Some great footage of Cam McCaul sessioning the Hood River gap while filming for NWD 9.

Weight is the killer of all things fun on a mountain bike. Like a sumo wrestler chasing a kitten, a heavy bike can’t go, turn, or stop well enough to get the job done. But saving weight can be expensive, and losing weight in some areas can have a profoundly different impact than losing the same amount of weight elsewhere.

Weight savings are also not just for the leg-shaving XC crowd, either. Dropping a few pounds from your all-mountain rig means that your epic rides can last longer before you wear out. Shedding extra baggage from your dirt jumper will help you accelerate better in tight sets, and make your bike easier to throw around once you’re airborne. With that in mind, the following guide lists, in order of effectiveness, some suggestions for the five best places to save weight on your bike, regardless of what type of riding you do.

1. Lose the love handles

No, I’m not calling you fat. But before you go and drop hundreds of dollars to save two pounds off of your bike, realize that losing the same two pounds off your body is free. And what better way to get closer to your fighting weight than by heading out for a few extra rides, or adding an extra few miles onto your regular loop. Not only could you drop a few extra pounds, but at the same time you’ll be building both your riding skills and strength, for an extra boost in your power-to-weight ratio. Trimming some weight from yourself, then, (assuming you have some weight to lose) is the most effective, and the most fun, way to lighten up your ride.

Specialized's Eskar tire is surprisingly light for such a burly tire

2. Tires

The good news is that most bikes can save a few hundred grams from simply switching to a quality, lighter weight set of tires. The even better news is that even high-end tires are pretty cheap, topping out at around $50-60 each (and often less). Some personal favourites include Specialized’s Eskar 2.3″ for trail bikes, and Kenda’s Nevegal 2.1″ or 2.3″ for either XC or AM setups. Swapping to either one of these will typically shed 100-300 grams (per pair) of rotating mass, which will have a profound impact on how your bike accelerates and handles. For the hardcore weight weenies, at an incredible 295 grams the Schwalbe Furious Fred is about as light as mountain bike tires come, but at a cost of significantly reduced cornering grip and puncture resistance. As great as the siren song of sub-300 gram tires might be, these are best saved for race day only.

Mavic's Crossmax ST wheels are light and stiff (but pricey)

3. Wheels

Having just extolled the benefits of reducing rotating weight, it’s no surprise that the next most effective place to shave some weight off of your bike is the wheels. Much like tires, even a small reduction in the weight of your wheels translates into a big change in how heavy your bike feels. There are two downsides, though: first, wheels can get very expensive, very fast, and second, wheels that are built too light for your riding style can fail when pushed too hard.

With that disclaimer in mind, there are some wheels that manage to balance the strength/weight equation brilliantly. For most all-around trail riders, Mavic’s Crossmax ST Disc wheelset is stiff and burly enough for aggressive trails, but still light enough to help you sprint up the next climb ahead of your buddies. Another great alternative for a bit less coin is American Classic’s MTB 26 Disc, which has impressive stiffness for such a light wheelset.

Shimano's XT cassette is light, shifts well, and won't break the bank

4. Cassette

The cassette tends to be one of the most overlooked mountain bike components, and bike manufacturers know it. All too often, bikes with top-end derailleurs and trick carbon goodies will have a cheap, heavy, low-end cassette stuck on as a way to keep costs down. Check yours - chances are that it’s several product levels below the rest of your drivetrain hardware. Higher quality cassettes not only employ more exotic materials and construction methods to save weight, but they also have more aggressive ramping and profiling to improve shifting. Swapping from a Deore-level to an XT-level cassette can easily knock a quarter pound off your drivetrain. Also, consider swapping to a cassette with an 11-32t range, instead of the 11-34t which your bike likely has. If you spend almost no time spinning your easiest cog, an 11-32t cassette will shave a bit of extra weight, but more importantly will reduce the gap between gear ratios, making it easier to fine-tune your cadence (how fast your legs are spinning).

Also, remember that when you change to a new cassette, you will likely need to purchase a new chain as well. While you’re at it, then, consider upgrading to a lighter option. KMC’s K9-SL chain uses hollow rivets to shed a surprising amount of weight over conventional chains, with no reduction in strength.

crankbrothers' Eggbeater SL pedals are light and shed mud like it's not even there

5. Pedals

Many mid-range bikes come equipped with surprisingly porky pedals, such as the ubiquitous Shimano M520. These pedals tend to be not only heavy, but often have a closed design that quickly packs up with dirt and mud.  Upgrading to a lighter alternative, such as crankbrothers’ Eggbeaters, is a great way to drop some weight while improving your confidence in the mud. A word of caution, though: pedals are a great example of diminishing returns in terms of dollars spent per gram saved. Mid-range alternatives such as the Eggbeater SL are light and reasonably priced, but moving upwards into the realm of titanium axles and titanium springs skyrockets the price, with only a tiny reduction in weight. For all but the most die-hard weight weenies, the $120-$150 range seems to be the sweet spot for a good set of pedals.

