The London cycle show is on for four days this week. I went down today (yesterday being the press/trade day) to avoid the weekend crowds, but in what bodes well for the UK cycling industry it was a busy day with lots of the general public attending. Now it’s not quite Interbike being at the wrong end of the show circuit all the hot new stuff has been announced already, but getting the chance to see the 2010 bling in the flesh yourself is worth enduring Earls court for (bad ventilation, lack of seating and lousy catering).
Now for my highlights and fuzzy photo’s.
Viva are nice bikes from Denmark, I particularly liked the Duro, but they don’t come cheap.
Ragley bike frames looked really good in the flesh unlike my photo’s, cracking frames for the price, no pork scratching give aways was most disappointing.The Nukeproof stuff Brant has been designing looks good to if not as inovative as he MTB frames.
The street fixies were prominent on a number of big brands stands (all though Specialized only had two restrained Langsters, they seem to have moved on too the next trend with Globe – see further down). In jumping on this band wagon certain manufacturers have gone a bit too cheap with there generic alloy frames both Felt and Pinarello dishing up cheap chunky with disapointing details.
Felt’s Curbside’s chunky chainstays.
Pinarello’s hipster cash in looked like something from my high school welding class.
Doning it right were Colnago whose retro street track frame looked stunning, although it had the price tag to match.
Cooper bikes had a nice range of bikes for an auto-maker, it should be less of a surprise considering BMW turned out some good Mountain bikes. Reviewing the pictures I took the Cooper frames look a lot like Charge frames, are they being built in the same plant or do they share a designer?
Brompton were there with their own workshop putting on a great show, but I was particularly dazzled by the Moultons on anearby stand now in 953.
I was disappointed on the Specialized stand, it all did seem more of the same from them. Then I wandered over to the Globe stand and that was impressive. They seem to have a good design team who have captured the modern utility market needs well. Giant, Trek and Kona may be doing similar work but they were notable in their absence.
The Live 1
Cute, slide your own pic in
The Roll, built for hipsters, but well detailed.
The Haul
Wiggle had a big stand with a lot of Focus bikes. They seemed good value online and getting good review’s and having now seen the quality in the flesh I’d be happy to add them to my shopping list. I was particularly taken by this HT
