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11 cool bikes to see at the 2015 Cycle Show - Pinarello, Raleigh, Condor, Beacon, Kinesis, Ribble, Rolo, Van Nicholas, Transition, Mason and Cannondale

New Kinesis GFTi Disc, Raleigh Roker gravel bike, updated Condor Italia RC, Canyon's Ultimate CF SLX and the Cannondale Slate

If you’re heading to the 2015 Cycle Show at the NEC this weekend, here are just a few of the cool bikes you can expect to see (and what you'll miss out on seeing if you're not attending) from Bradley Wiggins’ Hour Record Pinarello to a new range of gravel bikes from Raleigh and Cannondale's Slate.

road.cc readers can enjoy discounted tickets, £12 instead of the usual £13.50, by using the RCC discount code. There are bigger savings for road.cc club members, you can purchase two tickets for £8.25 each. Another good reason to join our club...

Kinesis Racelight GFTi Disc

The Racelight GFTi Disc is a new bike from the British brand popular with British cyclists, and features a titanium tubeset with laser etched logos and new Tracer carbon fibre disc fork, with clearance for up to 32mm tyres.

The tubes are profiled. A bi-ovalised down tube and tapered head tube and S-bend rear stays, required to provide the necessary clearance around the tyres and mudguards. Yes, the frame has mudguard eyelets. It’ll take a rack too.

Kinesis is using the Flat Mount standard to fix the caliper brakes to the frame and fork. Cable routing is internal and it’s modular so it’ll accept an electronic groupset.

A small but notable detail is the forward facing seat clamp. The frameset costs £1,799.

Condor Italia RC updated with new aluminium tubeset

London-based bike shop and bicycle brand Condor Cycles has updated its Italia RC for 2016, with an all-new aluminium tubeset, and gone are the carbon fibre seatstays. Condor has developed this new tubeset itself, going straight to the source to specify the exact dimensions and profiles it wanted.

There’s also a new carbon fibre fork and a tapered head tube, and the whole frameset is lighter than the previous bike. I also think it looks much better as a result, certainly helped by the splendid paint job on this show bike.

The geometry for the bike is borrowed from the carbon fibre Leggero, so it is ready to race. Indeed it’s used by the JLT Condor Mavic race team. It’s a 7000-series aluminium with triple butted tubes to shed weight. The frameset will cost £749 and full builds will start from £1,249. Availability is scheduled for January.

Rolo £13k superlight carbon fibre road bike

If you’re looking for one of the most expensive bikes at the 2015 Cycle Show, look no further than this Rolo, which is taking up residence on the Fabric stand. Rolo is a Swedish carbon fibre specialist using state-of-the-art to create very light frames, this one reportedly weighs just 710g.

I picked the bike up and it certainly felt exceedingly light. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my scales to hand, but I reckon it’s sub 6kg. This show bike was dressed with lots of very light Tune components and a Fabric ALM saddle, helping to keep the overall weight low.

Bradley Wiggins’ Hour Record Pinarello Bolide

Here’s you chance to get up and close to the Pinarello Bolide ridden by Sir Bradley Wiggins in his successful Hour Record attempt earlier this year.

It’s a stunning bike to look at, which despite its simplicity has many intricate details that will have helped the bike to slip cleanly through the air and help him on his way to a new 54.525k record.

There was also a Team Wiggo Pinarello Dogma F8 on display as well.

Canyon Ultimate CF SLX

German direct-sales brand Canyon is exhibiting at the Cycle Show for the first time, and has brought along a couple of special bikes, including Nairo Quintana’s Tour de France Ultimate CF SLX.

You can tell it’s been ridden, the bar tape is still dirty from the last time he raced it. It’s quite common not to clean a pro bike after a special race for the purposes of showing it at bike shows, the bit of dirt and grit adds to the attraction.

Canyon also has brand new Ultimate CF SLX in a build you can actually buy, it a more restrained paint job. This one is packing a Dura-Ace Di2 drivetrain and Zipp 303 carbon fibre clincher wheels

Raleigh dives into gravel with Roker (carbon) and Mustang (aluminium) bikes

Raleigh has been enjoying a revival of fortunes in recent years, and has been turning out some cracking bikes. We were impressed with the carbon fibre Militis race bike and more recently the £750 Criterium Sport shone in a review. Raleigh has updated its existing range of cyclocross bikes but more interesting than that is the introduction of a gravel bike range.

Raleigh is keen to stress that the bikes have been thoroughly designed for UK cycling, and they do look the part. The range is split between the aluminium Mustang and two carbon fibre Roker bikes at the top. All bikes feature disc brakes and big tyre clearance, and tubeless-ready rims and tyres on most of the range.

The Roker carbon models cost £2,000 and £2,500, and both have thru-axles front and rear and SRAM 1x11 drivetrains with hydraulic disc brakes. We’re really keen to test one of these bikes, so we’re arranging a test bike at the moment.

Van Nicholas Amazon Cross now disc-only

Dutch titanium brand Van Nicholas has updated its Amazon Cross model with a disc brake only version.

Previously the bike came with disc and canti mounts, but they’ve now dropped the canti bosses, so it’s a much cleaner looking bike.

This show bike is specced with a SRAM Force 1x11 drivetrain with hydro disc brakes and FFWD’s new disc brake wheelset.

Transition Rapture CX - steel 'crosser

Since it is cyclocross season, here’s the Transition Rapture CX, a steel-framed cyclocross bike in a singlespeed build.

