First-Look Sneak-Peak At Some Fresh New Pre-Release 2015 Bike Products

For bicycle enthusiasts, this is an exciting time of year – just over halfway through 2014 but with already several months worth of newly released 2015 bikes and equipment trickling out on to store shelves, infiltrating online shopping carts and perhaps even appearing in your local bicycle vending machine. Early impressions indicate that forthcoming 2015 bikes and components look set to be both more recent and less out-of-date than 2014 models, which have now been rendered almost completely obsolete.


With early release dates continually pushing further and further forward, they should eventually manage to get a full year ahead of the curve. And extrapolating beyond this, it’s not out of the question that we might see early-release 2150 bikes being made available in 2140, marking an unprecedented full decade pre-release that will provide a strong indicator of how cutting-edge and progressive the bicycle industry has become.

If you believe the hype then some of these new product launches are of interplanetary scope, at least according to the Flow Mountain Bike website.

‘Recently, Flow attended Trek’s interplanetary 2015 launch – Trek World – to find out just what this extensive funding and research has led to for their 2015 line-up.’

With recent space missions to Mars and the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet, new bike technology may soon not be restricted to residents of planet Earth, although until manufacturing facilities move in to outer space, lead-times and delivery charges are expected to be prohibitive.

Anyway, in keeping with this theme of exclusive first-looks and pre-release 2015 bike bits, The Private Cyclist is proud to present this cheeky sneak-peek at a few particularly attention-grabbing pieces of cycling technology set for release in 2015 – a year that is literally in the future (depending on when you are reading this, of course).

Specialized S-Works Shiv Transition Module

Although there’s no official word yet, a few leaked photographs surfaced recently on the Bicycle Market Facebook group of a new hybrid version of the popular Shiv and recently superseded Transition time-trial bikes from Specialized.

If these photos are anything to go by, the new flagship S-Works Shiv Transition frame module appears to combine some of the best elements of both bikes.

As shown above, the new bike foregoes the internal bladder hydration system introduced on 2012 Shiv models in favour of an alloy bidon cage mounted with kitchen twine to the seat-tube. Although a second bidon cage could theoretically be fixed to the down-tube, it looks like Specialized are more focused on making this a practical machine, designating this precious real estate for a large hand pump that should save valuable time fixing flat tyres during a race against the clock.

As any good time-trialist knows, waiting patiently for your spouse to pick you up after a flat tyre does not help win races. Thankfully, this could now become a thing of the past and the inclusion of the hefty hand pump should turn lost hours in to mere minutes – or perhaps tens of minutes depending on your proficiency at gluing tubulars under time pressure.

Losing valuable hours waiting around for your spouse in a race against the clock could thankfully become a thing of the past with the new S-Works Shiv Transition frame.

Aerodynamic frame fairings at all major tube junctions will enable this bike to cheat the wind, while the bar top shifters mean you won’t need to move your hands from the aero climbing position when looking for a gear change.

Standard spoke wheels keep the weight down, while a rear-wheel perforated semi-disc pie-plate should help improve aerodynamics out back.

Although the comments section on these leaked photographs indicates that some readers are a little sceptical of this bike’s authenticity, the hallmark Specialized™ in-house cranks and non-standard brake callipers indicate that this bike is almost certainly the real deal.

'27" steel rims for ultimate vertical compliance... and lateral compliance... pretty much any kind of compliance.' 

'Would you take 3.5k cash?' 

'Do you have the purchase receipt so I know it's not a fake?' 

'Do you have a weight of the bike as I can't seem to find this specific model on the specialized web site. I am looking for something under 25kg.'

At this point there’s no firm release date, but you can rest assured that when this does finally hit the shelves it will provide a great option for anybody interested in a sub-25kg hybrid road/time-trial bike.

Walmart Flips the Script

The only thing more incredible than this quality Schwinn bike build from Walmart are some of the great comments from readers on the Imgur page where it first surfaced.

‘umm.... isn't the fork able to turn 180? Just turn it around when you take it off the rack.’ 

‘Please take a moment to think before typing. Then think again.’

This innovative new take on the contemporary road bike by US discount chain Walmart sees the traditional drop-style handlebars mounted in a very unique way. A configuration like this provides a range of previously impossible hand positions, most of which completely prohibit the rider from using the brakes. Thankfully, the bar-top-mounted shifters mean that you’ll easily be able shift up in to the big ring for those white-knuckle descents where tempering your speed hinges completely on being able to contort your body in to a position that permits access to the brake levers.

Being a discount chain store, Walmart tends to cop a bit of flack for the budget quality of their bicycle range, but in fairness their website does offer several models in the US$1000+ price bracket – although all of these are equipped with electric motors…and their most expensive unpowered model is a unicycle for $869.98.

Jyrobike

The Jyrobike was crowd funded on Kickstarter like many other great products including one of the Sexy Cycling Accessories profiled in a previous article.

It is billed as the fastest way to learn to ride a bike and the inventors make some impressive claims:

‘Teach your kids how to ride a bike in a [sic] one afternoon. The only bicycle that automatically keeps the rider upright & stable, even when they tip or wobble.’

With a kids range already available, Jyrobike’s adult models are set for release in 2015. This incredible technology has the potential to help prevent some of the crashes frequently seen in professional road cycling.

Farcical scenes like those witnessed at this year’s Tour de France (where many top contenders were taken out by crashes) could be prevented with the Jyrobike.

It will be interesting to see which professional teams are the first to embrace this technology. Up until folding in 2013, the Basque-based Euskaltel-Euskadi team probably could have benefitted from it – based on their reputation anyway.

‘They just fall off. There’s no reason why. You’ll just be riding along and there they’ll be like a bleeding carrot in the middle of the road lying in pain.’ – Matt Lloyd, 2010

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If this sneak-peek is anything to go by, next year's cycling range looks set to break new ground with an unprecedented array of fresh new products that make time seem like some sort of abstract non-spatial continuum. The future is now, the present is ancient history and nothing short of actual time-travel could provide a more authentic glimpse of where bicycle technology is headed.

Offload all those obsolete 2014 relics now and make sure you don’t miss out before it’s too late!