The Specialized Command Post

Specialized has decided to jump into the quickly growing adjustable seatpost arena with its new Command Post. The Command Post isn’t a radical departure from existing products, particularly the crankbrothers Joplin, but Specialized has managed to improve significantly on the alternatives currently in the market.

The most important of these improvements is the elimination of play in the adjustment mechanism. This ’slop’ has plagued most adjustable seatposts, and the resulting saddle movement has been a real turnoff to many trying the technology for the first time. Reportedly, Specialized has been able to completely do away with this play, so the only movement left in this seatpost happens when you hit the bar-mounted release lever.

The Command Post has a healthy 100mm of adjustment range, with 3 positions to choose within this range. An adjustable air spring enables the seatpost to extend to its longer positions, and a mechanical locking system holds things in place while you ride. Weights are competitive for the segment, with the Command Post checking in a few grams lighter than a Joplin of the same length.

If you haven’t had a chance to try out an adjustable seatpost on your trailbike, you’ll be surprised at how useful it is. The ability to drop the saddle out of the way on the fly as you approach a hairy section allows you to ride more aggressively, without having to dismount and drag your seat back up for every climb. Specialized’s Mike McAndrews, in a recent interview with Bike magazine had the following to say about the Command Post’s usefulness:

When we started this project, I figured I’d drop my post maybe once a ride. But when you actually use one of these, it changes your whole riding style. You don’t just drop the post all the way down for steep descents. In the Cruiser position, which is 35mm lower than the full extension, there is just so much more terrain that you can ride. I’m activating the post all the time and riding things I wouldn’t even have considered trying before.

Specialized is spec’ing the Command Post on its top-end Enduro models for 2009, and the unit is currently available aftermarket (though only in a 30.9mm diameter) for USD $300.

If you, like me, live in a place that gets regularly dumped on by fluffy white stuff in the off-season, there’s a good chance that you don’t get out on your bike as often in the winter as you do in the summer. Part of the reason for this couch-potato-itis is because when the snow gets deep, bikes –even with studded tires– tend to bog down. A new company out of BC thinks they have the answer: Ktrak.

The idea behind Ktrak is pretty simple: turn your bike into a human-powered snowmobile. To that end, Ktrak will take a pile of your cash in exchange for a ski that replaces the front wheel, and a track that replaces the rear. The rear kit slots into your dropouts, and is steadied by a rod running to the seatpost. The rear kit works with both disc and rim brakes, but keeping in mind how well rim brakes work when wet and packed with snow (hint: they don’t), I’d recommend sticking to the disc version. If you’re planning on converting your gravity rig, a 20mm thru-axle adapter will let the front ski play nice with your fork.

You’ll probably have a tough time convincing your local ski hill to let you drag this up the chair, but if you’ve got access to some snowy trails, then the Ktrak looks like a pretty fun way to beat the winter blues.

First, the bad news: Trek has announced that it will not be continuing its Trek-Volkswagen national racing team. The news came following confirmation that VW would not be supporting the team in 2009, and it appears that without funding from VW, the team was no longer a possibility. The Trek-VW team has long been a staple of the North American racing scene, and has been home to many top-level riders, including Alison Sydor, Roland Green, Travis Brown, Chris Eatough, and Jeremiah Bishop. Along with the dissolution of the pro-level team, support for six regional teams will also come to an end.

However, despite the death of the Trek-VW team, 2009 will mark the first year of the bike maker’s new Trek Global Racing team, an ambitious entry into the UCI World Cup racing. The World Cup effort includes both gravity and cross-country riders, and according to VeloNews, is Trek’s biggest mountain bike team yet. If the UCI team is able to foster half the talent that the Trek-VW team has seen in the last 13 years, then it should be a huge success indeed.

Intense has released some fresh shots of the great-looking 2009 Uzzi. The new Uzzi offers a burly 6.5-7.5″ of travel, depending on shock choice. All that long-travel goodness is now being delivered through a revised VPP linkage, which Intense claims will keep the long-legged Uzzi pedaling well. The Uzzi also features a clever dropout, dubbed the G2, which looks like a clever way to adjust the bike’s head angle, bottom bracket height, and of course, wheelbase. There’s no word on pricing yet, but we’d expect a small bump over 2008 prices.