The dropouts are convertible so you can run it with gears if you prefer. It’s made from 4130 seamless and butted chromoly tubing, with a 44mm head tube.

Transition Bikes launch Rapture cyclo-cross bike

Ribble CR3 carbon fibre disc-equipped road bike

The CR3 is a brand new model from Ribble, the company’s first disc-equipped road bike.  It’s a full carbon fibre frame and fork, with clearance for wide tyres - it’s shown here with cyclocross tyres but you can equally run it with slicks.

Think of it as a versatile bike in a similar vein to the many gravel/allroad/roadplus bikes hitting the market at the moment. Bikes will cost from £1,099. This one has a Shimano 105 groupset with Avid BB7-S mechanical disc brakes.

Mason Definition with matching mudguards

Okay so it’s not a new bike, but this is the first time we’ve seen a Mason with mudguards fitted.

This is the Definition, the aluminium framed model with clearance for wide tyres, and it looks mighty fine with matching mudguards. Pictured here is the £2,095 Definition with Shimano 105 mechanical drivetrain and hydraulic disc brakes.

Cannondale Slate 650b allroad bike

If you’re a regular reader of road.cc, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the Slate, the brand new 650b wheeled gravel and adventure road bike from Cannondale, with a distinctive Lefty Oliver suspension fork providing a bump-taming 30mm of travel.

It’s getting ever closer to production and the Cycle Show is the first time the bike has been publicly displayed anywhere in the UK.

Beacon Cycles shows experimental bikes

British brand Beacon used the Cycle Show to unveil two new experimental bikes. One one is a titanium disc-equipped road bike, with space for wide tyres and eyelets for racks and mudguards.

The other new bike is this carbon fibre aero road bike. It’s currently being tested by Rob Hayles before it goes into production.

It’s an aggressive and purposeful looking bike, all sharp angles and creases, with internal cable routing to keep the lines clean.

More from the Cycle Show soon...

road.cc readers can enjoy discounted tickets, £12 instead of the usual £13.50, by using the RCC discount code. There are bigger savings for road.cc club members, you can purchase two tickets for £8.25 each. Another good reason to join our club...

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

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17 comments

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5th | 8 years ago
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I must be getting old if I'm the only one to spot the comeback of the Raleigh Mustang  26

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smileyT | 8 years ago
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Anyone see the mad Starley glass framed bike on the Datatag stand? Pity it's a display only

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userfriendly | 8 years ago
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The Mason Definition with guards gives me a hard on ... note to self: ask Dom to send me the mounting brackets for those, since they didn't come with the frameset (but should have, I think?)

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Dom replied to userfriendly | 8 years ago
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userfriendly wrote:

The Mason Definition with guards gives me a hard on ... note to self: ask Dom to send me the mounting brackets for those, since they didn't come with the frameset (but should have, I think?)

Mail me from the site and I'll post you a set out FOC. I don't think they were ready when you got your bike.

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Dave42W | 8 years ago
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A couple of years ago I asked about a disk brake bike at the Ribble stand and got a long lecture about how bad they were and how they would never sell one.

Oh well their loss and Whyte's gain.

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Dicklexic replied to Dave42W | 8 years ago
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Dave42W wrote:

A couple of years ago I asked about a disk brake bike at the Ribble stand and got a long lecture about how bad they were and how they would never sell one

They do seem conspicuously late to the disc brake party!

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Deac | 8 years ago
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Any idea what sort of cost the Cannondale Slate will start at?

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Deac | 8 years ago
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Any idea what sort of cost the Cannondale Slate will start at?

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tower.ii replied to Deac | 8 years ago
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Chris Deacon wrote:

Any idea what sort of cost the Cannondale Slate will start at?

2,500 for the 105 build.

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MamilMan | 8 years ago
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That Ribble frame is OK. I reckon it is actually a Flyxii FR602 like what I built 18 months ago after buying it from eBay. Good clearance... even for full guards with 32 tyres on.

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James67 replied to MamilMan | 8 years ago
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MamilMan wrote:

That Ribble frame is OK. I reckon it is actually a Flyxii FR602 like what I built 18 months ago after buying it from eBay. Good clearance... even for full guards with 32 tyres on.

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James67 replied to MamilMan | 8 years ago
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MamilMan wrote:

That Ribble frame is OK. I reckon it is actually a Flyxii FR602 like what I built 18 months ago after buying it from eBay. Good clearance... even for full guards with 32 tyres on.

Nice bike. What mudguards you got on there MamilMan?

 

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Ad Hynkel | 8 years ago
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"with clearance for bike tyres..."

Useful.

There are some very lovely bikes here. Must avert my eyes. And wallet.

Is it me or has that Mason got a bit of a ground bothering front mudguard?

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amazon22 replied to Ad Hynkel | 8 years ago
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Ad Hynkel wrote:

Is it me or has that Mason got a bit of a ground bothering front mudguard?

They use SKS Longboard Mudguards and the front one is fixed at the rear of the fork rather than the front, which would send it further round the wheel. Yes it does look a little close to the ground!

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1961BikiE | 8 years ago
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No Kinesis S4Disc?

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1961BikiE | 8 years ago
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No Kinesis S4Disc?

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Iamnot Wiggins | 8 years ago
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Shame that Condor isn't available until January as I've just ordered a new winter frame and it would've been ideal  20

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