More Fun Stuff From Sea Otter

Smith

It's always lively at the Smith booth, with lots of smiles and people kicking off their footwear to feel grass on bare feet. Even more lively this year as they're celebrating 60 years since Dr. Bob Smith first started tinkering with goggle designs. There was ice cream, there were stickers. It was a party.

Their new releases for the season came out last month, but Smith continues on with a solid line of popular helmets and eyewear. Among those are the Wild Rye x Smith collection, which came about due to Wild Rye's founder (and former Smith employee), Cassie Abel, and Smith's shared roots in Ketchum, Idaho. Karin Grubb has reviewed Wild Rye stuff in the past, and I'm sure she'll be keen to get on some of this stuff soon.

We also had a look at the new Hardline Carbon Downhill Helmet, which looks great, and also comes in a more affordable Composite version. Tester on the way for that.

Lastly, when you can be on trend and throw some designs back to your early days, it's a match made in mountain town heaven, and Smith has released the Ultralite. Cooper requested some to go along with his recent Forefront 3 review, but they were all sold out! Your shades are in the mail, Cooper ;) Anyway, everyone seemed to respond to the retro styling and colours - mostly in the positive but the most fun sunglasses designs are always a bit polarizing (even if the Ultralites don't currently come in a polarized version).

We gapped on making it to the Wild Rye booth this year, but we'll have more on their latest stuff later this season. In the meantime, go check out the rest of the Smith x Wild Rye Collection.

HUNT Wheels

Well known to riders of all kinds of bikes in the UK, HUNT Wheels are making moves in the US and Europe, with offices in Boulder, CO, and Dresden, Germany. We've got a few things cooking with HUNT for this seaon, including a comeback of our forum testing which will give readers the chance to be testers for a change (no comment on whether the NSMB crew will heckle the shit out of you so you know how it feels).

HUNT were showing their newly announced Enduro V3 29 MTB Wheelset (which are also available in 27.5" and mullet versions); it's a stout alloy wheelset with front and rear-specific rim profiles and oversized ratchet hubs with Enduro ABEC5 bearings and seals designed to work in the UK (which means they should also hold up on the Shore).

Reviews on those - and some yet to be announced wheels - coming later this year.

SR Suntour x Reeb

SR Suntour remains one of the most underrated brands of the mountain bike world. Their OE business mainly hangs on lower-priced bikes that don't make headlines, which leads many to overlook them. What a lot of folks don't know is that they make great suspension products under their own brand as well as for others, including DVO. (Check out Tim Coleman's positive review of the Durolux 38 Evo.)

No new product to report, but Deniz snagged this shot of a really nice SR Suntour-clad Reeb in the booth.

Apogee One

Probably the bike I am most curious about in the market right now. Apogee One has all the correct proportions for my picky eyes. We first laid eyes on this build walking around Sea Otter in 2024. 140/160mm Steel tubed, CNC Aluminum suspension modules contraption had all the right ingredients. Seems like the guys at Apogee found the way to make a batch of these frames over the course of the year and one of them was decked out in Intend and Enve components at the show. The welds seem to be all cleaned up since the prototypes and the paint quality is excellent too. Hoping to get our hands on one for a tester, I just may have to beat Senior Ferrentino to one. That man has some good taste.

Apogee

Cascade Components

Cascade Components started as a suspension problem-solving hobby out of a diving equipment manufacturers machine shop in Everett, Wa few years ago. They shook the bike world with their revised link for the V1 Forbidden Druid and followed it up with links for most of the popular frames out there. They also ventured into designing and machining their own components in minor scale.

The brake adjuster is the pressure booster for TRP DH-R Evo master cylinders to increase the base pressure to provide a more instant, crisper lever feel. They are working on other master cylinder designs where dimensions allow.

Just before the show, they also teased a new design for the Specialized Stumpjumper. This two-stage suspension modifier consists of a shock yoke and link as stage 1 and a whole new chainstay and high pivot conversion for Stage 2.

The Stage 1 Link/Yoke combo boosts the leverage ratio to a significantly more progressive state, upping the 4% progressivity to 25% for more supple initial travel and significantly more, bottom out support.

The Stage 2 High Pivot conversion kit is $2000 US worth of bike jewelry with claims to transform a stock Stumpjumper to a "chunder devouring monster".

According to Cascade Components: with 21mm rear center growth at full bottom out, the meticulously engineered and machined system promises increased speed and stability over the stock suspension. The high anti-squat nature of idlers retains excellent pedalling dynamics, and the high pivot design provides the chops to ride faster on rough trails.

We are hoping to take a trip down to Cascade HQ and perform some back-to-back testing on their inhouse rig.

Cascade Components

Hudski

We checked out Hudski briefly last year but this year they were showing the Dualist, which was both a sweet throwback to do-it-all mountain bikes of old, and a breath of fresh air. The words "mountain bikers' gravel bike" may have been uttered. At some booths, that might have come across as bit rich, but coming out of Brian Szykowny's mouth (he's the 'Ski' in Hudski), it felt pretty genuine. Anyway, Matt C wants a crack at one, and I think we all agreed to make that happen. Much more on the Dualist later (couple of details below) but just look at that limited trim-colour paint!Hudski Bikes

Tailfin

Cooper took some Tailfin frame bags to RePack Hill Last year. This year, he told me to swing by the Tailfin booth to see what they were working on. They had a few new bags in the works for full-suspension bikes. While the one on the Scott Spark frame makes the most universal sense for volume and integration, I would be curious to see if they make a couple of semi-adaptable designs to work with more popular cross country/ trail bikes.

Tailfin

Schwalbe

There was one thing on my mind when I sought out the Schwalbe booth at Sea Otter; radials. I reviewed the Magic Mary radials that came on the Santa Cruz Vala I tested and came away very pleased indeed. In fact, when I rode other tires for awhile and went back to them, I was even more impressed. They roll well and provide good support (at higher than normal pressures) for a rider of my size, and they grip like a mofo. On days when my riding buddies were finding it slicker than an otter's pocket, I didn't notice any grip issues at all. They are quite remarkable.

The ones you see below, the Shredda Gravity, have a burlier casing however so it's hard to know how that will translate, but I'm eager to try them. I've seen eMTB specific radials on the Schwalbe site periodically but right now there is only the Magic Mary Radial and an under-the-radar Albert radial, that is only identified as such in the fine print. I believe some Shreddas are on the way and I'll be mounting them asap.

Outbound

The Outbound line up is pretty much flushed out at this point, with the addition of the Portal, which Deniz reviewed recently so they have been turning their attention elsewhere. eMTBs have more than enough juice to power your ride and your lights, and Outbound thinks it should be done right. Once the battery is gone, the unit can be streamlined and customized to fit the bike in question, without wires travelling very far unexposed. And who better to design these lights than experts?

Topeak E-Booster Digital

Topeak has a nice little lithium-powered rechargeable pump that can handle high volume mountain bike tires in about 90 seconds from flat. I see these being very useful to pack for rides and to bring along for pre-ride prep. You simply enter the pressure you'd like to reach and the unit will stop when it's reached. Topeak says it's accurate within 2psi but I'm hopefully that number is lower for pressures below 50psi, because that's a big swing when you normally run 22 or less. I can't tell you about price or availability but these are on the Topeak site now.

That's a Wrap

We'll be following up and testing some of the interesting gear we saw down at the Laguna Seca raceway so feel free to let us know if there is something you are particularly keen to know more about.