BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
CoreBike put on another highly praised trade show last month, drawing hoards of retailers to Northamptonshire. For those who missed out Mark Sutton provides a guide to the show’s highlights. This is part one of four articles covering the show.
Extra
One of the busier stands throughout the show, Extra introduced a number of products from Topeak, Alpine Stars, mudguard brand Curana and Accelerade.
If your customers are part of the gadget-savvy crowd, addicted to Twitter, or simply want a firm fixture for their phone in the saddle, look out for Topeak’s steerer tube mounted iPhone case, fixed down with the replacement of the current headset’s top cap.
Topeak also displayed its digital ratchet for the workshop professional – a unit that will read the torque and is supplied with all allen keys from 3mm to 8mm, sockets from 8mm to 15mm and T40, 30 and 25 heads.
Further to that, new mudguards appeared from the brand. The DeFender RC1 and RC11 package provides roadies a compact solution to protecting all tyres up to 700c x 25c. A polished underside prevents dirt build up from sticking.
Curana mudguards also joined the party, bringing with them a line of Eurobike Award-winning guards for 700c, 26 and 28-inch wheels crafted from a rigid aluminium and spanning widths from 30 through 65mm.
Accelerade was one of many energy brands offer taste tests, giving the trade a chance to sample its new 4:1 carbohydrate and protein mix in both Tangy Orange and Fruit Punch flavours. Look out for the Endurox R4 (pictured far left) line under Accelerade’s recovery line.
Upgrade
If you missed the show, grab a brew, because Upgrade have plenty to keep tabs on, including a new brand addition that’ll settle your disc pad stock nightmares. Race Winning Design, or RWD, for short, are a Yorkshire developed and tested ‘friction specialist’ company with a strong background in motorsport.
With a mountain biker in the company, however, it was inevitable that this company would branch out. Upgrade took notice and has now exclusively nabbed the brand. Two styles of pad are available, organic or sintered, spanning a number of the main cycling manufacturers.
Rory Hitchens of Upgrade told BikeBiz: “They’re specialists in the field of braking and only that, you’ll not see them manufacture anything that doesn’t revolve around friction. Upgrade will have some great POS units holding 36 units, 18 of each type, which dealers can pick and choose to suit their business.”
Reynolds drew crowds with the RZR wheels, now the flagship in the range. Big claims come with the new aero wheels, which for the 92mm deep version, is said to be the world’s ‘fastest production wheelset’ and for the 46mm deep, the world’s lightest production wheelset’. These claims are said to be backed by the A2 windtunnel in Daytona where many of the big manufacturer’s go to shave resistance off their gear. At £5,000 for a wheelset, the 46 is sub 900 grams and the 92, sub 1,500 grams. A demo programme is now available to the 40 stockists around the country where consumers can be loaned the wheels ahead of a purchase.
Other bullet points from the Upgrade stand include Lezyne’s light range now offering a helmet mount, Tektro producing a mini version of its road levers for small hands, or kid’s bikes. Further to that, stock of X-fusion arrives in April, including a range of three height adjust seatposts, comprising the less common 27.2 measurement, on top of 30.9 and 31.6 measurements.
DMR is also rumoured to be producing a magnesium version of its £100 Vault pedal, complete with a titanium axle and a weight saving of around 70 grams. Look out for this brand’s efforts to touch base with its loyal following in 2012, likely through a series of pump track events. BikeBiz will have more details on this soon.
I-ride
Dutch companies Agu and Cordo debuted a number of new and unusual products for the urban cyclist at Core.
Most interesting to touring specialists is the addition on the Cordo CQC CRD panniers, designed to lock down to the pannier rack via a hard plastic centre console. Supplied with a key, the double pannier system retails for £80 and is available in white and red. For picnic lovers, the brand also offers the ‘Hipnic’, a fully kitted out picnic pannier bag, with cool bag centre and plates and cutlery all concealed in a front pocket.
The main draw in the room could have been the prominently displayed De Rosa Protos, a show exclusive and a first for the UK. This Super Record equipped build was just one example of the four build packages available spanning Dura Ace and Campagnolo.
Stiffness is key to the 800-gram frame design, with oversized downtubes and clever work at the junctions ensuring all pedal pressure drives the bike forwards quickly.
Northwave continues to impress with its footwear product, bringing in the experts from sister company Drake Snowboards, which lends its Dyneera Speedlace Winch system to the cycling shoes. An example is the Extreme Tec, which secures the lower part of the foot with this winch-activated lace, while the upper is secured with a buckle, allowing the shoe to adapt to the curvature of the foot for comfort. What’s more, the heat-treated Dyneera fibre is stronger than its steel BOA rival and will not stretch over time.
Token has been busy over the past few months, chosing Core to show an intriguing ‘egg box’ of headsets, dubbed the Heggset. The egg box is simply an optional point of sale extra, but it can hold 12 of the units, available in black, gold, blue and red. Retailers should also look out for upgrade kits, such as the new ‘Bling Box’.
In other news, Argon 18 are now offering complete bike builds, with an E-80 with SRAM Rival now available from £1,699 at retail, among other bikes.
Buffera
Gradually branching out from its core business, Buffera’s brands have new fashion goods, eco-concious t-shirts and plenty of things made from discarded plastic bottles and plants. There’s a new logo for Buff in the pipeline too, marking its 20 years of trading.
Now manufactured largely in Portugal (apparel) and Spain (headwear), Buff’s catalogue has grown significantly in recent years and this year will be no exception, with a continued focus on athlete’s clothing and a few new goods that wouldn’t look out of place on the catwalk.
Of those fashion-friendly goods, the new Infinity Buff is a scarf-like garment that wraps around the neck twice and hangs stylishly off the wearer, while offering much the same protection of the neck as a traditional Buff. It’s weaved from Tencel eucalyptus fibre too, which is a bit different. Stock is due in February and three versions will be available selling at £23 for a plain design, £26 for a printed and £41 for a double-sided garment.
SueMe is raising its game too, with a project it calls ‘off set yourself’. Products falling under this banner will be supplied with a packet of seeds tying into the product’s fibre. So for the Beech underwear, expect to find three seeds in the biodegradable packaging, so instead of binning this, you can just plant the box in the hope of growing your own tree.
The t-shirt range is largely made up of soft, anti-bacterial bamboo fibre. Four designs are available at £22.50 a pop.
Hope
Hope’s travels over the past few months have seen plenty of potential product leaks, yet it’s never certain which are ideas and which are production models.
This product spied for the first time at Core is a production model, however. Though it doesn’t have a name as yet, Hope has created a one-piece single ring and bashguard combination for four arm cranks, as well as a ‘micro chain guide’, also confirmed for production. These could both be available as soon as April.
More details emerged on the pedal, again set to land around April time. Projected to sell for £150, this two bushing design is machined from one lump of aluminium and since the London Bike Show at ExCeL has undergone a slight change to allow servicing via one end of the axle.
Hope’s flagship R8 light also dazzled, outputting a whopping 2,000 lumens from eight Cree LEDs.
A further round up in pictures can be found here.
