IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING to shout about when you're the first out of the blocks with the latest innovation. For freeriding the trend for 2005 is the 1.5inch headset design which, aside from the knock-on advantages of larger bearings and a stronger front end, brings double-crown performance to all long-travel single crown fork users

THE DERAILLEUR MAY be a seemingly inescapable part of a bicycle, but it is also a piece of technology created long before many other significent developments in bike design. We look at a modern alternative to the derailleur - the gearbox