In this issue of What We Have Noticed we look at the Dimond beam bike, the TomTom GPS watch, the Parlee ESX aero road bike, a Club Ride jersey, and the Bike Spike video.
Dimond bike launched
What: TJ Tollakson hired David Morse to help him to develop his vision of the Dimond beam bike and it now looks like the bike is ready for prime time. In a press release the Dimond crew announced “Wind tunnel testing conducted yesterday revealed the Dimond to have between 4%-28% less aerodynamic drag than two other industry leading triathlon bikes at all sampling intervals between 0°-15° of yaw.” We however were not made aware which triathlon bikes were referenced, nor was there any data to back it up. Pre-orders are taken currently and that could allow you to be on a fairly unique ride come Spring 2014. Word has it that the TJ Tollakson famed cockpit setup is optional.
Available: February 2014
MSRP: $5950
Website: dimondbikes.com
TomTom GPS watch
What: TomTom recently announced that they are going to battle Garmin and a variety of other brands on the sports watch front when they launched the Runner and Multi-Sport watches. For $199.99 you get a reasonably slim Multi-Sport GPS watch that has a 5ATM waterproof rating and has a visually attractive design and the Running version starts at $169.99. The watch module detaches from the armband and a variety of bands are offered. A fairly solid entry into this market and it is good for Polar, Garmin, Timex and Suunto to have competition.
MSRP: $199.99 (Multi-Sport)
Website: tomtom.com
Parlee ESX road bike
What: Parlee launched a new aero road bike a few days ago and this new model is called ESX. We actually learned about this new bike while perusing the Bicycle Retailer site, making us think that the slowtwitch audience was not deemed worthy of an update. Be it as it may, the new ESX looks quite distinctive and Parlee calls this patent-pending tube shape Recurve. According to Parlee, “Recurve has superior aerodynamics without the structural tradeoffs inherent in traditional airfoil shapes … achieves an excellent range of performance across yaw angles, which translates to real world watt savings without a harsh ride or heavy, dead feel.” Maybe we can get some actual data to follow up here.
Weight: 950 grams (size ML frame)
MSRP: $5,400 (frame set)
Website: parleecycles.com
Club Ride Queen Bee jersey
What: The Cub Ride Queen Bee jersey for women actually comes in a variety of color offerings and is actually not typical for this lifestyle cycling clothing brand. Most of the items Club Ride offers you could actually wear in a coffee shop or even on a flight and very few folks would be the wiser. Club Ride’s mantra is that cycling apparel can be both technical and stylish. So go check out their other offerings.
MSRP: $59.99
Website: clubrideapparel.com
Bike Spike
What: We are not quite sure how well the Bike Spike works but we did like the promotion spot for it. Well, it is actually the narrator who captured our attention. But please, do not go out now and steal a bike hoping you’ll get a big red balloon for drag training efforts.
Available: n/a
MSRP: n/a
Website: bikespike.com
