Saturday morning, I left the house for Eurobike at 4.30AM and walked to the train station to catch a train to Constance at 5.15AM. There were no buses at this early hour and I wasn’t going to kick my wife out of bed on a Saturday morning. At the train station I had the time to buy a Coke and a sandwich at an open sandwich shop. Seems like these shops are doing great business with the clubbers that are on their way home after a night of dancing and drinking. I had to stand in line for a while. Sandwich and Coke stowed away, I jumped on the train. It departed 5 minutes late due to a technical hiccup, but I wasn’t too worried about getting to Constance in time for the boat trip across the lake. 5 minutes is easy to catch up on such a distance. About 10 minutes after to the train rolled out of the station, a female conductor escorted by two security guys came to check everyone’s ticket. Another sign that trains at this hours were mostly loaded with drunk party-goers. By the time the train entered Zurich’s main station, the train was back on schedule. I got to Constance, quickly walked to the harbor to catch the catamaran going to Friedrichshafen. No luck, like everyone else who got off the train we were too late. The catamaran was already filled up to the last seat and they were not letting anyone else on board. We all had to wait for the next one departing in an hour. I used that time to head back to the train station to exchange a few francs and then stopped at a bakery for a Macchiato to go. I walked back to the harbor and got myself comfortable on a bench with a nice view of the lake. Time went by quickly and soon enough I was on the boat to Friedrichshafen. A short bus trip later and I walked into the bike show.
I first thought about taking lots of photos during the day, but I soon realized that the show was too large, the day too short and the crowd too big to shoot pics. I put the camera away and just walked to show primarily looking for 29ers, 29er tires, components and anything else that would catch my interest. Well, it really isn’t a big surprise, but almost everyone at the show had one or two or more 29ers in their line for next year. Never before have there been as many 29ers at one place in Europe. Whether brands are based in Germany, Italy, France or elsewhere, they all have jumped on the band wagon. As far as big-wheeled bikes this year’s Eurobike was immense. While I’m really not all too familiar with brands like Centurion, Focus, Haibike, Rose and Author, it was awesome to see that all of them have gone big wheels. What did I like in particular? Well, the first one I have to mention is GT’s Zaskar, which was almost hidden in their show booth, then the Breezer Cloud 9 LTD, a wonderfully made frame almost too nice to take out on dirt. Scott’s Scale and Specialized’s Stumpjumper were two others I liked. In my quest to make it through the entire show, I’m sure I missed a couple.
At every tire manufacturer, I stopped and touched every 29er tire on display. One tire soon going to be in my arsenal is Schwalbe’s new 2.35 Nobby Nic. That thing is huge, in fact possibly too huge for the rear triangle of my frame because I prefer to keep plenty of room between tire and stays. But coupled with a smaller 2.25 this would make an awesome combo for late fall to spring. The Maxxis Icon is a tire I might try during the drier part of the year and WTB’s Bronson could soon do its job on my front wheel. There are definitely now a lot of tires to choose from.
Componentwise, I really don’t need anything else for the new A9C, so I wans’t hunting for anything in particular. Despite most people riding softtails or fullies, there were a lot of rigid forks by various brands. I guess I’m not alone with a preference for a rigid front end. Ritchey has a monster with massive fork legs. DT completely redid the old Pace with an all-carbon crown and redesigned dropouts which had always been Pace’s weakest point. To mention is a brand I had never come across before - X-Lite. They offer a carbon fork somewhat similar to Niner, but offer it in three lengths - 440, 455 and 470mm. For a rigid carbon fork extremely unusual, but certainly highly desirable for some, is the possibility to get the fork with 15mm thru-axle dropouts. Standard 9mm is obviously available as well.
I stopped at Rotor to check out their new 3D+ crankset, a redesign of their popular 3D crank but now lighter and stiffer with 30mm aluminum axle. If I didn’t already own a 3D crankset, the new 3D+ would go onto the A9C. 30mm seems like where cranksets are heading these days. Whether BB30, BBRight or else, you could see many high-end crankset with the beefier axle. Clavicula’s were real eyecatchers but so were New Ultimate’s cranks with oversized spindle. Well, I’m planning on getting a set of compact 3D+ cranks with oval 52/36 chainrings for my roadbike as soon as they hit the shops.
Besides seeing lots of goodies, I also got the change to meet Chris and Steve from Niner. I put on a Niner shirt to go to the show. What else could a Niner rider like myself wear for the occasion? It was a great day, totally worth the long trip. One day for this bike show isn’t nearly enough, though. If you want to take your time to see everything, you need to be there for at least two or three days.
For a nice set of pictures check out the 29er gallery by HappyMTB.
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