Eurobike: Demo Day 1

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Greetings from Eurobike!
Jon, Matt and Chipps (that’s me)  are over at Eurobike for the week, seeing what’s new for 2012. The first day was the Demo Day, so we got to spend it outdoors, in the actual sunshine. Wednesday to Saturday we’ll be back indoors so we made the most of it.

Seth’s Haircut
First off, we saw this pictures of our pal Seth in the Eurobike Daily magazine. We do like the artistic cropping of his hair. (For what he actually looks like see our PressCamp coverage from this summer)


Continental is showing a few new tyres. There’s the Mountain King 2.2 – a tyre we already like, now in a 29er version.

 


Back on 26in land, the Mud King (which we’ve seen the 1.8in version of) now comes in a 2.3 DH version.

 

We’ll be looking at Nicolai in more detail in the next day or two, but we reckon you’ll like its E-bike. That’s a 700 Watt engine and jumbo battery in the downtube…

 

KS Lev Seatpost
KindShock has been doing well in the uppy-downy seatpost world and its new LEV seatpost will delight owners of 27.2mm seat posts. It comes in 27.2, 30.9 and 31.6…

 


VP Varial Headset
We know that this’ll appeal to the ‘slacker is better’ crew. This new VP Varial headset has a full 3° of adjustment via a handy lever. (Matt wants you to know that the Three Degrees is reputedly Prince Charles’ favourite group)

 

DH pedal
This VP flat pedal is scooped out in profile so your foot sits in it more and is already popular with VP’s downhill racers.

What looked to be a new Hope integrated hub/cassette on the Pronghorn stand was actually from another high-end machining company. Interestingly, it was nine and not ten speed.

 

 

 

Vittoria
Vittoria has some joy for you 29er fans. First off, for skinny 29ers (that’s cyclocrossers to you and I) it has a tubeless cyclocross tyre, designed to run on tubeless rims with a sealant.

 

Geax ‘AKA Pluma’ prototype XC race tyre. How skinny and tread-less is this 26in race tyre?


There were also a couple of 29er Geax tubular tyres too. Not tubeless, but tubular. Time to start shopping for cyclocross rims.

 


Kona
We dropped by Kona and were heartened to see that every single one of its test bikes was out…

Ridley Fast Noah
This Ridley uses the spring of those carbon leafs as its spring and the holder of brake pads. It still needs micro coil springs for brake balancing, but it’s a truly integrated, lightweight and aero solution. Not that we’re particularly after one, but we like to see it being done.

 

 

 


Camelbak The Don and Blowfish
Proof that the Don doesn’t just come in American superhero colours. The new Blowfish too comes in a striking red…

 


Scott’s new Spark
We’ll be running a full story on our full ride test of the brand new Scott Spark, but here are a few photos in the meantime. Neat, isn’t it? 120mm of travel in 26in and 100mm of travel in the 29in version.

 

 

 

 

Jo Burt, famous Mint Sauce illustrator and mostly road rider was seen in this congruous baggy short wearing shocker. 3/4 baggies on a road bike Jo?

Magura MT4
Magura has made a big fuss about its new Carbotech MT8 brakes and you’d be forgiven in thinking that that’s all it does, but there’ll be a full range of brakes throughout the price ranges.

 

 

 

Magura's 2012 Thor fork

 

 

 

BMC was showing its new 29in Speedfox model.

 


Ragley
Jon’ll be running a story on the new Ragley full suspension range. Brant Richards’ parting gift to the company. There are three full sussers, including a 29er, and there’s also the very affordable M74 hardtail model.

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, superlight carbon tubular wheels from DT Swiss - and a new, yellow Tricon.

 

Look's new model is an unashamedly racy model with a fully integrated stem for that aggressive, aero look.

 

 

Bianchi wants everyone to know that it came out with a 29er mountain bike 15 years ago, and now it's back with a range of geared 29ers and this Methanol in 26in with its full-racerboy/girl extended seat tube.

 

Niner was doing brisk business on its test bikes. Chipps and the boss of Niner have a long-standing wager about whether the majority of mountain bikes (over $1000) at Interbike will be 29in or 26in. Stay tuned.

Bibshorts for baggies. I bumped into an old pal, Tim, who used to be a designer for Felt. He was at Eurobike to show off his (patent pending apparently) new bib shorts. Everyone knows that bibshorts are more comfy for most people, but if you wear baggies over the top, they tend to slide down or rotate around you. Tim’s idea is to simply have tabs that hook onto the baggies so they don’t do that. Because they’re held up by the tabs, the waistband of the baggies doesn’t need to be that tight either. More at www.dirtbaggies.com

 

A real 'why has no one done that before' thing. We like!

 

Matt carpark testing a small Nicolau

 

Crank Bros Sage, more on Crank Bros shortly, but here's its new wide trail handlebar, the Sage.

 

Nicolai adopts the flared head tube.

 

For a full test on this all-mountain Bionicon, see issue 68 of Singletrack, which should be out about... now.

 

We don't know why either. Suffice to say, it was on a triathlon bike.

Shimano’s new cyclocross groupset was being shown on many ‘crossers here. No sign of discs yet…

Shiny cantilever brakes

 

Smaller front chainrings for 'cross racing.

 

 

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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