Here's a look at Pearl Izumi's new Ti Beam shoes. They're solid silver (titanium?) colored with a mesh upper and two closures, one Velcro, the other a micro-adjust strap. And as the name says, they've got a titanium beam to reinforce the carbon sole.

Sock Guy showed us their latest designs. The 5" men's crew is new for 2006 (last year it was 4"), and so are the Royale socks, in 3.5" to 4" lengths.

Sock Guy rep told us the women's "Slut" 2" sock (not shown) has been a surprise popular seller, so they're continuing to roll out additional, provocative images and wording.

Sock Guy is also selling branded clothing by Hincapie. Originally created for their own corporate use, the pink/gray or green/gray camo design was popular enough that Sock Guy is now selling it to the public.

Getting the right fit bike and accessories has always been important, but it's starting to come out more as a way to making riding more comfortable and to improve performance.

FootFitting.com makes custom footbeds for more efficiency, comfort, and power delivery. With the help of a Certified Foot Fitting Specialist, 3D Digital Laser Scanning Technology, and BioDynamic Pneumatic Pillow, FootFitting.com gets a "natural" anatomically correct 3D image of each foot and then creates the custom footbed.

Sidas offers a less customized solution to foot comfort in their Conform'able Step In + footbeds.

Body Scanning CRM goes for the bike fit solution, kind of like Fit Kit, except with laser aided measurements computed by their software to get people on the right size bikes. It doesn't fine tune mike fit like a Fit Kit fitting would, but it does help shops put buyers onto the right size bike with more precision than simply estimating based on height or leg length.

Faster, Better, Stronger. Now that almost everything is carbon and light, we're getting into ways to better improve the engine, our bodies on the bike.

The most popular measurement tool these days is the CycleOps PowerTap hubs that measure power output.

Tacx makes a high-end ergotrainer, the Cosmos, that features computer programmable training and a full-color handlebar mounted display to see slope, power, heart rate, and more.

Ergomo has a Sport model that's been out a couple of years, but now it brings us its Pro model. We couldn't find our info flyers or anything online, so all we can tell you is it measures power and it's not like CycleOps because it does so through the bottom bracket, not the rear hub, allowing you to keep whatever wheels you've got and use your same cranks.

Racermate is the company behind CompuTrainer. Here, you see their MultiRider setup, allowing for indoor group training and racing.

The Check Mate Finger Unit by SPO Medical was interesting and seems useful, but we don't know why.

The guy showing us the wares admitted he wasn't a physiologist and could say exactly how the Check Mate's measurement of blood oxygen saturation could be used to improve performance. The Check Mate also measures heart rate.

Patrick Walters, Founder of Cambiatta, has a new tool for the time-constrained professional adult. The Cambiatta DAT works with any existing computer and heart rate monitor. The DAT receiver captures data from two sensors and HRM that can then be uploaded to a computer for analysis. Patrick says it keeps riders from having to invest in completely new hardware to get data downloads.

The Cambiatta software helps users collect and analyze the data from the DAT. Currently, Cambiatta's software is only available for Windows, but they expect to release a web-based version in November, opening the Cambiatta world to Macs (our favorite!). A coaching version, one that allows analyses of several riders, is due out by the holidays.

We were impressed by the DAT receiver's small size and waterproofness. The software also seems well thought and helpful.

Giga-Bike is computerized bicycle training log software endorsed by Dave Zabriskie. It goes well beyond logging miles and simple ride stats in a diary. Giga-Bike allows you to input stats, subjective notes, nutrition info, power info, heart rate info, other workout info, and comes with graphs and tools to help you make sense of it all.

Unlike Cambiatta's DAT, you have to enter all the data yourself, but no hardware is required. Some data import is available, for example, inputting data from Polar HRMs or Power Tap or SRAM meters. There's a long list of features for Giga-Bike we won't detail here, but you can read more at their website and get a free 15-day trial of the software.

We are sad to report the Mac community is left hanging by Giga-Bike. There is no current or planned Mac or web-based version, just Win 95/98/2000/XP.

Coolness factor: The Giga-Bike retail CD-ROM comes die-cut like a chainring.

Kurt Kinetic makes a great fluid trainer with a completely leak-proof resistance unit. We spotted a few new changes due out from them in 2006.

Kurt Kinetic will introduce a new quick-mount mechanism for easier mounting and unmounting of bikes from the trainer.

They will also introduce a removable "super" flywheel for even more realistic road feel and coast down. With one simple thumb nut, the "super" flywheel addition can be added or removed for varying types of workouts.

We were also shown a "Rock and Roll" base for trainers (sorry, no photo) that allows a bike to roll from side to side during a workout. It seems odd, but the idea is to mimic a road riding experience. Our opinion is it fills a gap between a solid, one position trainer and rollers.