London Bike Show has long been an important part of the UK bike show calendar, this year we headed down to check out all the best bikes, kit and intriguing products at the show.
After a day spent trawling the stands and talking to brands here is our pick of the best things you might have missed at London Bike Show 2019.
THE SHOWS
One of the best things about London Bike Show is actually away from the brand tents – a fantastic line up of talks, demos and workshops to keep you entertained across the three days of the show. When we went on Friday, two things really stood out; Fantastic talks from Ex-pro racers (Sean Yates pictured below) & and a deserved focus on women’s cycling.
ASHMEI
Clothing brand Ashmei had one of the most interesting stands at the show –partly due to being comprised of an Airstream trailer, and partly due to some of the innovative merino wool cycling kit they had on show. To emphasise their commitment to sustainability and in partnership with Woolmark Ashmei debuted their film showing the degradation of merino vs synthetic alternatives – on the stand was the two jerseys they had buried 6 months ago showing the issues with using synthetic fibre – namely how long it lasts after its intended use.
CASQUETTE LIVE STAGE
To further emphasise the importance the London Bike Show is rightly putting into celebrating women’s cycling, Casquette teamed up with the London Bike Show to create an incredible new show-within-show concept called ‘Casquette Live’, which aimed to celebrate the very best in women’s cycling and showcase women’s-specific cycling brands, gear and content across the three days of the show. Our friends at NLTCBMBC held a track-standing workshop on Sunday and we attended a fantastic talk from Belinda Scott (founder of Bella Velo); Emily Childs (MD of Attacus Cycling); Danielle Welton (co-founder of Casquette); Iris Slappendall (former pro cyclist, founder of the Cyclists’ Alliance and founder of I Ride In Style; Jenni Gwiazdowski, Director and founder of the London Bike Kitchen, a do-it-together bike workshop in Hoxton focussed around shaping the future of women’s cycling.
THE VANDAL
Belgian brand The Vandal had an array of great cycling-themed, casual clothing showcased on their stand. Ecologically sourced, designed and printed in house, and delivered (where possible) by cargo bike they’re a brand that takes a responsible approach to production and creates retro inspired-urban clothing.
ORANGE BIKES R9
Orange have a long & storied history in mountain biking and their famous downhill bikes are known for their angular shapes and marmite looks but they have often produced road bike frames and completes within their range. The R9 is their latest and looks to be setting a new standard for a road bike within the Orange stable. With promised “super-strong yet superlight frame construction” built with a tick list of a dream road bike in mind designed for distance, effortless climbing and to “descend like a missile” the R9 looks like it has achieved everything on the list and looks resplendent in matt black carbon with ‘fizzy orange’ accents.
CALIBRE BIKES
Calibre aim to redefine what is possible with an ‘affordable’ bike and in their 5 years of existence they have gone a long way to acheiving that aim. With their latest bike, the Sentry and Sentry Pro they have moved into a new realm – a ‘no-holds-barred’ Enduro bike built from the ground up at a higher price point than they have worked to previously, Calibre look to have again acheived a remarkably specced bike at an affordable price (when compared with other brands offering similar specs).
COCO-MAT BIKES
Here at Hiplok we’re huge design geeks, and taking a non-traditional material and handcrafting a bike from it really appeals to us.COCO-MAT can take an adult ash tree and creat 50 bikes from it, planting another tree for each bike sold. We really like how they incorporate components within the same aesthetic, wooden handlebars, racks and fenders complete the look. The range goes from the Odysseus E-Bike, right down to the Argos (not that one) balance bike.