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IceBike 2008
29th February 2008 - Jim
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It seems this time of year most of the UK bike industry travel down (or up) to the Milton Keynes/Northampton area, with CoreBike last month, and now IceBike. IceBike is Madisons yearly trade show, now in it's second year and back with more products, more companies and plenty more to look at.
Madison is the distributor responsible for brands like Thor, Ogio, Commencal, Shimano and DT Swiss among many more. These are all represented at the show, and even though nearly all of the new bits and pieces will have been seen late last year at Interbike and Eurobike there are still a few bits and pieces I spotted while browsing around.
Ogio make awesome bags. And they have a bag for pretty much anything, have a look at this trick little helmet bag number. If you're looking for a big holdall have a look at the 9800, perfect for the airport, then when your flight is delayed you can open it up and sleep inside it! Its MASSIVE!
Thule have a powerful presence with bike racks, however they've fallen behind a little with transporting downhill bikes, however this rack will fit on the towball of your car and transports two bikes. There's another version which transports three but I was unsure whether it'd take three full on downhill bikes. The clamp you can see just above the shock piggyback holds the bike on and there's two wheelstraps, one for each wheel.
If you're looking for a hydration pack for those summer days, one company you might consider is Hydrapak, they do a decent range; most of all being this, the biggest pack they produce. It has the usual bungee cords for a full face lid, as well as straps to thread through the chin guard for an extra safeguard. It's a pretty feature packed bag, and apparently you can run the water bladder over with a car! You can also turn the bladder inside out to wash it, as well as disconnect the water tube to clean it through.
And finally, the Athertons turned up with their freshly painted bikes, the 08 bikes have a curved downtube as well as a few geometry tweaks to lower the centre of gravity to aid the cornering.
The COG is aided by a new design for the shock shroud which is built into the bottom bracket assembly which is now 83mm wide. The bike does seem to squat slightly, and the head angle is extremely slack but these bikes have not been ridden in their current setup yet, and the component setup will probably be tweaked for production and team bikes.
I've always liked the Animal Commencal attention to detail, and this year is no less. Who could this bike belong to I wonder?
Have a glance over at Ultimate Pursuits if you want a bit more info on any of the bits and pieces shown.
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