Despite the big shift in suspension philosophy, Turner hallmarks will remain across the new line. Journal bearings (read: bushings) still handle the rotating duties, thanks to the ultra-high tolerances which they can be built with. Also, the combination of round, minimally manipulated tubes of front with square tubing for the seat- and chainstays mean that the ‘09 line is still instantly recognizable as Turner.

Check out renderings of the whole 2009 Turner Bikes line below.

Foes Power Clamp

For years, the Park Tool PRS-3 has been the repair stand/clamp combo of choice for bike shops and serious at-home grease monkeys alike, but Foes is angling to change all that with its new Power Clamp stand. What sets the Power Clamp apart from any stand you’ve used before is the pneumatically driven, self adjusting clamp. The idea is that you simply lift the bike up with both hands, tap the foot pedal, and voila!, your bike is securely clamped in place. Tap the pedal again for a similarly dramatic release. The stand also is available with an optional race base, with a place for a CO2 canister to drive the mechanism in place of the otherwise-necessary compressor.

Sure, this stand seems to be simplifying a process which is not particularly challenging to begin with. And sure, this goal is achieved through adding much complexity to an otherwise simple and reliable part, and will cost you a pretty penny ($995 USD worth of those pennies, to be exact). But despite these drawbacks, the Power Clamp is undeniably the coolest work stand out there, and for that reason alone it deserves a spot in your dream garage.

BB30 Cutaway

If you’ve been involved in the mountain bike scene for very long, you are probably aware that at any given time the industry is rife with technical standards vying for a spot on your next bike. ISCG chainguide tabs, OnePointFive steer tubes, UST rims and tires, post mount brakes, and ISIS bottom brackets are only the tip of the ‘international standard’ iceberg. With this tiresome history of oh-so-dull technical standards in mind, it is easy to dismiss the new BB30 standard as one more acronym for the pile. However, you’d be doing yourself a pretty big disservice in the process, because BB30 is one standard that is starting to show some real potential.

BB30 refers to an oversized bottom bracket shell which replaces a conventional bottom bracket with bearings pressed directly into the frame, spinning a 30mm spindle. This setup allows frame designers to simultaneously achieve two key goals: lower weight and increased stiffness. The lower weight comes from the elimination of the traditional bearing cups, as well as the lighter weight of an aluminum spindle. A weight savings of up to 120g can be had from this change alone. The increase in stiffness is achieved by this oversized spindle, as well as the increased size of the bottom bracket shell.

The concept underpinning BB30 is hardly new. Cannondale has been the driving force behind the technology and first introduced it under the Si moniker in 2000. More recently Specialized has been offering its own BB30 cranks on a few of its S-Works models. But this year’s Sea Otter seems to have marked a real turning point for BB30, and a snowball effect has clearly begun. SRAM and FSA have jumped into the ring, as well as Jamis, Kona, and Titus. FSA alone introduced seven new crank options which use the BB30 standard.

Despite a slow start, then, the future is looking bright for both BB30 and mountain bikers. Lighter weight and more stiffness are always welcome on a new bike, and BB30 offers a simple way to achieve both. Expect to see it offered on plenty of new bikes in the near future.

Truvativ's New Stylo OCT

The Truvativ Stylo is the sort of workhorse product that turns up as OEM-spec on a huge number of bikes, but its middle-of-the-road price, performance, and style have kept the Stylooff of most people’s “must have” lists. No longer happy with this wallflower status, Truvativ has given the Stylo a thorough reworking, and the result is a crankset that you may actually want to buy.

The most significant upgrade to the Stylo is the introduction of Truvativ’s Open Core Technology (OCT). OCT, first introduced to the mountain bike world on the Holzfeller OCT cranks, describes Truvativ’s method of hollowing out the crank arms, which results in less weight and more stiffness. The Sylo OCT uses this technology to shed 80 grams from the outgoing Stylo.

The new Stylo still spins on the same GXP bottom brackets, and for those of you jumping on the ceramic bearing bandwagon, a ceramic GXP option is available. The new Stylo is to be offered in three flavours: the XC and trailbike Stylo OCT 3.3 has three rings and weighs 820 grams, the Stylo OCT 2.2AM loses the big ring and gains a bashguard, while tipping the scales at 805 grams, and the Stylo OCT 1.1G, which is the singlespeeder’s choice with a single 32t ring, and a scant 780 gram weight (including BB). All versions are available in 170 and 175 mm lengths, and the 1.1G gives singlespeeders some extra leverage with a 180 mm option.

The crank pictured above seems to have been done up as a Sea Otter special, and the look of the production Stylo is decidedly less ’80s (for better or for worse). Colour options include either mirror-finished black, or blingin’ “super aluminum.” For more details check out the PDF of the press release here.