Wideopen: Icebike 2009

I got a rare treat of a day out of the office yesterday to visit Madison HQ for their ICEBIKE trade show. Madi are pretty much the UK's biggest supplier of stuff to bike shops and help Wideopen out a lot with news and test goodies. They're also supporting the Atherton's and are in charge of the UK's supply of Shimano, Commencal, Park Tools, Thor, Giro etc and shout about all their new goodies at the show. It's always a nice day out with some free food and a chance to see what is dope and what is wack for the new season.

As with every MTB trip the day started out with chaos as our lift dropped out, my car broke down and the hire company pissed us about for 3 hours. We had a fry up at the local greasy spoon while we waited though so not all a waste of time. Here's Nouveu getting busy with beans on toast:

We finally got to the show and bumped straight into our mate Nico from Commencal. He's from Commencal HQ in Andorra and works with a couple of other guys to design all the bikes you see out in the hills. First thing he had to show off was the new 2010 Carbon Meta 5.5:

Here's Gee's 2009 race bike complete with Shimano Pro kit, Nissan sponsorship and rainbow stripes.

Gee's tyres - still no sponsor in the bag for rubber....

And the World Champs replica that you can get your hands on. If you aint winning on this thing then you aint winning on anything!

On to the soft goods and we've got a huge new range of gloves from Giro. If you like lightweight gloves like the Troy Lee XC then you should take a look at these. They're nice and light with just enough padding and simple graphics. These ones are the Xens - there's another DH and XC glove in the full finger range. Nice kit.

New Bell Drop helmets with jazzy graphics:

We spend a lot of time talking to the guys at Madison in the UK - the show is a chance to meet the faces behind the actual companies we're talking about and see who actually designs, builds and tests the kit. This is Eric from Bell/Giro in the States.

Here's Rob - he's Wideopen staffer Pete's brother and works for Continental. He'll be racing DH this season for Nicolai - keep an eye out for him. Cheers for the hats fella!

Gamut had their new design bash rings on show which will be rolled out across all models. They're re-designed to be tougher, less likely to break if you over tighten the bolts and to fit all cranks without the need for any bodging. Below you've also got the new dual ring Gamut model and new chain ring. The new rings will be available in single tooth increases (36, 37, 38 etc) and will have nice tall teeth to stop your chain wobbling around.

Next stop Genesis bikes to chat to their designer James. He's based in the UK and is always a nice fella to chat to about where the bikes came from, what he had in mind for them and where they're going. We've got an Apltitude on long term test at the moment so it was great to get some feedback and get the bike's history. Here's a potential new paint job for the Genesis line up and James' personal proto 953 hardtail. The idea behind 953 is to get a ride that's light and strong like Ti but is a wee bit stiffer for a more responsive ride. Ian over at Hardtail nation has got a funny little piece on the bike.

Er... Ogio rambo vest thing...

Apparently Animal clothing have dropped their bike range this year. Madison have replaced them with their own range of technical kit which actually looks really good. Here's one of their jackets: