The 2010 CycleShow was once again held in Earls Court, London.

This years event was bigger than ever and included more stands, more test bikes, and more displays than previous events.

The CycleShow aims to bring everything cycling all under one roof catering for all riding disciplines from commuting to road racing, right through to Mountain biking and every other discipline in between.
 

The new 2011 Sram range looked top notch for the up coming year, especially with more and more off the shelf bikes featuring Sram as standard. The X0, X7, X9 and XX drivetrain ranges all looked mightily impressive. Our favourite was the X9 both for quality, price, and for the black/red colour combination that did look very nice in the flesh. A slight shame was the colour and overall finish of the X0 crankset, which sadly did look pretty cheap. Generally the Sram ranges and kit (mechs, cranksets, brakes etc) all looked of a high quality and on paper at least should be a huge contender to at least match Shimano...

I just couldn't resist wandering over to take a peek at this stunningly bright coloured Yeti 303 downhill race bike. This bike is a Yeti 303DH Factory Team Edition model and this actual one happens to be the spare bike for Yeti team downhill rider Aaron Gwin. A replica version of this bike (slightly different than pictured) will be produced in 2011 in a limited run of only sixty five frames, yes only sixty five!!! The plan for 2012 that this frameset will be more readily available...however expect to still have to win the lottery to pay for one, this bike as pictured costs £6700...!

The new revised Marin bikes for 2011 looked amazing. The new Mount Vision trail bike was superb looking sporting its Fox forks, Sram X9 groupset and Formula RX brakes. The new black, white and green colour scheme really showed off the frame well, and we certainly think this could be a very popular trail bike in 2011. The new Rift Zone XC model looked just as superb in the white and blue scheme once again sporting Sram, Formula and Fox parts. The new carbon fibre Team CXR hardtail should certainly make a great contender in the lightweight XC hardtail market as well for 2011...

The Pivot Cycles Firebird & Pheonix models are based on a dw-link® design. The Firebird offers 167mm of travel and the Pheonix 207mm. The bikes have a full-floating rear shocks. The floating shock mount eliminates the need for welded parts which means the bikes are lighter and stronger. The Pheonix DH also features position-sensitive anti-squat.

Top news from Hope this year was their new integrated cassette that has been developed to allow a wider range of gearing to be used, by removing the need for a lock-ring to hold the cassette onto the rotor body. The rotor body and bigger cogs are machined from one piece of aluminium, with the smaller lower cogs being steel, with a nitride coating. Displayed on the stand in green and gold. Along with this were the usual array of different brake calipers and brake levers including some new pink anodized calipers and matching levers. Our pick out the of the choice of levers would be the ambidextrous ‘flip flop’ 'Tech' lever with on the fly reach and bite point adjustments.

Troy Lee designs new helmets and ride apparel were on display, and as per usual the colours and paint jobs were incredible. Here are two of the great new paint schemes available on the new carbon fibre D3 carbon helmet (the 'Speedwing White', left) and the on the D3 composite helmet (the 'Medusa Purple', right).

 

Marzocchi's 2011 range features a facelight and colours for the Bomber 55, 66 and 888's forks, including purple for the 55's. More exciting was the arrival of the new Corsa SL fork. This is a completely new designed fork weight only 1490grams! Marzocchi spent a whole year looking at every part, analyzing and redesigning resulting in parts that are specifically designed, gram-for-gram to deliver optimized performance. The result is a 1490g open bath purpose built race fork. The all new Corsa Superleggera, the start of something completely new for 2011...

 

Now we may have already covered Marin but Whyte bikes also deserve their own coverage. On display was the new Whyte 146 Works model, which is a super light, super capable trail weapon including a very very impressive spec including Fox Float forks and Sram XX groupset. Complete bike weighs 24.9lbs - very impressive for a 146mm rear/150mm front travel trail bike! Also on display was the carbon fibre hardtail 19C Works XX (weighing 19.1lbs with full Sram XX groupset) and the 19 Team carbon hardtail model featuring a full Shimano XTR groupset.

 

As always Specialized had one of the biggest stands in the whole arena, but we will let them off as they have got a fantastic new range for 2011. The most noted bike must be the new Specialized Camber (top left). The model pictured is the Pro featuring a 120mm travel Fox shock on a reworked M4 alloy FSR frame. Up front the Fox forks feature 120mm travel. This is a purists XC Trail Bike! The Pro by far has the nicest paint job from the Camber range too. The new S-Works Enduro was also on display (middle left) in an odd black/ anodized red colour scheme. The frame features 160mm travel with the front forks 160/135mm adjustable. Sram X0 and XX throughout. The new Epic S-Works was also on show, featuring a whole array of new kit, tweaks and upgrades. Also available in a 29er version. Also on display was the new Big Hit 1 with a brand new black/green paint scheme, the new Demo 8 II and Sam Hills winning custom demo DH rig. (still featuring mud from the last race)

This years event did seem an improvement over last years event, however there were still some major players in the industry that didn't attend, including Giant, Scott, Lapierre and Shimano. It was a real shame for these companies to not be present, especially when you consider how much of the market their products cover.

This years show as always had various other events and displays on, including a live street jam (BMX) with some very spectular stunts. There were also talks and various other productions going on throughout the day on the main arena stage.

We can report that 2011 is going red and green. This years colour schemes are very much red/white/black and green/black. We are so happy that we started the black and lime green colour scheme off, oh way back in 2005 (if you remember one of the old website looks).... we must have just been so ahead of the time....

It is rumoured that the CycleShow is off to the NEC in Birmingham next year so we will all have to sit and wait and see what happens on that one, hopefully a move and a new venue may bring some of the big players back to display their goods.

See you at the CycleShow in 2011...

All the best

The bucksmtb team