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Madison IceBike 2019 Highlights

Each year leading cycling distributor Madison, holds it’s IceBike event to showcase new products to it’s retail partners and the press.

I attended again this week and this blog post is a photo heavy round up of the things that caught my eye

I started at the Lazer helmets stand and was shown this special edition to help celebrate Lazer’s centenary. It features graphics that note many of the most famous cycling victories by riders wearing Lazer helmets….

The details are hard to show in the photos sadly but it certainly looked cool in person

The helmet I was keen to see was the new Lazer Bullet 2.0, launched at the Tour Down Under early this year. I liked the yellow version particularly…

The blue was also quite striking….

As was the red….

Interestingly the Bullet 2.0 features a built in light and I was told by the nice man from Lazer that you can’t sell a high end helmet in 2019 without built in lights!

Fans of the Z1, which I spent almost all of the second half of 2018 riding in will be pleased to know that it remains in the range for this year and has had a price adjustment (down)….

Another interesting new Lazer helmet is the Century …. to help celebrate that 100 year anniversary. It’s a cheaper, simpler version of the Bullet with a clever swappable vent for airflow into the front of the helmet. Like the Bullet and the Z1 it’s also available with or without the MIPS protection system

Also to help celebrate the 100 year mark were some Flanders special editions….

These are a nicely designed (mostly black) Z1 with the Flanders aeroshell. They looked really good but you’ll need to be a big Flanders fan to try and track one down.

I thought the new Lazer Bullet 2.0 in particularly looked terrific. The Century was also a great looking product. Top work by Lazer.

It was the first time I’d seen the new Continental GP5000 in clincher and tubeless. It doesn’t need me to say – this is a hugely important tyre to replace the highly regarded and extremely commercially successful GP4000. Continental couldn’t afford to get this one wrong and according to early reviews, it looks like the future is safe for Continental 🙂 I’ll look forward to trying some this year.

This was the first time I’d spotted the second generation of the Elite Drivo smart trainer too. Considered to be one of the best high end options, it’s now in a more real world friendly black finis than the original white/cream

I’ve covered Connor Swift’s stunning new custom painted Genesis Zero Disc SL in a separate post, so I’ll just share the one photo here….

I did also snap a shot of another one of my favourites from Genesis – the updated for 2019 Datum (now with 12mm through axles front and rear) and available in a complete bike only with SRAM Rival 1x!

There was loads for me to check out on the Shimano stand as they expand their clothing, shoes and ebike ranges. Firstly shoes, like these XC7’s that I have my eye on for next cyclo-cross season….

A nice sole ready for studs for muddy races…. and grip courtesy of Michelin!

There was a special edition blue colour with a limited run of the top of the range RC901 race shoes…

I think I’d prefer these much louder blue ones personally ….

If the top end is too pricey, then these new RC701 mid range race shoes look a terrific option…. they’re also available in white but the black ones were easier to take photos of in the light in the hall

Shimano’s ranges of clothing is expanding fast too like the shoe lines…

You can see here a cross section of road shoes and some of the mid range clothing. The jacket on the bottom right has some interesting tricks up it’s sleeves (almost literally) … like this extra wind barrier for descending…..

Which has a reflective reverse …. and is colour matched to the new RP9 performance shoes I have received to review….

There are also matching shorts and jerseys too. The navy blue with pink details look great!

Much of the Shimano clothing has relatively muted colours but they’re not holding back on the tech … or the pricing as the range topping S-Phyre clothing shows …..

Let’s take a closer look at that jacket…..

Yep, £200! Mike who does PR for Madison and who is an ex cycling journalist spoke very highly of these jackets and said that with the matching winter base layer it’s extremely warm and breathable. The fabric did feel very cosy to the touch on the inside of the jacket.

The S-Phyre bib shorts were also very spendy at £200 as well….

This range is Shimano’s best of the best, so hopefully the product lives up to the price. It’s largely plain black, so if you want colours you’ll need to look else where…..

Like to Pearl Izumi for example….

I spent a lot of the second half of 2019 riding in a £150 pair of Pearl Izumi bib shorts and they were very, very impressive – my unexpected surprise of the year. A luxurious lycra and a terrific pad made these the shorts, I kept picking time after time to ride in. They’ve washed and worn very well too and still look nearly as good as new.

Pearl Izumi had a lot of really good looking clothing for the season ahead and look to be going from strength to strength. They’re also sweating the details on the clothing too …. like with these gripper strips that are lazer cut…

Pearl, like Shimano have put a lot of effort into their womens clothing for 2019 too… pleasingly it’s far from all pink

They’re also going after the shoe market too and these lace ups with a carbon heavy sole will retail for £120 which is very good….

On my way to the Pro stand, I also spotted this cool cargo bike…. your two wheeled bike service centre. Who needs a van?

On the Pro stand the new lightweight carbon aero handlebars impressed … weighing 205gms a pair and Mike told me the bars he’d weighed had been less than that…. Nice

Probably not as aero as some top end Zipp’s but probably lighter. Speaking of light, the Pro Vibe Superlight is billed as being 180gms for the weight weenies…. and looked nicely finished

Now that I do cyclo-cross (after a fashion) I notice more off-road products. I hadn’t realised that Pro had been doing my favourite Turnix saddle in an off-road version (and have been for several years apparently) but I do now…. Who knows, I might need one soon 🙂

There are usually interesting wheels at DT Swiss and this year was no exception. From the eye-wateringly expensive PRC 1100 Mon Chasserol at £3k a pair…..

… to the more affordable aero ARC 1400 at just over half that (£1675 a pair)….

Finally I can never resist a ride on an ebike – particularly e-city bikes as they are a welcome addition to my cycle campaigning discussions, so I took the chance to try out the new 5000 Shimano Steps motor which is both a more affordable and a strikingly quiet motor system…. Of course it rode very well too…

I also tried the more sophisticated and compact 6100 series – you can see the main differences at the cranks where this level has a different bottom bracket treatment (and is narrower)…..

Also on the 6100 series bike was the new e-bike specific version of the Shimano Nexus hub, which loses a couple of gears (down from 7/8 to 5) but gains a lot more strength to cope with people using the motors and riding off from standstill in their highest gear (something you definitely wouldn’t try on a non electric Nexus hub gear – I know as I have a 7 speed Nexus hub city bike in my garage)….

All in all, Madison IceBike was a top day out for me and I hope you found this post interesting.

Thanks for reading!