Conference noted::bicycle

2185.0. "Geneva "Deux Roues" show, 5-10 Feb" by 52925::MACFADYEN (top one, nice one, get sorted) Sat Feb 08 1992 16:51

I went to Palexpo in Geneva on Saturday afternoon for the "Expo des Deux
Roues": motorbikes and bicycles to you and me. Paid my 8Sfr and went into
Hall 4 expecting a feast of groovy machinery. And got it too. I took some
notes for the benefit of you lot, so I'll just dump them on you now.
I was more interested in road bikes than ATBs, so this report is slanted in
that direction. 


Road bikes and frames
---------------------

Entered. Looked left, Cannondale: slogan: "The future of cycling". Looked
right, Merlin: slogan, "It's only a bike". I kid you not! You'd never
believe it reading this conference. I just had to have a close look at the
Merlins. Well, they're bicycles, no doubt about it. What else can I say?
That a bare-metal finish is the style for Titanium (there were other Ti
bikes around)? That this makes them look slightly, well, industrial? That
the tubing is slightly oversize? I guess it's all in the ride. There were
two ATBs on the Merlin stand, one of which used markedly oversized tubing
and had a "Design by Rob Vandermark" sticker.

Over at Cannondale the 2.8 series frame looked the business, as did the
ST1000 tourer. Read a review of a Cannondale tourer once which was ecstatic
about the ride. A stiff frame is important when heavy things are dangling
off it all over the place. Other than the rider, I mean.

Staying with US manufacturers, I saw the Trek 5500, the bike that one of
our noters has recently acquired. Monocoque carbon frames are definitely a
coming thing, and this was one. It looks less radical than some others,
sort of an intermediate between monocoque and stick bikes, but it did
look very good and was well finished.

Other monocoques: Corima, a French manufacturer: an utterly desirable
bright yellow model with curvy styling reminiscent of an old American
roadster. Vitus have a very highly styled carbon frame, almost like a
design sketch brought to life in the way its lines swoop and curve. Also
there, Kestrel 2000. Let me tell you, I wanted them all. I wonder what they
ride like.

The nicest steel bikes I saw were by a frame-builder from Grenoble whose
name escapes me right now, even tho' I lifted some of his bumf. These bikes
were a beautiful blend of existing technology and subtle modernity. They
were lugless: lovely smooth fillet brazing softening all the tube joints,
built mainly in Columbus. You just wanted to grab them and head for the
hills. I'll put the name in here when I find it; this is definitely a
builder who could make you your dream bike. Ah, found it - Routen.

Going US again, I stopped off at the Klein stand, nicely done with wood
chips on the ground, and, fighting my way past monstrously fat and brightly
coloured Attitudes, Rascals and the like, headed for their sole road bike.
It was rather insensitive to put a "MTB technology" decal on it, I thought.
However, this was one of my favourite bikes of the show. The tubes were fat
but not gigantic, so the proportions were nice. It was bright, bright red.
And it was built (you listening, n_flye) with Edco components. Even though
they're Swiss, I'd never seen them before. They're chunky but well finished
and suited the bike well. I switched through the indexing and it worked a
treat.

Saw the Vitus 992 frame that Hemmings was going on about buying, but it's
too modern for him, let alone too expensive. Vitus are using the same fancy
headset in their all-carbon frame, btw. Look have some fancy new carbon
frames. The two monocoque style ones dispense with the traditional
steerer-tube-inside-head-tube arrangement, and do things more like a hinge.
They also have pantograph stems, which allow large and quick variations in
stem length. Could be useful.

At the Oria stand (German tubing manufacturer) I admired their carbon
frame. Built in the conventional stick-bike way, this frame was
astoundingly light. They had astoundingly low security, too. The reps were
in a little private room ignoring me. There weren't many people around.
Unattached to anything but me was a gorgeous carbon frame that looked about
my size. Was I tempted for a minute? You bet!


Components
----------

Well, it was Shimano V Campag in the handlebar-shifting stakes. Many, many
bikes were built with one or the other. Starting with Shimano, STI has now
come to Ultegra. As a result, it's gone 8-speed, which I guess means 130mm
rear hubs, which I guess means I can't use it without buying a new bike.
But some of you were recently saying that STI can be used 7-speed too?

