall win, Basso also set a record for the most stage wins on different bikes, according to the team's bike sponsor Cervélo. Basso's was aboard a Cervélo P3 Carbon for his stage five victory, used a Cervélo Soloist Carbon when he won stage eight and switched to the Cervélo R3 for stages 16 and 20. Cervélo principals Gerard Vroomen and Phil White were delighted with Basso's victory. "When Phil and I started Cervélo, we set these lofty goals of having our bikes in a Grand Tour and winning one, but that it has actually happened now is unbelievable," said Vroomen. "This is a major milestone for everybody in the company, and it feels great to be able to share this success with everybody at Cervélo and at Team CSC." "When we started our partnership with Team CSC their goal was to be the best cycling team in the world and our goal was to become the best bike manufacturer in the world," said White. "Seeing how the team worked together in the Giro these past three weeks and how Ivan had a choice of three different Cervélo's - each the best of their kind - depending on the course profile, it is amazing to see that we have both succeeded." Component maker Full Speed Ahead also expressed its appreciation of Basso's "splendid achievement!" and credited the team and support crew that helped him. "Thanks also to Sastre, Sorensen, Blaudzun, Julich, Voigt, Lombardi, Gustov, Cuesta, and Bjarne Riis. Thanks to everyone who worked behind the scenes day and night to prepare and maintain the bicycles, to give the champion and his mates the necessary confidence," the company said in a post-Giro announcement. As company spokesman Ric Hjertberg put it, "FSA, particularly our European Office in Milan, is deliriously happy." Wheel maker Zipp is no stranger to the podium of grand tours and as well as the top spot at the Giro it also supplied wheels to the runner-up, José E. Gutierrez of Phonak. And just as Basso had a wide range of bikes to choose from, he also had a substantial quiver of wheels, including the 303 and 404 wheels, the 999 time trial wheels, super-light Z3s and 202 climbing wheels. CSC's long-standing pedal maker Speedplay made a special edition of the team's Zero pedals to celebrate Basso's victory - in pink, of course. The whole CSC team was using them by the end of the race, and we can think of a few people who will be putting them high on the Christmas list if Speedplay makes them available beyond the CSC team. Finally, eagle-eyed reader might have spotted the name 'Ozone-Elite' on CSC's tiem trial helmets and wondered what it was. Well, it turns out Ozone-Elite is a range of massage and related products which helped keep Bassos and the boys comfortable through the three weeks of the Giro, and will continue to do so for the rest of the season. The complete XTR group The XTR middle ring The new XTR crank Standard rings at last The XTR front derailleur New XTR bearing adjustment Shimano reveals final pieces of new XTR puzzle By John Stevenson and James Huang Component manufacturer Shimano has officially announced details of the crank and front derailleur for its new XTR mountain bike group. Some details of the new parts leaked earlier this year, but the announcement reveals new information including a change in the attachment of the left hand crank to the axle. The cranks has several significant new features. To save weight, the pinch bolts that held the left hand crank in place in the previous Hollowtech II design are gone. According to Shimano's Devin Walton the change is intended to "create a lighter interface without all of the extra metal that was designed just to handle the stresses of the opposing pinch bolts, let alone the pedaling forces." However, one advantage of the old design was that it allowed bearing pre-load to be set by lightly tightening the preload nut in the end of the crank, in a similar manner to the way the bearing in a threadless headset is adjusted. The new design separates crank attachment and bearing preload. "Once the crank arm is fixed to the spindle with the end bolt, the adjustable lockring behind the arm adjusts out the play and actually provides for more precise bearing adjustment than the threadless headset-like set up," Devin told Cyclingnews when we asked for clarification of the new design. According to Biketesting.com, a third-party test lab, eliminating the pinch bolt setup should also increase the rigidity of the non-drive crankarm relative to Shimano's existing setup. With weight shed from the crank/axle interface, Shimano has also looked to lose grams elsewhere in the new crank, which is claimed to weigh 776g , compared with 797g for the previous design. The most significant weight-shedder elsewhere in the design is the carbon fiber and titanium middle chainring. A composite carrier supports titanium chainring teeth in a design that should have two advantages over the current all-aluminium ring: lower weight and improved durability. Middle-ring durability is a big issue for mountain bikers, especially in wet areas where the conditions tend to grind away the most-used chainring. Shimano claims that the titanium middle-ring teeth and a new nickel plating on the inside of the outer ring will provide "a conservative 100% increase in durability over prior generation XTR chainrings." A welcome change is that the chainring bolt pattern of the new crank is the same as that of Shimano's XT and LX cranks. The previous generation used a unique 146/102/64mm set of pitch circle diameters. The new one is the same 104/104/64mm pattern as cheaper Shimano cranks and almost all other four-bolt designs. The new cranks will be available in lengths of 165, 167.5, 170, 172.5, 175, 177.5 and 180mm and in chainring combinations of 44/32/22T and 44/32/24T. Three new front derailleurs complement the new cranks. The FD-M970 is a top-swing front derailleur with a multi clamp band to fit any size seat tube. Claimed weight is 125 grams. If your suspension pivots are in the way of mounting a front derailleur, or you just don't have a seat tube, the FD-M970-E is bottom bracket mounting 'E-type' top-swing front derailleur at 142 grams. Finally, the FD-M971 is a down-swing front derailleur with a multi clamp band. Weight is 148 grams. Of particular note to shop mechanics and do-it-yourselfers, though, is that the new front derailleurs incorporate angled limit screws which should greatly enhance their accessibility, particularly on full-suspension bikes. The new XTR group is scheduled to be available October 1. More information: newxtr.shimano.com The new Mirage cranks Pointy teeth A computer's eye view The bearings . The Hirth coupling The right-hand bearing cup Is it a bird, is it a plane... The left-hand bearing cup Inside Campagnolo's Ultra-Torque crank Campagnolo has released more details of its new Ultra-Torque crank design, which uses two semi-axles on the crank arms connected with a toothed 'Hirth joint' (better known as a 'Hirth coupling' for those who want to Google away…) in the middle. Like many other recent crank designs, the new assembly uses outboard bearings, but Campagnolo says its approach avoids problems such as increased Q-factor (the distance between pedal faces) that have arisen with other designs. Campagnolo will introduce the new design through almost its entire range in 2007, from the Mirage group up. The company says cranks that use the new design will be 100g lighter than their 2006 equivalents. According to Campagnolo, the Hirth coupling is self-aligning and self-centering and just requires a single bolt to hold it together. Campagnolo says the design gives "a markedly superior result in terms of torsional and lateral rigidity compared with the previous and already excellent Campagnolo system." One feature of the Ultra-Torque design that will have pro mechanics breathing a sigh of relief is that Campagnolo says it will require no additional tools. "The cups are screwed in using tools available on the market and only a normal 10 mm socket wrench is needed to tighten the cranks," the company said in a release announcing the new cranks. More information: www.campagnolo.com