At the recent Cycle Show, I spent a day and a half wandering around, talking to people, taking photos and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. The show had over 300 exhibitors and whilst I didn’t manage to see everything there were quite a few things that stood out and I thought I’d share my list of favourites with you for interest:
- Canyon Endurace SLX
I was quite smitten with this bike from the day it was launched and this was my first chance to see one in person. It looks to be almost a perfect bike for me on paper – slightly more forgiving geometry, but designed to be quick and fun, disc brakes, through axles, clearances for wider tyres, clean cable routing, comfortable ride (so they say), good specs, light weight (under 7.5kgs complete). Yes it looked great in the flesh, I practically begged Canyon to review one and they didn’t say “no”, so fingers crossed and watch this space. This could be a perfect bike for many riders.
- New Aero wheels from Zipp and Reynolds plus other carbon choices
Regular readers will know that I’m a huge fan of well engineered genuinely aero wheels. I’ve put the Reynolds 58 in my “Hall of Fame” and watched with interest when Zipp recently announced the NSW range of wheels that move their product line to the next level.
It was great to be able to see these wheels in person at the show. Zipp have improved the aero dynamics, braking surface and designed a new Cognition hub – so lots more tech for your money.
Also on display at Upgrade bikes was the newly updated Reynolds Aero range. The new 46 Aero – disc only and the now 65 Aero to replace the 58 – although the deeper wheel is the same weight. As well as new rims the Reynolds have new hubs, which is a switch away from DT Swiss to Industry Nine.
Also at the high end, German brand Lightweight had new disc wheels on display…
There were also cheaper, less advanced carbon wheels on display from ChainReactionCycle’s Prime brand, which looked good value
- New Smart Trainers from Elite and Tacx
Recently I wrote a news story about the new Wahoo Kickr and mentioned that it’s landed in a more crowded market. To prove that there were at least 3 new smart trainers on display at the show. On the Zwift/Elite stand there was the new Elite Drivo.
On the Tacx stand, they had the updated Neo for 2017 (tweaked to fit more bikes and had a big firmware update recently) and the new Flux, which brings smart trainer pricing down to a much more affordable level, while still keeping most of the benefits as the more expensive units.
- FSA’s new Power2Max based PowerBox meter cranks
When I was on the FSA stand, I had the new FSA PowerBox cranks pointed out to me. They’ll come in two variations (alloy or carbon cranks) and the alloy ones in particular look like a bargain. I was told £550 retail but I noticed Road.cc mentioning £630. The Power2Max power meters have a good reputation for simplicity and reliability as you’d expect when the tech expertise for them originally worked for SRM. Of course the catch for crank based power meters is that they’re difficult to move if you have more than one bike. At around £600 a set before discounting, they might end up cheap enough to own more than one? They’re due in shops before Christmas – useful to know if you want to put one on your list!
- Zwift Virtual Reality
I mentioned the Elite Drivo’s in my third topic, but it was fun to see people using them to try Zwift VR on these bikes. There was a large TV screen showing what the person wearing the goggles was wearing and I could help wondering if this might be part of the future for winter training – riding in the sunshine on Zwift, whilst in your cold garage? I’d certainly give it a try
- Campagnolo Disc Brakes
No really, there were 3 bikes that I spotted with Campag’s disc brakes. It was a bit like discovering 3 Unicorns in a wildlife park – something someone told you was true but you weren’t sure whether to believe it.
However, no one I spoke to had any idea when they’d be released for real. These were all prototype unit but sarcasm aside, it was great to see them in person. I do hope they get some product into the market soon (and hydraulic ones at that).
- More disc brake road bikes
Yes of course, there were more disc braked road bikes, including a Pinarello Dogma F8, a Canyon Ultimate CF SLX and a Ridley Noah – all Grand Tour race bikes.
There were also bikes like Genesis’s new Zero Disc and Cannondale’s new Super Six Evo Disc (and relatively new CAAD12 Disc). Almost everywhere you turned there was a disc brake road bike (but caliper brakes are far from dead).
- New cycling GPS and an expanding ecosystem of tech
Garmin not only had their latest Edge 820 on display but also their brand new 4K action camera, the Virb Ultra 30, which also overlays your ride data on your footage (power, speed, Heart rate etc) as well as taking high quality video.
Not only that but Garmin can add it’s Varia radar to show cars coming up behind you as you ride, connected lights that get brighter as you go faster (and vice versa).
The Garmin technology ecosystem seems to get broader with each year and there’s lots for the more techie of us.
As well as Garmin, Lezyne had new GPS computers on display too as they push into this market. It’s Lezyne’s second year in GPS and I’m told they’re a big jump forward in this second year. With LED lights, Lezyne seems to push up the features (lumens) each year and hold the price around the same – perhaps they’re doing the same with GPS? I’ve just got a new Lezyne Enhanced Super GPS to review – so watch this space and I’ll try to find out more.
- New carbon Cyclocross bikes
I recently wrote about the new Genesis Vapour Carbon Cyclocross bike and it was at the show but I also spotted the new Cannondale SuperX,
the new Rose Xeon CDX Cross and a new Ribble CX5.
There may have been others too but it seemed like a rise in carbon Cyclocross options, which isn’t a bad thing
- New high end groupsets!
I spotted Shimano’s new Dura Ace Di2 hydraulic disc groupset on a Cube Litening C:68 SLT Disc – it was the only bike with this groupset at the show (not even the Shimano stand had one!).
In fairness it didn’t have the Dura Ace disc brake calipers but all of the rest of the gruppo was complete.
There were lots and lots of bikes with SRAM’s new eTap groupset – that certainly seemed to have captured the bike industry’s interest.
There was also the hydraulic disc version on display on the SRAM stand and the folks at FSA had their groupset on display.
If you wanted to see expensive new groupsets – it was a good show!
So that’s a top 10. It’s far from exhaustive but I hope it had some interesting things for you.
Thanks for reading!