From the pits at Crankworx in Whistler

Crankworx went off, but away from the excitement on the hill, in the apartments, and in the bars, there was lots to see in the pits and the expo. Aussie snapper Matt Staggs had his camera on hand to catch some fresh gear and popular bikes and product while cruising through Whistler. Here are some of the highlights.

Kona's new carbon Process

One bike that was getting spotted was a new carbon Kona Process. Many people had heard that an updated Process was in the pipeline, and this photo shows it's certainly looking highly refined.

The linkage and shock orientation is new, the downtube is bigger and you can fit a bottle in the main frame. No doubt there is a lot more going on, and we look forward to hearing more when the design is finalised!

Trek display their rider's rigs

Brandon Semenuk's Trek from his winning run at Redbull Rampage was there, with his plate still on and the "Ride or Die" motif on the top tube.

Cam McCaul's long-travel Remedy Slopestlye bike was also on display.

This bike is custom, based on Cam's slopestyle bike but married to a Remedy frame. So it has 26" wheels, and the downtube sits higher on the head tube for fork crown clearance. With external cabling it means McCaul can do bar spins. The back end is also shorter to make it more nimble.

This is Brett Rheeder's Trek Ticket S, which he used in the Redbull Joy Ride last year. His first run held up for the whole comp. 

The new Devinci Spartan

The Spartan is longer and slacker (as who is making enduro bikes shorter and steeper?) and the frame is lighter, having dropped 310 grams.

There is 165mm of travel, but the shocks are now metric Trunnion mounted RockShox units.

Up front forks now run 170mm of travel, up from 160. The seat tube is also lower to allow longer drop posts.

The frame is also coil shock friendly, and the Boost spacing rear swingarm gives a short 430mm chainstay length.

Check out the first ride impressions from Bike Australia.

Win Bryn Atkinson's Norco Range Carbon

This is a cool comp, where you need to get a short edit online and tag it so you can win a replica of Bryn's Norco Range Carbon. Plus you get to ride with the man himself!

The bike has a sweet spec with a mix of Shimano XTR and XT, plus Fox factory suspensions and NoTubes rims.

The competition closes pretty soon, but you'd better check out the full details. 

Marin and Nalid team up

TThe Marin Wolf Ridge is the result of Marin teaming up with Nalid and their R3ACT – 2 Play suspension design. It's meant to give 160mm of travel with insane pedalling efficiency.

The frame is unidirectional carbon, and it's said to have the best combination of climbing and descending efficiency of any bike on the market.

9point8 dropper posts

Everyone wants reliable dropper posts with big drops – and 9point8 have up to 200mm drop available on their Fall Line models. They're also said to be super light at 415g for the 125mm drop model.

They are said to be really user serviceable, and have a range of lever mounts to suit under or over bar options, including iSpec mounts for people running Shimano brakes.

It will be interesting to see if anyone brings these into Australia.

Specialized's new 2FO

With the new 2FO 2.0 and 1.0 (above), Specialized have increased the appeal of their flat shoe offering.

The 1.0 looks far more like a street shoe than the 2.0, and with a claimed weight of 315g per shoe, and with their Slip-Knot rubber and a new lug pattern they should hook up well with flats.

We are yet to see a set but it's fair to say they look the goods – it will be interesting to see how they go on the trail.

Custom graphics for the Coastal Crew 

These bikes look awesome close up. The Specialized Demo above belongs to Curits Robinson.

The finishes on the frames are rad, but the favourite has to be Dylan Dunkerton's bike with screen grabs from their videos.

Don't miss their latest video either.