London Bike Show 2018 Highlights: Bowman, Tresca, Pinarello, Cotic, Kona, Boardman, Rose and more

We’re at the London Bike Show at the ExCel Centre at the moment to see what’s new and shiny and after a quick shuffle around the stands here are some quick highlights of the bikes that grabbed our attention.

We’ll have more from the show soon but for now, enjoy these pictures.

First, we start with an all-new bike. Fresh out of London is Tresca, a new brand that has spent the last two years developing this lovely aluminium road frame. The guys behind it come from engineering background and have used their expertise to develop a frame that they claim offers the best balance of compliance and stiffness.

The seat stays have been dropped which they say increases the comfort, while the flared seat tube and curved top tube reintroduce the stiffness they say is sacrificed by the dropped stays. The weight of the frame is about 1,260g and this Shimano 105 specced bike will cost about £1,350, with four frame sizes to choose from. This is the first prototype, there's another prototype being made fro testing but it should only be a couple of months before the production bikes are ready. The brand will be selling direct through its website and we hope to get one in for review soon as we do like what we see.

Bowman Cycles has launched its brand new Pilgrims Disc, the second generation of its aluminium endurance, that we first saw in prototype form a few months ago. Bowman was demonstrating the versatility of the new bike with several builds on its standard, the above wearing a SRAM 1x11 drivetrain with the brand new Hunt carbon fibre 650b wheels shod with 38mm tyres.  Below is the lovely Teal frame built up as regular road bike and 700c wheels and a double chainset.

The frame has been fully revised for 2018, with a switch from 7000-series aluminium to 6069, and it shares a few tubes with the Palace:R bike but the butting has been tweaked for the higher stresses placed on the frame if the terrain turns a little bit rough. It's a much cleaner looking frame than the original whilst retaining that appealing purpose that made the first Pilgrims such a hit. It keeps up with modern standards and now has 12mm thru-axles and flat mount brakes.

The bike above shows off the Pilgrims in bikepacking/Audax/winter training guise, with 35mm tyres underneath those full-length mudguards. It's a really smart looking bike and we can't wait to get one in for review as soon as they're available in a few weeks times.

Recognise these wheels? No? They are Hunt's brand new, shown at the London Bike Show for the first ever time, 650b Adventure Carbon Disc wheels. They’re a carbon version of the British company’s existing 650b Adventure aluminium wheels, with a 24mm internal width. These are 38mm G-One tyres which actually measure more like 41mm. Massive!

Last week Factor Bikes launched its updated One, and it was on display at the show, and drawing quite a crowd - we had to wait for ages to get a clear photo. The paint job on this bike was amazing. You really have to see it in the flesh. 

The defining features of the bike are the split down tube and the full-length, running from the dropout up to the stem.

The Kona Rove LTD grabbed my attention with this lovely paint job...

...and these WTB Horizon 47mm tanwall tyres that just seem to work so well with this colourway.

Northroad is a brand new company out of Manchester offering a range of road, gravel and time trial bikes. It’s selling direct, and with each bike assembled in the UK, it’s able to offer a high level or build personalisation.

Here’s the company’s time trial bike, which features a frame made from Toray T700 and T800 carbon, an integrated handlebar and stem with a wide range of adjustment and the concealed brakes. Models start from £2,800.

And this is the aero disc model, with flat mount brakes, thru-axles and internal cable routing. Builds start from £2,250. We’ve got our eye on testing one of these soon.

Want a British designed steel do-everything road and gravel bike? The Cotic Escapade looks like it fulfils that brief nicely. It’s very on-trend here with WTB’s Horizon 47mm tyres, showing the versatility of the bike.

Pinarello was showing off a wide range of colour options for its flagship Dogma F10 race bike.

Did you know the Dogma F10 is available with disc brakes?

It is, and here it is, with Shimano’s new Ultegra R8000 hydraulic disc brake groupset. There’s space for up to 28mm tyres.

