James Penfold from Exposure USA showed us the exciting new lights in their line up. The Diablo is about the same size as the  old Joysick light. It has a bigger head to accomodate the Seoul P7 LED emitter and the rear of the light is flared out as well to balance it out. It is ultralight at  and is not much heavier than the 97 gram joystick. Yet, it almost 3x as bright at 700 lumens claimed output (Joystick was 240 lumens). The beam pattern has a wide and clear halo and  a powerful spot in the middle for throw (visiblity at longer distances). This light can be mounted on the bar or helmet using the same mounting hardware as the Joystick.

There will be three light levels and the highest level of 700 lumens will only deliver 1 hour of run time. But a piggyback battery can be hooked on to double the run time. 700 lumens is about the same brightness as their old Exposure Maxx light with three LEDs.

MSRP for the Diablo is $250.  The Toro is a similar light but with a larger casing to accomodate a bigger battery. Light levels will be the same but the run time will be at least double the Diablo’s.

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Here’s a few of the women’s specific bikes that I ran across at Interbike.

Giant cycles offers the Cypher W. How exciting to see a women’s specific bike with 5 inches of travel in the front and the rear. Frame is aluminum and features their Maestro suspension. I was able to ride one during the dirt demo and found that it climbed nicely and smoothed the few rocky sections well. It comes in xs, s, and medium (small was ridden for review). Retails about $2000, more information and specs here. I think this would be a great all-mountain bike for women wanting to step up to something with more travel.

The Aeryn is a women’s specific multisport bike for the aspiring racer or dedicated tri-athlete. It features a composite and aluminum frame. Retails about $2100, more info here.

Felt cycles has expanded their women’s specific design offerings. Felt offers not only appropriate geometry but also has a version of their FW2 road bike available for tiny riders with a 43cm height with 650c wheel size. This frame is aluminum with carbon fiber wishbone seat stays and internal brake cable routing.

Orbea follows up their years of women specific road bikes with mountain bikes for the ladies. Below is the ‘Della, which retails for about $1899.

Below is the Orbea Diva, which is the women’s specific version of the Orca which debuted last year. Designed by Miriam Bengoetxea and built in thePyrenees in northern Spain, these bikes are gorgeous enough to make it into this year’s coverage as well. Orbea evidently has their own university and design center for the technology of carbon and carbon fiber, and the Diva has a different type of carbon fiber compared with the men’s Orca. Talk about women’s specific! There is also a tiny version with 650c tires for the petite racers.

Jamis had their Dakota Comp women’s specific mountain bike on display. This features the triple-butted, Kinesis Superlight frame with carbon-fiber monostay. Wish I had gotten the chance to demo this one. MSRP $1325 and more info here.

Detail of the carbon monostay.

For 2008 Jamis reveals their Xenith Comp in a WSD design. Two different types of carbon fibers for incrased stiffness and resiliance.

This list is not exhaustive, but the fact that I was exhausted trying to get to all the WSD bikes out is revealing in and of itself. Certainly more and more manufacturers are understanding that women represent a growing portion of the recreational bike market and many women are best fit by a specially designed bike. Can’t wait to see what’s out there next year!

Here comes a list of hotties from a different perspective. Other than being cute most of these people also rock in regards to their riding, their talents as designers, or just being cool in general. Rawr!

DeJay Birtch, sponsored by Niner Bikes. Happens to be singlespeed 24 hour world champion as well and a wee bit of a character.

Ty from Felt Bikes. Designer of their WSD bikes.

Luna Chicks are the hottest! From left to right are Katerina Nash, Chole Forsman, Shonny Vanlandingham, Marla Streb, Georgia Gould, and Alison Dunlap.

Matt from Seven. Designer extraordinaire.

Cute Mike from Stan’s shows off their new tubeless road rim.

Joe from Deuter displays one of the women’s specific hydration packs.

Troy Jacobsen with yours truly. Troy is the creator of the indoor spinning series Spinervals, which is a godsend for those of us with busy schedules who try and stay in shape on limited time.

He’s good looking enough to be a movie star, but luckily for the biking world Paul from Race Face is the designer for their upcoming carbon crank set.

Brian is the owner of Opsal sport, where his extremely cool artwork can be found on t-shirts and riding jerseys.

Amber Zirnhelt is a downhill racer with Team Loeka in British Columbia.

Jeff Jones, elite frame designer with one of his famous bikes. This is one of the models that will be built in collaboration with Merlin to increase affordability and availability of these amazing bikes.

Mike from Fox, and is a fox as well.

Thanks everyone!

Zoic’s women’s clothing this year was unbelievably fun and stylish. Quite a few outfits would be versatile enough to take you from the ride to the café without changing. The newest style influence this year is from the urban messenger scene. and their new line has a townie-esque feeling but you can still ride hard in them as well. Eco friendly materials too as they use a combination of natural fibers such as bamboo in most of their material which is amazingly soft. One of the best collections of show the show, I kept coming back to peek at all their goodies.

That red piece inside the zippered jersey is an Ipod pocket, which most of Zoic’s jerseys and jackets now have as a standard feature. The skort plaid material is also available in knickers.

The argyle theme on the back of this jersey ties together many of the items this year.

Skorts offer side slits for maneuverability as well as a fun look.

Great design and collection from Zoic.

Short sleeve and sleeveless jerseys continue to multiply in anticipation of Spring in 2008. Here’s a few we ran across.

Here’s some fun tops from Shebeest this year. This is the Single Scoop Tank with a whimsical green leaf frog and features a racer back and two roomy back pockets.

This Dragonfly top is the Sprint Zip Tri Top and has side stow pockets. This pattern is also available on socks and a sports bra as well.

Primal Wear gets stealthy with this cool Panther design.

The Exte Ondo with a streamlined and beautiful new jersey. Their talent for designing stunning lycra based gear continues. I like the men’s version too.

Terry offers a short sleeve jersey with a mesh back for warm weather riding. The sleeveless tank on the right is their Singletrack tank in the Filigree pattern and has a 9″ front zipper, mesh panel and a single rear pocket.

Champion systems showed off this totally cool jersey

Biker chicks are back again this year!

I took some of the big wheeled bikes out for a spin at the dirt demo. First of all this year, there was a LOT more selection of 29 inch bikes for shorter riders, so someone out there is listening! So with no further ado, here’s 3 of them…

Spot Steel Hardtail SS 29er with new carbon belt drive

I liked this bike and I liked the belt drive as well. No slap, no skips and performed well for me even up the steep sections of the demo course. I could not appreciate any problems with friction. It is so quiet! The bike felt great and handled well, and looks beautiful. The cockpit was a tiny bit big for me on the 15.5 version, which was their smallest at the demo, but would fit anyone 5′4″ or taller well.

edit: Spot informs me that they also make a 15 inch frame. Yee haw!

Felt Nine Comp

This 29inch bike by Felt was great and fit well. Rode nicely, decent standover, and was one of my favorites. 15 inch frame size.

Salsa Mamasita

Nice job Salsa! This carbon fiber goodie was so smooth on the bumpy trail I actually looked back to make sure there wasn’t rear suspension on it! The standover on this bike is excellent and the climbing was fabulous. This was a 16″ frame but it felt smaller to me.

HX1	HX2

F5	XCL

EVO	EVO linkage

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