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Cycle Show 2007
14th October 2007 - James
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The Cycle Show has become the only real show worth going to, after the abysmal NEC Bike Show earlier in the year but it is certainly worth attending, and hopefully the mountain bike industry will sit up and take a bit more notice. Considering we are based in the Midlands, it was actually cheaper for us to visit a show in Earls Court, London, rather than our local NEC.. the mind boggles?
The Cycle Show is just that, cycling, so there are a lot of companies here for roadies and commuter bikes but theres still a decent show of mountain bike brands and thats what we'll focus on here, without any further ado..
Overview of the show, click right here for a bigger version
The first stand to catch our eye was that of Cube Bikes, a german company who have been manufacturing bikes for over 15 years, but have only just come into the mainstream UK attention, with over 60 different bikes on their stand it was by far the biggest we saw and the pricing on the complete bikes will be hard to beat for the competition, definitely one to look out for in 2008.
Cube Bikes stand
One of the bikes of more interest to us was the Fritzz, a long travel 'trail' bike equipped with Fox 36's and a Fox Float RP23 out the back its a trail bike thats up for some nonsense, and with Formula The One stoppers with 8" rotors its clear this bike is meant to go downhill fast. We'll be testing one in the next couple of months and will report back to see how it handled our abuse.
Cube Bikes Fritzz
Another big stand was that of Riding High UK, showing off the latest wares from Bergamont, Spank and Canfield. Bergamont had a gearbox bike on show, using the Suntour system.
Bergamont gearbox bike
Canfield have a couple of frames in the UK now, one being the Lucky, a mid travel slopestyle type bike.
Spank have a new Royale collection, 'all that glitters is gold', the gold coloured bar in the middle is part of this, as well as the Lounge Bar on top, and the Bitch Stick below..
Hope had a decent stand at the show, with all the usual selection of brakes, hubs etc but with a few gems here and there for the eagle eyed to spot. The first (hard to miss) was this carbon fibre and machined aluminium bike designed for one of their young sprogs to use in 24" setup, this is lucky because the machined seat tower is the biggest chunk of metal they can fit into their CNC machine!
Hope machined bike
As usual Hope are constantly innovative and coming up with new things, most of the time they dont take off, but this is how gearboxes came about and are still here now. For the girls, how about flower patterned discs?
Flower Power
And for the lads, phwoar check out the level of detail in these dropouts, the bike bolts together as there isnt enough space in their £340,000 CNC machines..
Check out the detail of these dropouts
And finally from Hope, a replacement system for the BB shells of Shimano and RaceFace external BB cranks, no news on when this will be available but it should come with some interesting bearing options.
Yeti Cycles had a stand right in the middle, please release the DJ in this colour?!
You too could be Jared Graves on this rig
Specialized had a big stall, only a couple of interesting things, firstly the colours on the SX Trail, nice detail work here, no big differences on the actual bike.
Specialized SX Trail
And only one Demo imported next year, interesting white and blue colour scheme, draw your own conclusions?
wethepeople had an awesome stand at the show, plain white just showing the bikes, very fresh and no marketing crap.
Ever noticed how the names of Charge Bikes are all household items? Duster, stove, iron.. well they built a kitchen to house all their bikes at the show. It should probably carry a health warning though..
Clean clothes out of the dryer and a bike in the sink
The new RockShox Vivid, no reviews on these yet but rave reviews from the pro's, all to be taken with a pinch of salt but the real test is 08.
I had to take a picture of this, a old camper! Possibly 3rd coolest stand at the show just for that. All to promote 69'er, basically a bike with a 29inch front wheel, and 26 rear, apparently its the future.. sounds a bit penny farthing to me..
Marzocchi had a booth showcasing all the new fork lineup for 08, the casting of the lowers looks amazing this year, as well as an update of the RC damping system and new graphics, again this is a love or hate look for most?
One of the most interesting stands at the show was Empire Bikes, the bike is fully cast out of aluminium alloy (the makeup of which is strictly secret) and shares the design with MX bikes. The idea behind the geometry is that the rider sits more central over the bike, rather than extreme leaning forwards or back, and it is also reliable. The bearing system which attaches the swingarm to the front end is extremely simple, and the needle bearings should last much longer than usual bearings.
The bike will also have custom sticker sets, this is a oneoff for Marzochi
Last but not least the new Intense M6, a much more shapely design with a few tweaks to the geometry, and officially the fastest land speed recorded on a bike was an M6?
Intense, the Ferrari of mountain bikes?
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