For the next few days, anyone who's anyone in the bike game is at Eurobike in Friedrichshafen, Germany. It opened yesterday, Wednesday, and continues on its massive site until Sunday.
Our star blogger from the An Post Rás of last year, Myles McCorry is in Germany for the show and sends us this dispatch.
Around 150,000 people descend on south Germany for the world's No. 2 bike show; Eurobike - which opened its doors yesterday, Wednesday. It secures its position as No 2 show on earth on the basis that around give others claim to be the world's No 1 show.
All the deals are done here. The big deals, with the suits wearing jeans. And the white collared, blue shirts talk to beautiful Asian women. And beautiful Italian men. Fat ex pros try to belong and fat businessmen don't care about wheel size just cheque girth.
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The sons of shop owners look on in awe at the pretty girls and endless bikes on the 3km square site.
A good stand is €200,000 euros. A bad stand is a waste. Kalloy have gotten the rubbish stand of the year award so far. As Paul Hicks of Kinetica quirked: "Is Kalloy selling chairs or bikes?"
Deals are done in 20 tongues and I speak only two. Badly.
They weren't exactly beating them off with s big stick at the Cube display at Eurobike; though it was early days when our Myles swung past
To many this is a dream brand. To most it is aspirational but on the day that I queued for 20 minutes to see the new Cube bikes, sadly the interest in this marquee was minimal. Won't have to scrub the floor too much tomorrow.
Ireland's Philip Deignan has done a lot of damage riding a Neil Pryde with Unitedhealthcare. If you get one, we can't guarantee you'll have Deignan's legs but at least you'll look good.
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If Philip Deignan wins on it why couldn't we? Well 'we' don't have a 7 watts per kilo power output but it would be nice.
Neil Pryde is a nice, new steed created with style (they say) it looks nice (I say). Cyclesuperstore in Tallaght is the main outlet in Ireland for these
Myles got very excited about this Marin; the ultimate mount for cyclocross this winter.
It's not too often a 'Marin' will stop you in your tracks. The brand closely linked to the birth of MTB went slowly astray over the last 20 years, holding on to steel and disregarding function over form during the development of full suspension.
Then came this baby (above); stunning 12-layer carbon, formed by the finest engineers America could employ in China.
This is the ultimate cyclocross bike. It boasts huge mud clearance and low stand over height; something we all desire this winter.
But Santa delivers something extra in this CX rig. It's the first time I've viewed Dura Ace hydraulic STI levers.
The new flagship Shimano 9000 group set has an amazing set of oil fed discs; light to the touch and gradual to the stop. My first spin trying it left every cantilever on the planet look old and wanting.
The new levers are amazing with the master cylinder hidden in an extra 15 mm of lever hood, as opposed to the SRAM red hydraulic lever looking like a hasty lottery winner’s extension on a semi detached.
The electric gears coupled with a wonderful bit of engineering stopping leave this CX bike in dream land. €6,000 recommended retail price.
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