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The entirety of the Messe Frankfurt comprises about 400,000 square meters of indoor exhibition space, plus another 60,000 of outdoor space. Granted, Eurobike only occupies a handful of the total number of halls, but when you’re racking up close to 15,000 steps each, that’s enough to cover an awful lot of ground – particularly when you’re being borderline anti-social and not engaging in too much idle chit-chat.
The upside of that, however, is that it frees up more time to see more of the show, and we certainly saw quite a bit of it today.
A couple of mysterious high-end carbon road bikes? A truly revolutionary drivetrain system? Some new aero gear? A handful of weight-weenie lightweight tidbits? Amazing kid bikes? A glorious monument of gleaming polished metallic goodness?
We’ve got all of that and then some in today’s Eurobike tech gallery, with plenty more to come (and you can find all of Escape Collective‘s tech coverage so far from Eurobike here).
Felt didn’t provide any information on this thing aside from saying it’s the new FR.No surprises here: Felt is going with fully concealed routing for the new FR, although its designers and engineers at least had the sense not to port the lines through the stem. Note the separate bar and stem, too.Felt’s focus seems to be low weight and high stiffness on the new FR. I’d expect claimed figures for a raw frame to be somewhere around 700 g.The rounded trapezoidal-section top tube is straight and only slightly sloping, with a notable taper from end to end. The wedge-type seatpost binder is accessed from up top, and hidden under a rubber flap.Felt doesn’t appear to be going the aero route here, with all of the tubing featuring fairly large diameters and rounded cross-sections. There are no Kamm tails to be found.Looks like Felt is moving to a wide-format T47 threaded bottom bracket shell.The two-piece cockpit design will offer far more flexibility than any integrated one-piece setup. And note the slot in the faceplate for an accessory mount.The dropout area is quite tidy.SRAM’s UDH isn’t just coming to road bikes; it’s already here.Going along with the new Felt FR is an all-new VR endurance road bike, too, with a more upright geometry and what I’d expect to be more relaxed handling to match.Despite the taller head tube, Felt has outfitted this show sample with the same sleek two-piece aero cockpit as the FR.The dropped seatstays are presumably there to boost frame flex on bumps.Yep, UDH again.Felt is apparently sticking with 27.2 mm-diameter round seatposts for the foreseeable future.I’m still not a huge fan of lines that are run through the upper headset bearing, but this sort of setup is at least less of a nightmare when it comes to service and sizing.This limited-edition Schindelhauer townie offers up a gleaming reminder – quite literally, in fact – of how good polished aluminum looks.Schindelhauer is offering only five reproductions of this lovely machine, each of which will be manufactured in Berlin. And no, I didn’t bother to ask what it cost. You know the saying …The brushed raw aluminum, sanded-down welds, and polished aluminum components look absolutely amazing. I can’t imagine anyone would ever leave one of these locked up outside somewhere.This Scott Foil isn’t new, but I do find this specific finish to be particularly eye-catching. The image doesn’t do it justice given the crummy convention hall lighting.MOAR PURPLE.UK-based brand Early Rider offers one of the most comprehensive ranges of higher-performance kid bikes I’ve ever seen. A full-suspension 20″ bike that isn’t total crap? Yes, please. This one supposedly weighs just 10.15 kg, although it comes with a €2,400 price tag.As luck would have it, my kid is just about the right size for this Early Rider Hellion X24 full-suspension 24″-wheeled bike from Early Rider. It supposedly weighs just 11.5 kg, and has a retail price of €2,500.It features front and rear air suspension, and a dropper post, too. Kids don’t know how good they have it these days.Early Rider has even outfitted this bike with a Shimano Deore transmission.More purple!For the really little ones. So cute.Ergon’s new GT-1 grip is designed to offer four distinct hand positions for long-day hand comfort. It may look a little goofy, but it admittedly feels really good to hold. Retail price is €45.Here’s 1 …… and another …… this makes three …… and here’s the last one.Ergon’s new