The whole 35mm bar thing has been a bit slow to take off, but now it seems the number of offerings is growing and these Race Face SixC bars are the latest ones that we’ve seen. To be honest we are yet to be sold on the idea thanks to some overly harsh feeling 35mm bars that we’ve ridden, but Race Face assure us that they too were concerned about that and so have spent a lot of time getting these ones dialled. You’ll notice that these taper down quite quickly, and that’s what Race face say ensures that they aren’t too stiff. What’s the point in 35mm? Well the increase in bar clamp size enables the bars to be stronger and lighter, simple as that. These come in at 800mm wide and you get a choice of 10, 20 or 35mm rise. Weight is 210g.

Talking of light and strong, these Next SL cranks were nothing short of insanely light (540g w/o BB to be precise), they were so light that they almost didn’t feel real. Despite the crazy low weight Race Face reckon these will happily take a bit of a beating and would therefore be perfect on an enduro race bike.

There were a lot of pedals on show at Core but out of all of them it’s probably these new Atlas ones that we most want to get our feet planted on. The thin platform is a great size and shape, plus it looks as if Race Face have managed to keep the inboard bearing bulge much smaller than many of the competitors. The pins screw in the way we like too, from the back, and the sharp protruding sections are thinner than the thread so they snap off rather than rip out and trash the pedal. Some of the pins are also angled so that they dig in even further if your foot tries to move. We can’t remember seeing this on any other pedals before, and it seems to make sense to us. It’ll be very interesting to see how these perform, but at £139.99 they don’t come cheap.

Perhaps the biggest news from Race Face was that they are now making wheels, and mighty fine looking wheels they are too. These Turbine wheels will be available in 27.5″ and 29″ sizes and are aimed at xc/trail/enduro riding. As you’d expect from anything bearing the Race Face name both the rims and hubs looked first class in terms of finish, and if their performance also matches what we have come to expect from the company then these could give the competition a serious run for their money, especially as the £429.99 price is pretty competitive. Weight wise they come in at 1800g for the 27.5″ wheels.

Finally but by no means least on the Race Face stand was this new 35mm length stem, which fits the 35mm diameter bars mentioned earlier. There was a time when 50mm stems were considered super short but thankfully those times have changed and now many of us are looking for something even shorter like this one. We just wish they’d also add a 35mm length option to the 31.8mm bar clamp version.