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The Cycle Show 2014: Cool and Quirky stuff preview
Birmingham's NEC is once again taken over by The Cycle Show later this week (26-28 September) with a huge gathering of the cycling brands providing you the first chance to see some of the newest 2015 bikes and products.
We've already looked at some of the bikes that will be on display in our previews, part one and part two here in case you missed them. In this article we're going to take a look at some of the cool, and quirky, new cycling products and accessories you can expect to see.
If you haven’t booked your ticket yet use the code RCC to get £1.50 off the price of the £13 advance ticket at the www.cycleshow.co.uk website.
The Hooky wheelie bin workstand launches at the Cycle Show
The Hooky will be launching their novel wheelie bin workstand at the Cycle Show. Fed up of leaning a bike up against the wall or garden chair when washing and servicing the bike, the inventor behind the Hooky came up with the novel idea of developing a bracket that can fit onto the lid of any standard wheelie bin and essentially convert it into a mobile workstand.
Here’s a short film of it in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSU_I5FErQo
Randonneur Chair
If you need to take the weight of your legs at the Cycle Show, we can imagine no chair more comfortable, or achingly stylish and cool, than the Randonneur Chair. Yes, it was also the chair sat on by the Tour of Britain winner.
Handcrafted by new company Two Makers, the chair was inspired by classic hand-built racing and touring bicycles of the 1940s. It’s made from Reynolds 631 tubing, with a hardwood and bicycle leather saddle finish. Nope, we can’t think of any other chair made from Reynolds bicycle frame tubing either.
Bergamont e-bikes will launch in the UK at the Cycle Show
German company Bergamont have recently announced they’ll be bringing their range of e-bikes to the UK and the first chance to see them will be at the Cycle Show, courtesy of the Electric Bike Corporation.
Bergamont will be showing 11 of their bikes at the show and you’ll even be able to take one for a spin on the demo track to get a feel for how they perform and function. The models on display will include the top of the range £3,000 Bergamont E-Line C MGN with a Nuvinci N360 Planetary hub gear, Gates Carbon Drive and SRAM XO hydraulic disc brakes.
Pragmasis to launch Beefy Bridge ground anchor and Anti-Scrote Skewer
A couple of interesting new products coming to The Cycle Show from Pragmasis, including the Beefy Bridge ground anchor, which is a more affordable version of this Torc ground anchor. It can be bolted to concrete floors, brick walls or inside vans and containers.
The Anti-Scrote Skewer isn’t, as the name suggests, an anti-theft wheel skewer. Instead it’s a pair of ground spikes that can be used when camping to chain a bicycle to.
Veglo Commuter X4
The evenings are drawing in, and it's going a bit dimsy on the commute home. This is the Commuter X4, a wearable fibre optic rear light strap that can be attached to most backpacks but unlike some reflective backpack covers, you can still access all the pockets as you would normally. Alternatively you can wear it over the shoulders if not cycling with a backpack.
Condor Cycles launch clothing range
London’s Condor Cycles have expanded their clothing range with two ranges, ‘Since 1948’ and ‘Professional’. The range initially includes bib shorts, jerseys, t-shirts and caps, but there are plans afoot to expand the range to include more garments in 2015. And based on what we've seen here, we can't wait to see what more they have planned.
So they're offering two ranges. The Professional Range is designed for performance cyclists and is inspired by the demands of cycle racing. The fit therefore is close with the use of technical fabrics and there are microdot reflective details across the arms and legs to provide a welcome visibility boost on the evening commute or chaingang. Prices from £75.
The Since 1948 range has been inspired by clothing from the Condor archives, and with the shop first opening in 1948, hence the name, they have plenty of material for inspiration. They talk of a ‘timeless design’ and ‘classic fit’ so should be perfect for casual cycling. Prices start from £45.
Northern Albion to launch pOcpac Stealth Collection
The pOppac Stealth Collection of waterproof phone cases will be launched at the Cycle Show. The new iPac is their smallest case and fits a standard smartphone, and allows the touchscreen to be operated as normal. The iPacs are now available in sizes to fit the bigger Samsung Galaxy S5 and Apple iPhone 6, as well as Samsung Note 2 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Euroraxx bicycle storage
Bicycle storage specialists Euroraxx will be show their storage solutions for indoor and outdoor applications. Pictured is the SteadyRack, it costs £65.77, and clasps the front wheel in the foldout mechanism and can be swivelled to one side to make lining up several bikes easy, handy for office applications or anywhere you need to rack up a handful of bikes.
Salice to launch new shades
Italian eyewear company Salice will launch two new models at the show, the snappily titled 012 CDM RW and 005 Optik.
Unimaginative names aside, they're smart looking additions to a range that road.cc have been impressed with previously. The 012 is a new shape for 2015 and uses a new temple structure and wider lens, with a frame made from Grilamid TR90 with 3D logo and bold five colour stripe across the front. The lenses are mirrored with a hydrophobic coating.
