Thursday, April 23, 2009

Delta 7 Isotruss Bike

The Delta 7 Sports people were out at Sea Otter in force.  Demo'ing thier Isotruss frame bike, racing it, and generally getting attention.   They even put it in one of the press packet brochures, advertising a complete bike price of over $9000.  You can read more about the technology here:
That's a trophy for a MTB race.  I'm sure it's a competetive bike.  How much more competetive than any other carbon hardtail?  Probably not much after the bike collects a few pounds of earth:

Convenient for cable routing though.  You may be able to see a cable housing through the mud lattice in the above picture.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

As I look at those pictures, it doesn't look like it collected any more dirt than a regular frame would have in an early season race.

-p said...

Tyler, I'm still a skeptic. That was a really dry course, mostly dry sand. I rode in the MTB tour on the same trails and also race in that area in the CCCX cross and XC series and my frame tubes never collect anything, even in the wet winter (since sand doesn't stick much). But let's be honest, this frame is so expensive that it's really just a toy for very wealthy individuals and practicality isn't its selling point. Novelty is.

Carroll's said...

Tyler, this is Travis and I'd say for sure the Isotruss bike will collect more dirt simply because there is more surface area than traditional tube frames. The real question is whether the price per pound is worth it.

-p said...

Travis, you've hit the nail on the head. General rule of thumb - $/gram, otherwise you're not getting value. The difference between, say, this frame and a Scott Scale (roughly the same price built up)
Delta 7 - 1247 grams
Scott Scale - 980 grams

Looks like not a good value. References:
http://delta7sports.com/Arantix.html
http://scottusa.com/us_en/product/1664/11719/scale_ltd

Still, it's not about value, it's about having the neatest gizmo.