Sea Otter 2023: Canadian manufacturing and Swedish speed

Sea Otter is back at Laguna Seca speedway in California and that means more new bike parts, in more fancy anodized colours, and all kinds of shiny custom paint schemes as brands try stand out among the sea of booths.

This year, there’s new Canadian manufacturing (and Canadians manufacturing for others), Swedish speed of various kinds, colourful derailleur parts and a more subtle new take on tire inserts.

Here’s our first look at the new tech from Sea Otter 2023

Project 321

All the colours

A very elegant take on hub adaptors

And, of course, colour options

G Lock hubs work with both disc mount standards, so your hubs can move with you from bike to bike.

Project 321 started as a project in a garage in Bend, Oregon as a way to make a better hub. The idea worked well enough that it grew and the founder, Jake Liles went looking for support. The hubs are now manufactured in Mississauga, Ont. by the new owners, though the Liles is still heavily involved. With the added input of North Arc’s engineers, 321’s come up with a very interesting take on a brake adapter to make the hubs work with centerlock or six-bolt rotors.

Öhlins

Öhlins is a high-end Swedish suspension brand that is more commonly seen in Europe and in motorized sports, from F1 to moto and most things in between. Basically, if it goes fast, Öhlins is into it. They also carry Löic Bruni and Finn Iles to podiums in World Cup downhill. The Swedish brand is bringing a bit of that bling to consumers, with a new limited run of yellow forks that borrow tech from the factory racing program. There will only be a couple hundred available, though. The brand makes its forks and tech consistent, though, so you can retrofit your existing forks with any new internals later on, if Öhlins makes this a wider offering.

Husqvarna takes on eMTB

More Swedish speed was on display in the Husqvarna booth. The brand started in bicycles over one hundred years ago. They’re back to strapping motors on bikes with the new Hard Cross. The alloy frame 170mm/180mm bike may be smaller than the brand’s motos, but it is a lot of bike. It also has several interesting features, like “passive battery cooling” vents that start in the head badge and run into the frame. More space around the engine itself adds more cooling for long climbs. If you haven’t seen Husqvarna in a local shop yet, look for them to be a bigger presence in the coming months.

CeramicSpeed’s colourful cages

CeramicSpeed is mostly known as…