The Bike Show and Beyond….

Doddy | Blog, Mountain Biking Uk | 18/01/2012 12:19pm

Right now it feels like the whole cycling scene is thriving. The Internet is alive with news and stories from all around of people on all kinds of bikes- and more and more council funded operations are taking place- be it cycle lanes for road users or pump tracks for kids and big kids alike.

The Bike Show at Excel in London is a great place to see what’s going on and catch up with some key contacts for us. There’s a lot of buzz right now…

Whyte's 29er carbon race rocket. Will we see an XL? *coughs*

Whyte bikes, the small company designed right here in Blighty by Ian Alexander and the great team at Whyte keep on pushing things forwards. With the 10 year progression of 29er bikes finally starting to flower, they are right on the money with their slightly slacker, faster and damn right light carbon race hard tails. A stunning bit of craft.

I reckon many people could ride these as fast off road as a good rider on a 150mm travel bike. Can’t wait to get on one, although currently only in limited sizes. Any chance of an XL please guys?

There are enough people that would want one, surely..?

Evoc- first prize in the unofficial cool stand competition!

Evoc had the coolest stand at the show- set out like an arrivals lounge at the airport, complete with display and flight numbers. Loads of effort gone in, and damn nice bags to boot. New for 2012 is their light weight body armour range- but more on that soon.

Rose bikes team DH- a nice bit of kit.

German giant Rose bikes seem to be a brand on the move too, refining their already nice DH frame in to a light weight racer with a dialled 64degree head angle. This is the team edition, which will be raced by the new Rose Vaujany team, made up of whiptastic DH racer Nico Vink, 4X and general style monger Joost ‘The Boost’ Wichman and the UK’s own Katy Curd.

Rose Jester Slopestyle. £1279, that is all...

There’s also a rad new Slopestyle bike, with 120mm travel, and a complete build price as seen here at £1279!

Could be just the ticket for mini DH; dirt jumps; 4X or any amount of looning around you might like!

Hard Eddie. Bad to the bone.

Intense Hard Eddie 29er.

I don’t need to say much here that two simple words don’t say on their own:

Bad Ass.

Stunning fork up front. I feel hot and bothered looking at this- I want!

And check out the fork- a fine stealthy contender to the Niner Air Carbon fork. But instead of the XC pedigree, you have the Intense stamp of mayhem- this is the whippet bike that hard core riders don’t realise they need…

Man and machine.

Martyn Ashton made a great video in which he flipped a road bike, did a little bit of trials and a bunch of other unthinkable stuff. So he’s gone to town and has built up a custom Cannondale Cyclocross bike, complete with a Hope trials rear hub with ultra fast pick up, and a few other extras. You may have seen him back flip it in one of the shows, but really you need to see him manual the thing round- it’s a piss take!
Got to take my hat off and give the man a little bow though- he’s one of the hardest working men in mountain biking and works flat out to promote mountain biking to audiences that might not be aware of it.

Martyn Ashton- still tearing it up after all the years. He deserves an award.

Mart is nearly 40, and he is still king of the castle.

You rock mate, keep doing it.

Rutger Hauer just out of shot.

The Excel centre at night, for some reason reminded me of the film Bladerunner. Or maybe the sight of a Ferrari Enzo and a Sunseeker boat worth 15million had made me go light headed.

This boat is bigger than my flat.

I wonder how much the contents of this hall was worth?

The boat show is something else, and one of the only places you can go- as a vaguely affluent person- and feel like a complete and utter tramp.

Paddle boarding out of shot. They were too fast.

Paddle boarding is hard core- you should have seen the size of the dudes racing in the pool. They all looked like Dolph Lundgren.

Mr Crud- Pete Tomkins- and his son Jamie are really in to paddle boarding as part of their active lifestyle. And you should see the condition Pete is in- he’s a gnarly old dude now and reminds me of a happy version of Taylor from that Sci-fi show Terra Nova…

There was a large following for the Bike Polo at the show. These guys look familiar- kind of like most the inhabitents of Hoxton but with kneepads and hockey helmets.

Got to say, I saw some pretty hard-core crashes and slamming action going on. It looks tricky and actually really good fun. But still makes me think of this… (Rob S over at Continental Tyres, this is for you…)

Finally, here’s a few random shots of recent stuff going on here at MBUK towers.

Doddy's Ibis HD 160, before being attacked with Muc-Off

And after...

Specialized Camber Comp Carbon 29er. So fast it's a joke.

The MBUK photo studio, yesterday.

A bike, yesterday.

Over and out…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Blog, Mountain Biking Uk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.