The 005 Optik is aimed at anyone needed eyewear with prescription inserts. Salice fit the prescription lens into the primary lens so there’s no secondary lens as you get with some eyewear for prescription wearers. The lens is interchangeable as well, you can have two sets of lenses created at the same time.
Brunton All Day GoPro Hero 3+ battery
If you use a GoPro a lot you might struggle getting enough filming time out of the small battery, so Brunton, a specialist in portable batteries, have launched the All Day. It replaces the stock battery on a GoPro so you can film a claimed four times longer than the standard battery.
SockMine merino socks
With winter fast approaching, it's time to think about warm cycle clothing, and merino socks are a road.cc fave for keeping the feet snugly wrapped up in cycling shoes. UK-based company SockMine will be showing a range of socks manufactured in North Nottinghamshire using merino wool.
EDZ Performance Layering
Cumbrian firm EDZ Performance Layering will be attending the Cycle Show for the first time and bringing some autumn and winter clothing along, including merino base layers, fleeces and merino socks. And this Light Thermal Helmet Liner Cap to keep your ears toasty this winter.
Kettler to debut new indoor trainer
It’s that time of year when many cyclists turn to indoor training, and debuting at the Cycle Show will be this new indoor trainer from Kettler. The company will show a new range of indoor training bikes utilising their own ‘World Tours’s software that lets you compete against your friends on any route in the world.
Push Nutrition Clean Energy gels
Interested in the latest from the energy product world? Then head over to Push Nutrition’s stand and take a look at their new Clean Energy gels. They tell us these gels are the first water-based gel that don’t use chemical additives and preservatives. No pictures available but one to have a look at once at the show.
ShoxBox transparent bicycle carry case
Going travelling and need a new case for your bike? ShoxBox will be debuting their new transparent hard case at the Cycle Show, a quite novel idea that lets you, and baggage handlers, see what is inside the case. That’ll make you think about packing the bike a bit more carefully in future, but does also mean you won’t be stashing any dirty laundry in there after a training camp.
Grn Bikewear
New British clothing company Grn Bikewear specialise in British made, sustainable and ethically produced cycle wear, with tops made from recycled plastic bottles as just one example of their offerings that they’ll unveil at the Cycle Show.
If you haven’t booked your ticket yet use the code RCC to get £1.50 off the price of the £13 advance ticket at the www.cycleshow.co.uk website.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
- Destroyer666 32 min 40 sec ago
Ahem, the recommended lockring is just a common through-axle specific lockring, so nothing Miche specific there, and the required tool for it is an...
- Destroyer666 1 hour 27 min ago
Nonono, not those, but those that have constructed Italian cars and motorcycles that have been driven to hundreds of race and championship...
- RoubaixCube 1 hour 36 min ago
This may well be the case although Im unaware of the brands popularity on their home turf. I used to see them being advertised more in the UK...
- qwerty360 2 hours 6 min ago
Arguably sticking it in a bank account is bad....
- Sredlums 3 hours 5 min ago
I'd counter that those brakes were in fact so inadequate that they eventually developed a whole new type of bicycle that was actually suited for it...
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Unfortunately, Africa is heavily exploited both for resource extraction...
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There seems to be no support for TOO) now - their email and website are defunct. They are inactive on Facebook. Aftter less than a year the rails...
- Pub bike 3 hours 39 min ago
"Bike theft hotspot"? This is just like having a sign that says "Police don't bother enforcing the law in this area. Thieves you have free reign!"
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I used to daily 1hr sufferfests on indoor rollers, I drank a fair bit of water before during, and after- I noticed my sweat wasnt stinging in my...
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I did the four windows on my Victorian flat. I replaced the parting beads (between the panes) and the staff moulds with new timber ones that have a...
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20 comments
The Hooky is a good idea and while it appears very well made, the £40 price puts me off as it approaches a fold-up workstand. Hopefully someone will do a deal with the manufacturer to make them out of recycled plastics (like those park benches) and lower the cost.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/the-hooky-bike-stand-/231341544436
when you consider that you can get a half decent workstand from amazon for £25...
Had the pleasure of seeing the Randonneur Chair and meeting the designer at the New Designers expo in London back in July this year. Beautiful craftsmanship, lovely detailing - looks stunning in the flesh.
Definitely on my list of 'Things To Get With All That Spare Cash' as and when I get any...
Any idea on the price? On the expensive side of costly, I'd guess.
If you want an extra light loop on your backpack, sew one on! I'm frankly pants with a needle, but even I've customised a few things.
I did exactly that with a backpack to run a fibre flare down it vertically, literally a five minute job to add a second loop and at exactly the right distance for the light.
I was really hoping that the "anti-scrote skewers" were designed to be used to nail the little scrote to the tarmac through the back of their knees, once you'd hunted them down and "subdued" them... Using them to tie the bike to seems far less satisfying.
