BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news

There are fewer Brits at this year's Interbike than in previous years. Is this a consequence of belt tightening, or a reluctance to travel post September 11th? Either way there's plenty going on that impacts on the UK market...

First seen last year in prototype form, Kryptonite’s leverless QR skewers are now on the water and will soon be available to European consumers before US ones (thanks to a glitch with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission

“We could have put 400 saddles out and had a cramped booth. Instead we did this.” Those are the words of Clark Kent lookalike Steve Carr, a Geordie, ex of Shimano Europa, now with Italian saddle maker Selle Royal SpA. His stand demonstrates that, just like in retail store display, less can be more. But there are also other ways of impressing the crowds...

Sweetskinz Inc. has developed a range of patterned tyres. There’s a camo version, a tyre with cheetah spots, a Yin Yang pattern and a tyre with a sidewall decorated with a Celtic motif. But these aren’t paintjobs, try as you might, the patterns will last as long as the tyre as they’re right through the moulding. And it’s not just a novelty: race teams could have tyres that featured sponsor logos. Even bike shops could order bespoke tyres.

Prototypes of the X-100 tubes were first shown at Interbike in 1999 but the new material has taken until now to perfect. Reynolds expects a number of OEMs will take up with the tubing for 2003 model year. Just as with 753, framebuilders have to be licensed by Reynolds to weld X-100. The only UK framebuilder licensed to date is Pace.