If a smooth ride is what you’re after, then you want to take a closer look at the Pinarello Dogma K10.

It has an adjustable DSS rear suspension damper, with flattened "Flexstays" chainstays to provide the necessary bending to avoid the necessity for any pivoting hardware.

We told you about the new Rose X-Lite last week, but we saw it in the carbon for the first time at the London Bike Show. And it looks even better than it did in the promo pictures.

The frame is packed with interesting details but it’s the new graphics and paint finish that we think has lifted the appearance of the bike.

Festka’s Spectre wins our best paint job of the show award. The paint finish was created especially for Sigma Sports, and underneath the classy finish is a full carbon fibre frame and fork. This bike with SRAM Red eTap and Knight Composite wheels costs £9,799. So not cheap then…

Did we just hand out the best-painted award too soon? Focus has made a bold bid for the gong with this bold Izalco Max. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The Boardman ASR 8.9 uses a Reynolds 725 steel frame with a carbon fork, nicely finished with mudguards and reflective details to help you stand out on the daily commute.

Priced at £1,299 with a Shimano 105 groupset with hydraulic disc brakes, it looks a reasonably priced option for commuting, winter riding and Audaxing.

GUP is a get out of jail free tubeless inflator, intended for tubeless tyre setups and which will both inflate a punctured tyre with air and inject the tyre with sealant to plug the hole. It costs £14.99.

Louri is offering a range of UK-made velcro accessory straps that can be used to attach such things as inner tubes, CO2 canisters and tools to your frame or saddle. They’ve offering a small and large version initially in just black colour, but they are adding more colours soon, and costs £14.99.

 

The @louribike is a smart way to strap some essentials to the frame, on show at @thelondonbikeshow

A post shared by road.cc (@road.cc) on Feb 23, 2018 at 3:12am PST

A picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Here's a demonstration of the Louri strap in action to show you how easy and quick it is to use. 

We reviewed the newly launched Smoove universal chain lube recently, and the company has now added a chain degreaser called Prep to its range that will launch in about 6-8 weeks and cost £14.99. We’ve got a bottle to try it out so watch out for a review soon.

Ever packed your bike in the back of the car only for the pedals to scratch another part of the bike or another bike that is laid on top? Nox Sox is a British-made neoprene pedal cover that is designed to eliminate this happening. It's available in two sizes, this smaller one is ideal for road clipless pedals.

Orange Bikes has its roots in aluminium mountain bikes, but that hasn’t stopped it turning its attention to the road market and carbon fibre. The R9 is a really good looking road bike with some nice details, including space for 28mm tyres, internal cable and hose routing and 12mm thru-axles with flat mount brakes. Complete builds will start at £3,200 for the bike pictured rising to £7,800 for an SRAM Red eTap and Zipp 303 Firecrest-equipped bike.

Gravel and adventure bikes are popular at the show, and one of the nicest is probably the new Atalya Gravel from titanium specialist J.Guillem, run by the same guy who previously launched Van Nicholas many years ago.

The frame and carbon fork has space for both 700c x 40mm and 27.5" x 2.1" tyres but it has some exquisite details, namely the cast bottom bracket and chainstay assembly that provides maximum tyre and chainset clearance. The head tube and dropouts are also cast titanium, and the internal cable routing is really nicely executed. Oh, there are even mounts for mudguards too. Prices are starting from €1,999 for the frame and complete bikes from €3,999.

Sticking with gravel bikes, here’s the British designed Forme Monsal, a carbon frame and fork with wide tyre clearance and available in two flavours, this one costing £2,600 with SRAM Rival.

Favorit is a brand we’ve never heard of before, but apart from having the brightest stand at the show, was displaying a lovely collection of bikes. There was everything from beautiful urban bikes to adventure bikes like this F3 Adventure with a colour matching Lauf Grit fork. With an SRAM Rival 1 groupset it costs from £4,790 and claimed weight is 8.9kg.

A new bike for 2018, but which we told you about last year, is the Scott Foil Disc.