Sea Otter Day 1 product wrap

Hayes launched the Radar brake, a departure for the brand as it eschews DOT fluid for Hayes’ own proprietary mineral oil, dubbed Venom. It comes with a lifetime leak-proof warranty and features Hayes’ Crosshair alignment technology. At an MSRP of $95 per brake, it’s aimed at competitors such as Shimano Deore 596, Magura MT2 and Avid Elixir 3. Expect to see Radar spec’d on 2015 bikes from brands including Specialized and Cube.

GT resurrects the Sanction name after a two-year absence for its upcoming 165-millimeter enduro racer, inspired by the Fury DH bike and developed in partnership with Atherton Racing. The 27.5-wheeled alloy frame uses the Fury’s ID Gravity suspension design, weighs a touch over 7 pounds and will retail for $1,995. Completes will likely be available at two spec levels in early fall.

Husband-and-wife cyclists Clint Ball and Karen Tremaine—she’s a former pro XC mountain bike racer—came out to Monterey from Steamboat Springs to raise the profile of their startup clothing brand, Cogma. The casual on bike/off bike men’s and women’s apparel uses materials sourced from Europe and China and is made in San Francisco and China—though the couple hopes to eventually bring all its manufacturing onshore. The line includes the Brigitte Riding Dress, which sells for $105.

Razik Bicycles’ booth hummed with activity around its Vortex road bike, which uses the IsoTruss carbon technology found on the Delta 7 a few years back. “People worry about it being delicate,” company president Ryun Noble said of the composite-grid frame. “It’s far from delicate.” To prove his point, Noble tossed a frame tube on the ground and stood on it, bouncing up and down. Coming soon from the Springville, Utah-based manufacturer: an IsoTruss disc road model, a mountain hardtail that adapts for all three wheel sizes via replaceable dropouts and varied fork spec, and a full-suspension off-road rig.

Marin makes over its Rift Zone 29er for 2015, edging away from “marathon XC” and toward a more aggressive, trail-capable manner. It has 110 millimeters of rear travel, a 69.5-degree head angle, short 440-millimeter chainstays (just 5 mil longer than Marin’s comparable 27.5-inch bike) and 13.3-inch bottom bracket height. Instead of using a pivot near the rear axle, the bike’s stays are designed to flex, so the Rift Zone gets custom shocks from Fox and RockShox tuned for extra suppleness at the beginning of their stroke. It will come in three alloy and two carbon versions, ranging from around $2,000 to $6,000 MSRP.

Marin also showed its all-new, multifaceted 2015 Lombard 700c bike—designed as much for the weekend ’cross racer or gravel grinder as the wintertime commuter. The alloy frame has rear rack mounts and is outfitted with a carbon fork, SRAM X7 rear derailleur mated with an 11-36 cassette for a mountain bike gear range, Avid BB7 disc brakes and SRAM Apex shift/brake levers and front derailleur.

Stealthy reflective touches on all sides of the Marin Lombard’s frame deliver visibility from any angle. The complete bike will retail for $1,500.

OK, we fully understand if you’re suffering from fat bike fatigue at this point, but we’d be remiss if we ignored Rocky Mountain’s new 4.7-inch-tired, front-suspension Blizzard “trail-specific” bike. “We want it to feel like a true mountain bike,” said brand manager Brandon Crichton. It’s spec’d as a one-by rig with a custom 24-tooth chainring from Race Face, but has provisions for a front derailleur and double-chainring setup. The new RockShox Bluto delivers 100 millimeters of front travel, and bosses on the front triangle of the aluminum frame are specially designed to accommodate an optional frame bag from Porcelain Rocket that clips in and requires no frame-scuffing straps. Blizzard is due for fall delivery.

Inspired by rock-crawling jeeps and trucks, Rocky Mountain’s Sherpa concept bike was designed to be “the overlander of bicycles”—built to tackle any terrain, said brand manager Brandon Crichton. The frame is tailored off Rocky’s Element 29er—with a carbon front triangle and aluminum rear—but rolls on 27.5-inch wheels with one-off 45-millimeter-wide rims and extra-wide 2.8-inch tires, both provided by WTB. A wire off the bike’s Schmidt dynamo front hub routes up the Fox Float Fit 29er fork leg, through the steerer tube and into a USB port on the steerer to power a GPS, lights or whatever electronics are required for epic adventures. There is no timeline currently to bring the Sherpa to market, but Crichton said the reaction so far at Sea Otter could put the bike on a fast track.