Quite a few bikes were kindly mounted in such a way that you could spin the
cranks and check the shifting. So I tried it with STI. It works. I want it.
On one bike I checked, the Ultegra shifting was a little bit uncertain.
However, on a show bike with people like me mauling it day-in, day-out,
I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Campag Ergo is like STI, but not the same. There are three levers, in fact.
The front lever is purely for the brake. Hiding behind it, a smaller lever
which you swing inwards to shift to a larger rear cog. On the *inside* of
the brake hood, a short, flat lever that you push down, like a switch, to
allow the chain to return to a smaller cog. It all worked very well, but I
thought the shape of the brake lever was unkind for small hands: it seems
to require too much reach either with the hand on the brake hood or down on
the drops. In my opinion, of course.

Shimano XTR, the new top-line ATB group, was on many bikes. It has the best
arrangement of ATB STI shifting yet, very comfortable. I notice that the
8-speed cogs on the back are mounted on a thing like a miniature crank
spider - very sculptural.

Many nice wheels. Fast wheels come in three groups now. First, carbon disc.
Second, carbon 3, 4 or 5 spoke. And third, a wide carbon and metal rim with
a small number of bladed spokes; say 18. This kind of wheel looks very 
convincing. Saw one built with *wavy* spokes, like they have a slight crimp
in them. Don't know what it's for, but they looked great!

Also saw the Modolo X-Tenos bar with three straight sections. Rather
fancied this one, myself, but I've already got the Q-even bars with two
straight sections and like them a lot. I must say I was bit miffed when
John Ellis slagged them off a few months ago as being too deep. As a
criticism, that had never occurred to me. Maybe I'm too shallow!


ATBs
----

A brief note on the ATB front. OK, here's where it's at. Fat tubes,
aluminium, raised chainstays, front rock-shox and similar, front swing-arm
suspensions (the coming thing), front hidden in the steerer tube suspension
(Cannondale), rear suspension of many types, a lot of them looking over
engineered, the most convincing being a single swing arm pivoted on the
seat tube and connecting to a short-travel shock-absorber mounted low on
the down tube, flash paint jobs, Shimano XTR (dead nice), Suntour not much
in evidence, plastic body armour (I am not making this up), Pro-stop disc
brake mounted on Bullseye front hub, and, err, lots of other things.

Honestly, they all blended into one another after a while. I was in
deep techno-shock by the end. I could have been taken gently by the hand
and told to buy anything and I would have done. Fortunately none of the
hardware was for sale so I bought an ice-cream mars bar to get the blood
sugar level up and wandered off to look at the trials kids jumping up on
cars in the showring, using Klein ATBs with ultra-low gears. They were
great. I've often wanted to ride over cars with my bike.
                


Rod


PS   Thanks Norbert for letting me know about this show.
PPS  Oria are still the owners of their demo carbon frame.

    Thanks, Rod, for a great write-up!  Only problem is it makes one
    want to have gone to the show.  :-)

    As to the flat-section anatomic handlebars, I must confess being
    wistful about them of late, now that I've got into a more stretched-out
    position on the bike.  I'm actually thinking of trying out the bar
    again, although the bike shop is going to look at me pretty funny when
    I change my mind again.  :-)  BTW, I do have short arms, and so it's taken
    some time to get stretched out enough to reach the front of the drops.

    As to the Trek 5x00, the tubing design including the shape of the
    joints, the wishbone seat stays, etc., look very similar to my Kestrel.
    (I got a good chance to compare a week ago when a friend showed up at
    my 200km on his *new* ("nagelneu" in fact) 5300.  Noticeable differences:

      - the downtube isn't as "teardrop" shaped as on the Kestrel;

      - the top tube is more cylindrical - on the Kestrel, the top
        tube is a vertical oval near the seat, a *horizontal* oval by
        the time it reaches the headset;

      - the fork (though carbon fibre) is shaped like a "normal" alu-
        or steel fork; the Kestrel EMS fork is a lot more aero-shaped.

    As to how carbon rides, it definitely helped on some rough roads yesterday,
    whilst a companion was jostled by his crit-angled big-tubed Cannondale.
    That's one reason I *think* I'll bring the Kestrel to England next week 
    - the other being salt on the roads.  :-)

    Excuse the big digression... hope you get to ride a carbon bike, Rod,
    and take STI out on the road.

    -john
    

    5300?

    
    Ummm... 5200?
    
    Whatever the Ultegra is.  Shouldn't that be 5600?
                                                 ^^^
    
    -john

    Ultegra, purple, 5200
    Dura-Ace, black, 5500
    
    A least that's the intent.
    
    ed

    
    Well, these model numbers make you curious about the gaps
    (like the PDP-11/20, PDP-11/40, ...)  What gruppi and colors
    are possible in between?
    
       5000 - Xenon, grey
       5100 - 105, yellow
       5300 - Mavic something, green
       5400 - Suntour Superbe Pro, red