The end of Eurobike is in sight, and before we make our weary way to the airport to travel home, here are six cool and interesting bikes that we spotted yesterday at the show, including Mike Hall's still dirty Tour Divide race bike, a gravel/monstercross offering from Moots, and disc brakes from Italian brands Colnago and De Rosa.
Mike Hall's Tour Divide winning bike
Mike Hall’s Tour Divide winning Pivot LES hardtail has literally been packed up at the end of the 2,745-mile mountain bike race and unpacked, still dirty, onto Apidura’s stand at Eurobike. Hall set a new record of 13 days, 22 hours and 51 minutes for the race, 12 hours faster than the previous record.
The bike is a Pivot LES 29er carbon fibre hardtail with Reynolds carbon fibre rims, a front dynamo hub powering his lights and other devices via a USB stem plug, a Shimano Di2 XTR groupset and some nifty custom handlebar extensions with Di2 shifter buttons at the ends, which help to provide a variety of positions and let him change gear even when he can’t feel his hands from the cold.
Moots Baxter 29er
Straddling the thin line between a gravel and mountain bike is this new Baxter from titanium specialists Moots. It has been designed specifically for tackling events like the Tour Divide and any other bikepacking or unsupported epic challenges one might be planning.
The frame is based on a mountain bike so there’s massive tyre clearance and it’ll be available with either mountain bike flat handlebars or roadie drops. There’s the option of fitting a rigid fork, like Mike Hall opted for Tour Divide, or a 100mm suspension fork if you want some extra cushioning up front.
The bike is pictured here with an Enve carbon rigid fork, Shimano XT Di2 groupset and Mavic 29er wheels and tyres, flared drops and Apidura packs.
Brick Lane Bikes Viper track bike
From one extreme to another, from the rough to the smooth, this Viper is a very clean looking track bike from fixed wheel specialists Brick Lane Bikes, with an integrated seatmast and oversized tube profiles to ensure maximum frame stiffness, and there’s the option to fit a brake to the carbon fork if you want.
Mango's prototype frameset for Shimano's Metrea groupset
Shimano launched its Metrea urban/city slick looking groupset last year and it caused a small stir, but it was having a big push this year and had arranged for a large number of bike brands to supply frames to display the groupset. British bike brand Mango Bikes produced this prototype aluminium frame, with an elevated driveside chainstay to act as a chainguard and a custom rack that can either bit fitted to the rear stays, as it is in this photo, or to the fork.
“It’s our exciting high-performance city bike, designed specifically for the Metrea groupset,” says Mango’s Pete Gordon. “The raised chainstay acts as a guard to keep your clothes off the chain, whilst also improving stiffness. This is the first production prototype with a rear rack however the finished design will also feature front rack fittings. There is also a neat U-lock mount through the chainstay.”
De Rosa Pininfarina with disc brakes
De Rosa’s SK Pininfarina was unveiled at Eurobike last year and this year it has added a disc-equipped version. The design of the frame was a joint project between De Rosa and Pininfarina with an emphasis on aerodynamics, and it has managed to not only retain the aesthetics with the move to disc brakes but to my eyes it’s a nicer looking bike - we hardly spotted the disc brakes at first.
It’s using thru-axles on the new fork and rear dropouts, though the axles are clearly too long as the threads are protruding from the frame, and flat mount for attaching the calipers to the frame and fork, as most other manufacturers are using this year.
Colnago updates C60 Disc
Colnago was an early adopter of disc brake, being one of the first bigger brands to really get into the idea of offering disc brakes alongside their regular rim braked bikes. The C60 has been available in a disc version for a while now, but for 2017 the frameset has been updated.
It’s now sporting 12mm thru-axles at both ends, using the HexLock system it developed in conjunction with Manitou - it’s similar to the Focus RAT system in that it only requires a quarter turn to open and close. The fork is all-new and now has a flat mount fitting for the disc brake caliper, and the frame is flat mount too.
More from Eurobike soon...
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