Why 1 x 9?

The simple answer is because it works.

Choose an appropriate front chainring and cassette and you can get where you want, when you want, on a simpler machine, without an inordinate amount of pain and suffering. For off-road use, we believe a 32-tooth chainring with an 11-34 range cassette gets the job done extremely well. On the pavement, start with a 40-tooth chainring and a slightly tighter range cassette.

Simplifying your drivetrain takes a bit of weight off the bike, but more importantly removes some of the complexity of an 18- or 27-speed drivetrain. Maintenance is lessened and possibility of malfunction is reduced greatly. Most importantly, you’ll find that you can ride just about everything you’ve been riding previously despite the lower number of gears. You’ll find yourself shifting less while you ride more. Your riding style will adapt quickly and your left thumb and forefinger will get a well-deserved rest!

What about singlespeeding you say? It removes even more weight, reduces maintenance and malfunction further, and is even simpler.

True. Most of us at Salsa spend some of our riding time on singlespeeds. They’re simple, quiet, and on our local trails they can be a real hoot. But singlespeeds aren’t always realistic for all people or all terrain, and can turn riding to the trailhead into a slow speed pilgrimage of sorts.

Try going 1 x 9 to see if it works for you. It just might just be the perfect compromise.

El Mariachi: Benefits of an Eccentric Bottom Bracket (EBB)

The use of the EBB makes the El Mariachi a very versatile frame. Run it with gears or as a singlespeed. As a geared bike the EBB keeps the easy-to-use vertical dropouts that allow for quick wheel changes like any standard gears-only frame.

As a singlespeed the EBB also means you can use lighter hubs with quick-releases without worry of pulling your wheel forward. Additionally, the EBB keeps the correct chain tension when changing a flat. It also means your bike maintains a consistent wheelbase regardless of gear ratio choice.

The EBB also allows for precise brake alignment. Pull your wheel into the slot and the brake is perfectly placed. Offering the El Mariachi with horizontal dropouts would have necessitated a moveable disc brake mount to keep the caliper aligned properly.

Best of all, our lightweight 144 gram Bushnell EBB is simple to adjust. Loosen the wedge bolt, rotate the bottom bracket until you have adequate chain tension, and tighten the wedge bolt down. To maintain, remove your crankset and loosen the EBB wedge bolt. Slide the unit out and clean it thoroughly, then lightly grease it. Slide it back in. Tighten the wedge bolt and re-install your crank arms and you’re good to go.

El Santo: Tried & True Suspension Design

You won’t catch us claiming to have invented any suspension designs. We will gladly acknowledge making a wise choice for the El Santo, however.

The El Santo uses a tried and true, four-point walking beam type suspension that is essentially a modified single pivot design. It’s a design that doesn’t have a clever acronym or fancy marketing spiel surrounding it. Sort of an underdog of the rear suspension world you might say. We use the design because it is effective, pedals well, and lets us build a very compact frame for shorter folks.

The rear wheel pivots from just behind and above the bottom bracket. This pivot point puts slight, but effective, torque on the chain to counteract bobbing caused by the pedal stroke. Our pivot location was chosen to provide the best pedaling efficiency for each chainring position.

The seatstays are linked to the dropouts by cartridge bearing pivots for smooth actuation, lateral rigidity, and long life. Locating the bearings on the seatstays eliminates additional stress that chainstay mounted pivots incur. The seatstays are linked to the shock mount via a forged, then CNC-machined rocker arm.

Platform damping and other recent improvements in shock technology make the El Santo an even better pedaling bike. Be sure to take the time to dial in your rear suspension setup. We recommend carrying a shock pump with you for your first few rides s that you can experiment and adjust while on the trail. Keep a pen and a scrap of paper handy to record your settings as you go, so you can reference them later.

Designing The Chili Con Crosso

All our Chili Con Crosso design work centered on making a dedicated cyclocross racing machine. The design, tubeset and frame geometry have been optimized for fit, comfort, and high-level performance on the ‘cross course.

Even with such a narrow, precise product idea, there are always decisions to be made. With the Chili, much of our discussion centered on whether to use carbon or scandium stays. In the end we decided that we wanted the lightest frame we could make, while doing as much as possible to make it comfortable. After all, true competitive cyclocross racing is about an hour of suffering. So, we decided to skip the carbon stay, keeping the weight down, and instead shaped our scandium stays to make the rear end as comfortable as possible, without sacrificing performance.

