The K.I.S. of Death, or Life?
New tech for MTB with some big promises.
I recently stumbled upon a video about the Keep It Stable tech that Canyon designed for its Spectral trail bike that is slated for release in summer 2023.
The tech is meant to bring the handlebars back to the center, or straight, position — arguing the “centering force filters out unwanted inputs from the trail or the rider.”
My first impressions are that it sounds plausible. It sounds like it would work to give a smoother ride. And I tend to believe riders who say the technology boosts confidence on the bike.
I’ve seen some people say this could be a “major paradigm shift in the future” of cycling. Canyon also claims the tech — which is essentially a coil spring attached to an elastic band that wraps around the headset — is maintenance free because it’s located inside the frame. (In the head tube and top tube.)
Canyon also says K.I.S. will have a “similar impact on mountain biking as the dropper post and hydraulic disk brakes.”
These are all pretty big claims.
I’ll be honest, my knee jerk reaction to all of this is to be cynical. I want to be able to be the guy who says “Ha! Yeah right” and then have a really good explanation as to why that is. And then if it fails, I’d be the guy who could say, “told ya.”
But let’s think about the dropper post for a minute. The dropper post has its roots in 1984, when Joe Breeze and Josh Angell came up with Hite-Rite. “Descend with conviction.”
The spring fastened to the frame and seatpost made it easy for riders to adjust the saddle height during a ride.
Breeze said he sold a quarter-million of the contraptions before 1990. But then a shift to shorter cross-country race courses meant less time for riders to adjust the seat posts during a race, and sales dried up.
But the idea stuck around.
As the sport progressed, so did technology. And now, dropper posts are found on nearly every new mountain bike available.
Necessity is the mother of invention. The question is, is the K.I.S necessary for a more stable ride?
Maybe.
I’m not smart enough to argue against it at this point. But I’m also not against new ideas that have the potential to change riding for the better. I’m open minded, I guess.
What do you think, fellow cycopaths? Is the K.I.S. the next newfangled gizmo that is going to revolutionize the sport of MTB?
I use a tiller-centering device on my sailboat that operates on the same dynamics. It is handy to let go of the tiller, walk forward to adjust rigging and untangle telltales, but don’t think I’d be doing that on a bike. The K.I.S would likely dampen the h-bar twitching in multiple switchback downhills but I hadn’t noticed that being an irritant so far on any of my bikes.