GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Suntour’s Swing Shock is a swing-arm suspension fork that is clean-looking enough to put on a fixed-gear bike, however fancy it might be. The fork comes in two parts. The alloy top section is joined to the lower, magnesium forks by a pivot that juts out behind the fork, just under the down-tube. A piston and coil-spring sit vertically between these two parts and give 30mm, or just over an inch of travel to soak up cobblestones, curbs and small potholes.

The straight fork has an ingeniously simple design that doesn’t look out of place on an otherwise stripped down bike. The one you see here has mounts for a disk-brake, but you can also opt for V-brake/cantilever bosses.

Normally I’m not a fan of suspension, except where it’s needed: on mountain bikes. I prefer the mechanical simplicity of slightly fatter tires at lower pressure, and a sprung saddle because there’s less to go wrong. This Suntour fork, though, looks simple enough and pretty enough to consider.

The forks are up on the Suntour site right now, but pricing and dealer availability details are not.

Suntour Swing Shock [Suntour via Bicycle Design]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Is it me, or are bike racks and baskets getting hotter and hotter? The latest example is the made-to-order Bent Basket by San Francisco designer Faris Elmasu. The plywood, nylon and aluminum construction sits over the front wheel where you can gaze upon its lovely curves as you ride.

In practical terms, the Bent Basket looks to be top-notch. You may not be able to toss in small items and ride away, but the open design with those stretchy straps is more versatile than either a tall basket or a narrow rack. Strapping a MacBook Pro straight onto it when it is mounted on a bike with skinny hard tires and no suspension may not be the best idea, though, despite the picture showing this dubious practice on the product site.

The maximum load is listed as a “12-pack of beer” and it is designed for the wheel-size of a 700c road bike, which pretty much means carrying Pabst Blue Ribbon on a fixed-gear bike. If you have a more utilitarian bicycle, there are less fancy-looking cargo-platforms available, for undoubtedly less cash.

Talking of price, you’ll need to get in touch with Elmasu to work something out, as each “basket” is hand-built. So beautifully simple is the design, though, that a quick trip to your local kitchenware emporium (for the tray) followed by a stop at the hardware store (everything else) should equip you to make your own, something I’m now planning to do. If you do make one, post images to the Gadget Lab Flickr Group, or just mail them in.

Bent Basket product page [Bent Basket via Design Boom]

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews