Cryptically posted on the Catrike forums under the topic "Watch One Day of Spring at Catrike" was a link to a video giving a tour of the Catrike facilities and hosted by Big Cat HPV owner Paulo Camasmie.

The tour also covers the new chain tensioner and some new Catrike frame bags.

Be sure you're comfy. The video is 34 minutes long.

If you run Schwalbe Ultremo R tires on your bikes, you might want to keep an eye out for mysterious bulging.

WARNING: Schwalbe ULTREMO R tyres that exhibit bulging should be removed from use immediately. Free of charge replacements will be supplied.Regrettably some ULTREMO R racing cycle tyres have been supplied into the market that may suffer failure during use due to a mistake in the manufacturing process, as the effected tyres’ carcass layer have not been sufficiently rubberised. In the few tyres concerned, after only a short time in use, the fault becomes clearly visible shown by a bulge due to the carcass layers becoming disconnected.

More information on this issue can be found at the Schwalbe site.

You probably haven't noticed, but the forums are now disabled here at RBR.info.  The version of those forums was far too old and kept falling apart every time we expanded site functionality, so it was time for them to go.  Besides, they weren't seeing much use.

We'll try to get something rudimentary in place for folks who want to coordinate Rally activities, but I doubt we'll be returning to full forums.

If you want to share your opinion about anything you read here in the blog, register for an account and log in to see the comment form at the bottom of the individual blog entry pages.

Love your Catrike but hate sharing it because everybody needs a different boom length? Catrike is answering your frustrations with the release of a chain tensioner this June.  It was initially revealed at this year's Catrike rally, but information and a photo was recently posted to the Catrike forums.  Here's the word from Catrike:

Yes, we have designed a new chain tensioner as Devious and others have seen at our last Rally. It works great and will retrofit on all Catrikes 2005 and newer (2005 and 2006 may need new boom clamp) and is being manufactured by TerraCycle for Catrike. It will be anoodized and have our Catrike logo lazer etched on it.

It will be great for multi-rider Catrikes [...] and especially useful for test rides at our dealers. It will be available in June.

Just a side note - don't ever call TerraCycle and try to order trikes.  Sometimes having two companies named "Terra" in speed dial is a bad thing.

TerraTrike tried something new today. They did a live streaming reveal of their new Zoomer SL trike, which they claimed to be the lightest trike on the market at 28-29 pounds (without pedals).

The trike has:

• an all aluminum frame
• horizontal handlebars
• the usual adjustable TerraTrike seat
• a carbon FSA SLK Light crankset
• SRAM Force front derailleur
• Velocity wheels with Aeroheat rims
• Schwalbe Durano tires
• SRAM XO shifters and rear derailleur
• KMC X9 chain
• 26" rear wheel and 20" fronts
• 30" wide
• 250 lb weight limit

When asked how it compared to a Catrike Red, the answer was that the the Zoomer SL is a "different animal". At that point, it was mentioned that a Catrike Red as spec'd would likely be $5000, which then led to the Zoomer SL price reveal of $3499.

The trike is available for order now.