Oh, so not a sharp spike fitted to the nose of the saddle, then?
duc: Wouldn't the tent (semi-)collapse? I.e. these pegs are meant to act as an alarm system, not make it hard to thieve the bikes per se?
Ahhh just what I've always wanted, tent pegs to secure my bike to and when I'm at the end of the holiday i guess i have to leave them there because obviously they are immovable, or do i just pry them up just like a tent peg and take them to the next pitch........ oh hang on, theres a flaw in there somewhere but i can't quite see where it is
How would those skewers work, couldn't they just be pulled out the ground like a tent peg?
The old fashioned way of doing it was to use a pair of bent metal ones with a hole drilled in the end of each one, hammer them in at an angle so that the two heads end up close together, then use the hole to thread a bike lock cable through.
Because the two pegs are at an angle to each other you can't just yank them out of the ground, you have to pull each one out individually, but you can't because they're attached to each other.
It sort of works, but can be dug out or wiggled free.
You can do something pretty effective using two ground anchors (wire spirals) - these can't be removed because they have to be unscrewed and if the bike is attached to them, you can't wind them out of the ground.
You bang them in to the ground at 45° but opposite to each other so they form an inverted V underground. Then lock the two rings together with a padlock or D Lock, which you also lock your bike to. If you try to pull one skewer out, it won't come because it is locked to the other one, which needs to be pulled at at 90° to the first...
Only works if you can lock the rings closely together so they can't slide along the D lock. You probably need to put the second skewer through the ring of the first as you bang it in.
This is basically a re-hash of an idea published recently in CTC's Cycle magazine, where it was suggested you use a pair of those stakes you get in pet shops for tethering dogs. They screw into the ground, and locking two together stops you twisting them to unscrew them, which sounds more secure to me.
Both rely on pretty hard ground and the potential thief not being equipped with a spade. But I guess anything that slows down a thief or causes some effort to be expended will attract attention, which is really what these things are about. The alternative is to camp next to a tree or fence and lock the bike to that.
This is Steve of Pragmasis, the manufacturers of the new Anti-Scrote Skewer.
Yes, you do hammer them into the ground at 90 degrees to each other (each 45 degrees to the vertical, in opposite directions) and you do it such that the captivated chain links at the top ends become side-by-side as you near the ground. Those chain links are then interlocked. They are interlocked without using a lock at that stage (contrary to one of the earlier suggestions). Those interlocked links are then used as an anchoring point for a.n.other chain, or D-lock or other lock. Because these things are so long, they do provide a good anchor unless you're in somewhere like a bog or a sand dune, and you get them out (e.g. at the end of your camping stay) by unlocking the chain etc, separating the captivated links, and then hammering/twisting each of them back up out of the ground, again at their respective diverging angles.
The problem with the screw-type anchors, at least all the ones we've encountered, is that they are too small and the eye at the top is not hardened, so we expect them all to be easy to defeat with hand tools. The fact that they are so small means you can't use them with a decent sized chain (e.g. 13mm, 16mm), at least not without those anchors being a major weak point. These are showstoppers for us in terms of providing a decent level of security. To be fair, the screw anchors we've seen are really produced to tie down poly tunnels etc against the wind and they appear to be not really produced to be security products. The Scrote Skewers, however, are made deliberately to be security products ...'cos that's what we do!
As with many of our products, we designed them because we needed to tether something that was basically in the middle of a field and a 'proper' ground anchor and a lump of concrete etc was not possible. A concrete-based anchor should undoubtedly give a higher security level, but that was not an option for us this time so we had to do something different, that was removable, but that would still provide a decent deterrent.
Note that these are not on our web site yet so if you want to take a look, come and see us at stand G150 at the show and we'll be happy to show you a pair of these things
I'm ashamed to say that I don't clean my wheelie bin often enough to find the idea of deliberately hanging out with it very appealing....
And I think it would work best when the bin was nice and full. For stability.
i think the light strap thing looks pretty decent as well.
wish i'd picked up on it on kickstarter...
I like it, I don't want to be buying a new bag just for my winter commute. Making my existing pack more visible sounds like a good idea.
The illuminated bag systems are utter clown shoes.
Manufacturers of commuting bags take note - we don't want one piddling light tab or mesh pockets or something inspired by Tron, we wan't a roll top dry bag with a ladder of webbing loops all up the back so you can simply clip as many lights as you like to it, or glow sticks.
....but until you get that, or unless you want to look like the modern-day equivalent of a scooter bristling with mirrors, this looks like quite a decent alternative to a single piddly light loop. Looks like you can lob it on your favourite rucsac regardless of whether it was designed for cycling. I wonder if it'd fit the seat on my recumbent when it's rackless...
Speak for yourself. I take clothes in once a week so, at most, I wear a small rucksack. But that system pictured fits on a rucksack or you. I've been waiting ages for it because, for me, it looks better than hanging a fibre flare on the loop on my rucksack.
Oddly enough some ideas cater for some people.
Wear it on your chest and pretend to be Tony Stark....