Sea Otter: Canadian brands highlight California show

Canada was an early pioneer in several stages of mountian bike design and development, from the early days of racing to the birth of freeride and, now, a new wave of innovation. Numerous northern brands flocked south to Sea Otter to show off new and innovative products. These range from high-end suspension to carbon chainrings, custom clothes and some very shiny hubs. Here’s the best CanCon we found in California

Vorsprung Telum arrives

Whistler suspension gurus Vorsprung know more about suspension tuning than most of use ever will. When the small brand decided to skip the middle man and, instead of making an upgrade kit, just design its own shock, it turned into an epic three-year-long process. The result, it’s Telum coil shock, is now available for preorder. Each Telum is cutom tuned to order, on top of all the expected features like lock-out, hydraulic bottom out and high speed and low speed compression and rebound adjustments. Every order considers rider weight, what bike they’re riding and what performance they want out of the shock.

Vorsprung’s made the Telum so all of this can be retuned without completely disassembling the shock (like you’d have to on RockShox or F0x) so if you want to change or you get a new bike, the Telum is ready. Re-tuning isn’t quite DIY but Vorsprung wants to make that barrier as low as possible, so any shop that does its very short training session can re-tune the Telum for you. Very cool stuff for suspension nerds. And the shock is, except for a few small parts like the shaft, machined entirely in Whistler by Vorsprung. Also very cool.

Aenomaly Switchgrade

Born in North Vancouver, Aenomaly Constructs just wants to relieve some parts under pressure. Specifically, that uncomfortable pressure on sensitive parts while climbing steep grades. The little Switchgrade lever hiding under the seat? It allows you to change your saddle angle to three pre-set positions. Neutral, angled down for more comfort (and power) while climbing, and tilted up for descending. There’s a new two-position version in the works, too, if you’re only interested in the climbing part.

Race Face Era carbon fibre(-ish) chainrings

Era carbon cranks came with a metal scuff guard. Now Race Face takes the mixed-materials concept to a new part

That chainring? A mix of carbon, steel and aluminum

A hard outer ring of teeth should be durable for a long life

While the carbon keeps things light and the aluminum core provides a solid mounting point…