Looking Forward to London

Hard to believe that it’s a year since we were looking at the emergence of RFID chips and the re-emergence of beautifully crafted steel frames at London Bike Show 2015, but this year’s edition is less than a month away.

The first big event of 2016 for the UK bike market, it will be interesting to see what fills the exhibition stands, here is what we expect to see more of in 2016:

Road discs

Everyone agrees that the place where road bikes will change most in the coming years is the shift towards disc braking. Savings in the frame and other components are pushing bike weights so far below the competition threshold of 6.8kg that there is headroom to think about where you would like to improve performance further and braking is definitely the focus.

Fat tyres

The other development that has started is the increasing tyre sizes starting to show on road bikes. Greater comfort delivered through a tyre that is more-or-less comparable on rolling resistance and carbon rims that don’t add on precious grams will be seen by many as a win.

Less obvious e-bikes

The e-bikes we have seen in recent years have started to look more desirable as early innovations become more refined and batteries become more discreet; your electronic option should start to look more like the bike next door.

More visible kit

Retro-reflective spray paint, stealth hi-viz and fully reflected fabric have been creeping up the agenda for the last couple of years. We think that this will become more mainstream going forward, the challenge will be for the cyclist who is not decked out to get spotted in amongst the crowd of bright shining stars.

Go wireless

Lastly what about the emergence of wireless groupsets. A few years ago if you rocked up at a sportive with a Di2 electronic group set, you would have stood out from the crowd, but as the electronic option becomes increasingly popular where is the new wow factor… in going wireless. The new SRAM Red eTap is expected to be available to the market this spring so let’s see if we can get a look at it.

Check out some of our photos from last year’s event:

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