Lots of other things went into making this the best ‘cross racing frame we can make. We’ve given the top tube a flattened shape, and kept the front triangle open, for shouldering the bike. This flat spot also makes an excellent handhold while running barriers.

We kept our chainstays short, while still being sure to allow plenty of mud clearance. The bottom bracket height provides nimble, not nervous handling. 130mm rear end spacing was chosen so folks could run dedicated, hi-zoot cyclocross wheel sets.

We even debated taking off the water bottle mount braze-ons to save a few grams, but realized that would be doing a disservice to folks that wanted a bottle or two on their for training rides, commuting, or just plain riding. Heck, you can always take out the water bottle bolts and put a piece of tape over them, eh?

Thinking Scandium, Thinking Carbon

During the past five years, Salsa has increased its use of both scandium and carbon fiber. Both materials bring unique properties and opportunities to frame and component design. When and where to use which material is dictated by the intended function, product design, and cost. Both materials allow for complex shapes and tunable ride qualities.

Consider our Chili Con Crosso cyclocross frame. Since it is intended for competitive cyclocross racing, we wanted to keep its weight down. But we also wanted to keep the frameset from becoming too abusive and unforgiving. The solution to the problem was to use scandium for the entire frame, but to design special chainstays and seatstays to build an efficient amount of vertical compliance into the rear triangle. Using carbon fiber for this would’ve raised the final weight and cost of the bike.

We took that same chainstay design and applied it to our updated Campeón. The Campeón is also a performance-oriented frameset. Because it is intended for road racing and riding however, it is likely to be ridden for much longer stretches of time compared to a ‘cross racing bike. Adding our new scandium chainstay design encourages road shock transmission to the vibration damping carbon seatstays above. This continues to keep the frame weight respectable while increasing the comfort of the ride, but with no sacrifice to performance.

All of our frames and components take these important material choices into account in their design. It is the necessary convergence of form and function Salsa uses to create great bicycle frames and components.

Designing The Casseroll Frameset

In designing the Casseroll frameset and rear dropout, the goal was to create a road bike that performed well in many different ways, while combining classic and modern design features. We wanted a bike that would be comfortable all day long, could carry commuting essentials on a rack, fit fenders for rainy days, and have the option of running a singlespeed drivetrain if wanted.

To make the bike better for all around use, we chose to use a tall headtube (for ride position comfort), long stays and fork (for added tire and fender clearance), and moderate seat and headtube angles (for a more relaxed ride). The key geometry difference between the Casseroll and most other road bikes is its low bottom bracket height. This increases stability and predictability when cornering. A lower bottom bracket also improves handling when riding with a load.

Inspired by road dropouts of old, we designed stainless steel, semi-horizontal dropouts to add versatility to the frame, allowing for easy conversion to a singlespeed set up. The axle slots are a full inch long to accommodate lots of gearing combinations without the need to change your chain length.

The semi-sloping toptube of the Casseroll decreases standover height, allowing more folks to achieve ideal bike fit. The straight blade fork looks (and rides) great, and uses different rakes for small and large frames for ideal handling and fit.

Designing The Carbon Poco Bars

My goal was to keep the same basic features of the very popular Poco bar, but update them into a carbon version. The short reach, narrow width, and shallow drop have made the Poco a favorite bar of many riders. As a material, carbon has the potential for comfortable and ergonomic shapes. I wanted a flat top, but not too wide or deep, to allow for smaller hands to reach around the bar comfortably and to make taping the bars easier. The flat top was offset up from center to provide a higher riding position and leave a smooth surface across the handlebar top when taped.

While the basic measurements of the drop stayed the same, the bar received a makeover to facilitate some of the current setups I saw people using. With the current Shimano STI levers, and also with Campy, I noticed riders rotating their bars up to give a more comfortable position on the hoods. To remedy this, I adjusted the drop angle on the bar to bring the hoods upright naturally.

Another change to improve riding comfort was to extend the drops. The longer drops fit hands better and are closer to the rider’s body, making a tucked position easier for shorter riders.

Finally to give smaller-handed riders a better handle on braking, the sloping anatomic section was made a bit steeper to bring hands closer to the brake levers.

The Carbon Poco bars were updated with comfortable, no-compromise riding in mind. The result is a lighter bar that is comfortable and designed with improved functionality and performance.