Everything... under the sun.

Bike shots from day 2 of dirt demo

Words by Ed Snyder. Photos by Ed Snyder.

Just another day at the office... if your office is a large chunk of the Nevada desert, packed with people, brimming with bikes and of course, as always, smoking hot. The temperature climbed a tad higher than yesterday and the number of people attending the demo seemed to nearly double. Bikes that could be snagged easily yesterday had long waiting lines today.

Just another day at the oven, err.. I mean "office".

Cam, Fergs and Pete set out to grab quality steeds to spin down the canyon trails while I decided to save my still-healing legs for the show. That means I got photos and tons of them. So many in fact that I'll be splitting up the heaping helpings in to two courses; bikes and everything else. So get ready to chow down. In honor of it being an "on dirt demo" I decided a whole bucket of dirty bikes is the first course on the menu. Bon appetite.

Cannondale posted a smorgasbord of bikes, but only the new Moto Carbon was on our most-wanted list.

The Moto Carbon 1 is the top trim level of the Moto line. It offers up 160mm or travel in a bright green package that instantly reminds me of a certain motocross manufacturer's favorite hue.

At the heart of the new bike is Cannondale's "Hatchet Drive" linkage. It allows for a floating shock position and supposedly allows the rear shock to overcome stiction more quickly.

The carbon headtube on the Moto is just flat burly. While not as poetic as the lines of say a Nomad, the curves on the Moto are a departure for Cannondale engineers, used to working in the bold straight lines offered up by oversized aluminum tubing.

Mountain Cycle is back after an ownership change and a move from Portland to Southern California. This black Fury is their 5" travel all-mountain offering.

The Fury was sporting these carbon Stylo cranks.

This is a look at the rear shock mount for the Fury. The RockShox Ario features a remote lockout activated from a dedicated lever on the bars.

Mountain Cycle's DH offering is still dubbed the Shockwave. For this year they altered the linkage and it generates 8"of travel rather than the 9" of last year's model.

If you would rather have the longer travel configuration of last year's bike (9") adapter kits are available.

This Yeti ASR 7 was a hard bike to catch a glimpse of under the tent. Yeti only brought one of each size and they were never at rest for very long. The asymmetric carbon swingarm is a visual show stopper and the new SLX group was a perfect aesthetic match for its smooth black lines.

The ASR 7 uses a beefed up version of the Yeti 575 linkage to achieve 7" of rear wheel travel at a frame weight of just over 7 pounds (for the medium size). It is aimed at the rider who wants to climb up and challenge the trail on the way down even more than the venerable 575 will allow.

The dropouts at the back of the ASR 7 are "dropouts" in name only. They house a custom 12mm thru-axle rear axle configuration as well this very slick internal cable routing.

The ASR 7 also features the increasingly popular tapered headtube design; 1.125" on top and 1.5" on the bottom... as well as some very handsome and hearty-looking hydroformed tubing.

Avantix made a big splash at the show last year with this mesh-framed hardtail. This year they had them to ride in the desert.

The wire frame mesh tubes are held together by carbon joints, like this one at the bottom bracket. The bike had a lot of people talking and the company is releasing their first ever road frame at the show today.

It is not an overly clean looking machine but it is tough to deny the leap in technology. A solid list of press outlets has covered this machine from Popular Science right on through one that the company founders heard about yesterday; that bedrock of bicycling news, Hustler magazine.

Commencal had a whole slew of bikes for riders to run through their paces this year, including this Meta 6.2. This version is their 160mm travel frame, complete with quick adjust seatpost with a remote on the bars.

The Meta series linkage actually arrived on scene before the Cannondale Hatchet Link shown at the top of this post. The two look quite similar, but do drive the shock compression in opposite directions.

The Meta is also avaialable in this shorter travel 5.5.1 version (140mm of rear travel). Apparently bright green is the new black.

The Supreme is also 160mm travel bike but spec'ed with a burlier list of parts for the gravity crowd... hey, that's us.

The Supreme DH is true sled with a full 203mm of travel. The paint fade on the front of the frame is pretty swanky.

The bike in the Commencal line that I didn't grab an image of is the 180mm travel Furious. It was a popular ride and did not stay parked for long. I'll try to get one from inside the convention center over the next few days.

Here is one you probably haven't seen. This unique suspension arrangement is called the Pronghorn and brought to you by a company out of Denmark. It is their first year of U.S. distribution and the frame comes in either a 4 or 6 inch travel version. There is also a carbon frame available.

Shimano had this fleet of custom painted test sleds for the new SLX group. A cookie to the first reader who identifies the frame maker. A small cookie; it's not that hard.

Pink is ubiquitous in women's gear. Pretty safe bet that is you see pink, the product is aimed at the gals; like this 4" offering from Pivot Cycles.

Rotwild reinforcing that variations of the color green area must on the cycling runway this fall.

Here is a closer look the rear link on the Rotwild, complete with carbon stays. Remember when carbon used to be rare and awe-inspiring in mountain biking? It is everywhere this year.

So that is a wrap from Bootleg Canyon. I have tons more shots of everything that got dusty that wasn't a bike and will post those when I get the chance. Today it is off to the relatively comfortable confines of the convention center for the bright lights and big news cycles... right after some breakfast.

Got a good recommendation for grub in Vegas? A new energy food you can't live without hearing about? Send it.