Core Bike News February 5th, 2009

Apologies for the tardiness of this report, we lost Chipps down the back of a sofa, claiming to be ‘ill’… Anyway, on with the show…

The Core Bike Show brought many of the medium-sized UK importers together in a posh hotel near Silverstone for three days of new products, schmoozing and dinner. Every little function room in the place was packed with smart new products. Here’s a selection of some of our favourites…

The new Evil suspension bike is so secret that we were asked (nicely) not to shoot it side-on, so here’s a tempting glance of it head-on, showing adjustable head angle and what is actually a complex, but very compact linkage system. More news once we’re allowed to tell you…

It was good to see that Extra UK appreciated their Singletrack Readers’ Award for the Tracer VP and had it on proud display. Nice colour too…

The Schwalbe Rocket Ron is a fast tyre for those riders who want a little more grip than the Racing Ralf offers – it also comes in chunky sizes too, with a 2.10in, 2.25 and 2.4in, but still with weights under 550g for the non-tubeless 2.4… Schwalbe has also added ‘Triple Nano Compound’ to their rubber makeup, which promises a grippier but faster rolling tread.

It exists at last! The Surly Mr Whirly cranks are here. They might not look much, but they offer some solutions for odd bikes, as well as being a fine pair of cranks in themselves. They’re a three piece crank with a splined axle. The BB offers the only bearings (apart from Phil Wood) that can be repacked with grease (important too if you need to put extra-cold weather grease in for your Iditisport race…) and the separate axle comes in 68/73mm shell and Pugsley 100mm shell. The triple set is available with different spiders for 94mm, 104mm, & 110mm bolt circles. Out this spring.

{Edit} Upgrade bikes, who bring you DMR stuff and more, is celebrating its tenth year of business with a range of ‘Decade’ bikes built by Kinesis – custom graphics, great colours and available in a mountain bike, jump bike and track bike. We hope to get one in to test soon. They look lovely.

Here’s a shot of Hope’s new prototype DH stem with interlocking ‘jigsaw’ faceplate. It’s being tested at the moment, but should be out this year some time. Hope were keen to point out that, seeing as they source and make everything in the UK, they’re not affected by exchange rate changes – so there’ll be NO price rises from the boys from Barnoldswick this year. You knew there was a good reason for buying British, didn’t you?

A super expanded Hope wheelset line now extends to 27 pairs of wheels. The rims available include DT 5.1, 4.2, Stans Flow and 355, Mavic 717, 521 and 721 as well as some road options too. All built in the UK. The sample weight, for example of a Pro3, three-bolt hub with a Stan’s 355 is 670g/809g. Impressive. 

They’ve talked about it for a while, so here’s the new Hope seatpost. Single bolt adjustment – shown here in ‘20th Anniversary Brown’ – This is a slightly more accurate colour than the orangey hue of the shot below, which lit up in the flash a little…

A few people have had problems getting their shifters to work with the new Hope Tech levers, so Hope has designed a lever bracket that replaces the stock backplate of the lever. There are Shimano XT and XTR-specific ones, plus a bracket that fits SRAM XO, X9, X7 and hopefully more. Neato.

The Merlin 5.25. It looks similar to the 4.25, but it has – guess what – 5.25inches of travel. And it has the ‘old school’ graphics, which we reckon are much nicer…

We show a picture of this every year. A ‘Merckxx orange’ Colnago Master – and it’s still lovely…

If you’re going to wear these Fox hi-tops, then you’d better be very good on a bike, or perhaps a rapper.

Fox Flux helmets with cool new graphics – plus dependable white.

…and a glimpse into the patterns of this summer, again from Fox. Yellow pinstripe looks like it’s going to be fun…