Making the rounds on a few forums and found on a Japanese website are some pretty darn shiny bike parts labeled Dura-Ace. The hilarious Google translation is an exercise in futility other than the obvious, that it’s 11-speed. Shimano’s official statement is that these are prototype parts and that some new road stuff will be announced June 1…that’s about all we can say on it.

But we can talk about other things…like how all of DT Swiss’ road wheels (and, we found out today, some mountain bike wheels, which bolsters the rumors from Open founders Vroomen and Kessler) will be 11-speed for 2013. Just for fun, I asked Mavic if they were changing anything to accommodate potential 11-speed groups and our contact said he couldn’t speak to that directly but that their freehub bodies are already slightly longer than most, which is why you always need that easily lost spacer ring behind Shimano and SRAM cassettes on their wheels. That, and they might be introducing some new wheels in June, too. Times, they is a changin’.

Form your own conclusions…