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National Bike Show 2007
3rd May 2007 - James
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The Bike Show has been moving about recently, 2004 saw it at the NEC, then it moved to Stoneleigh, an agricultural showground, and now its back at the NEC again.
The new National Bike Show, run by the same organisers as NASS left people with high expectations of a great event, however this wasnt to be.
As soon as you stepped inside the place felt empty, we were in the NEC Arena, the place where they have concerts, etc, surrounded by grandstand seating with a bike show trying to run in the middle.
There were two 'halls', seperated by a central walkway, whether exhibitors pulled out at the last minute or not, there were wide open spaces in one half, huge gaps between stands, and a novelty cuddly toy stand. Why?!
Anyway, the second half of the arena contained a dirt jump (yes, one), a decent trials area and a 4x sprint.
I say 4x sprint, because the course was perfectly straight, with a 6 inch high box in the middle. Three pedal strokes decided the winner, because that was the length of the course! The dirt jump area saw some good tricks taking place, unfortunately Lance McDermott apparently went down hard on the Saturday and wrote himself off for a couple of weeks, best wishes go out to the front flip master.
Enough bitching about the show, there were some decent parts on show. Commencal had a big stand right next to the dirt jump arena, showing off all the latest bikes in their range. Highlights were Cedric Gracia's neon green race bike equipped with other colour matched products, typical Cedric style.
Another bike of interest was their new 'slopestyle' frame, Gee Atherton will be riding it at Crankworx, around 7 inches of travel and very solid, beautiful design with the Yetiesque split top tube so you can see the shock working away, nice linkage plates and will no doubt be daubed in the zebra print for Gee.
There has been a lot of interest in Empire Bikes, they're producing a cast downhill frame, which allows them to design each part of the bike exactly to their specifications. Therefore each bike comes out looking the same, reviews in Dirt have been raving about the bike, keep an eye on these, they're gonna fly off the shelves.
Sunn has been the buzz word for a while now, and with Ride Central distribution they're looking to make a strong comeback. The new Radical looks amazing, will it ride as well?
A company i've never heard of before - NC17 are producing a 25" wheeled dirt/street machine. Why 25 inches i'm not quite sure, but they're also producing a component range of pedals and a seatpost where you can adjust the angle by twiddling a dial as well as the usual stem, bars etc.
As usual Hope Technology were out with their wares, the thing that caught my eye, despite not being particularily freeride was this brake, super lightweight with carbon levers.. very nice!
Santa Cruz showed up with the whole range on show, shining with the show lights was this Jackal, polished is the new black?
Next year will be even more interesting for the show, it hasnt got off to a good start was the general consensus, hopefully next will see major improvements.
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