One day a few photos - 16



Thursday 25th September



The Cycle Show is back in England, and once again it is at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre. I went along and checked it out for the day. As usual the larger cycle manufacturers like Trek, Colnago and Raleigh had fancy stands with their 2015 range on show. There were a lot of smaller stands with innovative items on offer. A couple that caught my eye were the new range of helmets from Brooks which have a fabric and tweed covering. It's great to have helmets to wear which match with your ordinary clothing, rather than almost exclusively helmets that better match sportswear.

There were various stands with different ways of improving cyclist's safety, notably through lighting systems. One I particularly liked was the one from Veglo which consists of commuter straps worn around your body or around your rucksack with a light and fibre optics that light up. They not only allow the cyclist to be seen by other motorists but they give a sense of depth and distance away as the motorist approaches the cyclist from behind.

Finally, a company called Tannus were displaying their puncture-free tyres in a range of bright and cheerful colours. The tyres are made from solid material so there is no inner tube and if a sharp object penetrates the tyre there is nothing to deflate, hence the tyre still keeps its shape and doesn't go flat.

These shows are always a good way to catch up with folks in cycling. Among the people I bumped into were people from other cycling magazines, Geoff Saxon who organisers the Wiggle-Kilo-to-Go cyclosportives, bike shop owners Maurice Burton and Guy Pearson. I also managed to get an interview in with 2-time Giro d'Italia winner Ivan Basso. He was all very amenable and spoke English pretty well - which was handy for me as my Italian was a bit rusty at times! Anyway, a good day out.