BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news

From 9th January, long-time MTB racer Nick Craig will be working as well as riding for Scott UK. He becomes Technical and Shop Staff Training Manager.

At least 10 Taiwanese bicycle firms are set to invest as much as $30m in a new manufacturing park called Subic in the Philippines. The manufacturers 'clustering' at the former military base would, between them, produce whole bicycles, reports the Manila Standard newspaper.

We've had BMX. Then there was KMX. Now there is SMX. The SMX ski-trike from Norway lets riders pull BMX-style tricks on the snow but has skis instead of wheels. It will be commercially available in Autumn 2006 and has just won the BrandNew Award at Europe outdoor trade show ISPO in Munich, due to be staged at the end of the month.

53 percent of Brit prefer to do a hobby or activity to keep fit instead of going to the gym, reveals a survey comissioned by Marks & Spencers.

As predicted by BikeBiz.com in 2004, MTB racers at UCI-sactioned races will soon be able to benefit from road-style neutral support. The 'technical assistance' rule change was brought in last year and for 2006 Shimano will undertake the role handled by Mavic in major road races.