GXR Circular foam rubber grip is made of old grips that are chopped up, ground down, and re-molded. The price is the same as the regular GXR, and Ergon says it’s just as comfortable. Retail price is €20.Looking for a bit more color on your XC bike? Look to Ergon’s new Lava series. Retail price is €20.Ergon has a new rearview mirror that plugs into the end of your bar. Retail price is €40.The fiber-reinforced arm has a nifty “park” feature to prevent damage.Ergon’s new SR Allroad saddle costs a reasonable €80 given its European manufacturing and chromoly rails. It’s offered in two widths and is slightly shorter than the “Core” version of the SR Allroad, but still with lots of extra-springy padding.The center channel doesn’t quite go all the way through the nose, but it’s still quite long and deep.Abus’s redesigned Gamechanger 2.0 aero road helmet is what you’d expect. As compared to the original, it’s supposedly more aerodynamic, better ventilated, and more comfortable than before.There’s a bit more forward vent area than before, but Abus says the ports are appropriately located and sized for stashing eyewear.The rear “exhaust” ports are said to more efficiently evacuate hot air, particularly when you’re moving at higher speeds.The port up top is designed to help suck air in off the surface of the helmet and down the back of your scalp at speed.One of the key features is this pseudo-mesh panel up top. Like other brands that have adopted this approach in the past, Abus says it behaves like a solid panel at higher speeds to reduce drag, but the small holes still allow hot air to escape at lower speeds.Performance claims aside, I think the Abus Gamechanger 2.0 looks quite nice, too, and the company is once again offering it in an impressively broad range of matte and gloss colors.The optional MIPS Air Node padding covers nearly the entire contact surface of the Gamechanger 2.0’s interior, which Abus says is a key reason why it’s claimed to be more comfortable than its predecessor. Also, sweat is supposedly able to wick from the browpad to the forward straps to help keep anything from dripping into your eyes.The straps are especially interesting, partially because of how there’s a single piece of webbing running through the whole thing with a stitched splitter. However, the leading edge is also notably thicker than the rest of the strap, and the straps intentionally sit very close to your face, which Abus says reduces wind noise and fluttering. Now this I have to check out for myself.The rear cradle is adjusted with a single knob. It feels reasonably flexible, and there’s a broad range of height adjustment.Although this particular sample only has a CE approval sticker on it, I’m told the exact same version of Gamechanger 2.0 passes both CE and CPSC test protocols.Looking to shave some grams? Pretty much anything Carbon-Ti makes is often a good place to start looking. Its X-Rotor Steelcarbon 2 rotors don’t skimp too much on swept area, but the carbon fiber spiders and titanium rivets help bring the claimed weight of a 160 mm-diameter six-bolt sample down to just 77 g. For reference, a SRAM Centerline X is nearly 120 g.Carbon-Ti rotors aren’t exactly inexpensive, however, so it’s nice that the company at least offers a service where the steel portion can be replaced by itself.Carbon-Ti also offers lightweight chainrings using aluminum teeth and carbon centers. But how well do they shift, you wonder? Probably not as well as stock offerings, but hey, being a weight weenie often carries a cost that goes beyond just the price tag.I know, I know, you’re wondering to yourself, “How the heck are CushCore’s new MTB tire inserts e-bike-specific???” Well, let me tell you: they use the same fluted profile as the Trail model that was debuted at Sea Otter, but use a denser foam that’s better able to handle the particularly hard impacts that heavier e-bikes are expected to deliver. Claimed weight is nearly 300 g apiece, and retail price is just slightly higher than CushCore’s other foam inserts at US$160/pair.Tannus isn’t as well known as some other brands in the tubeless foam tire insert space, but they look intriguing. This one is aimed specifically at gravel tires (and perhaps wider all-road ones) with an impressive sub-50 g (per wheel) claimed weight and notably lower pricing than much of the competition (although the exact figures are TBC).Tannus says these reliefs remove a lot of the material (and thus, weight) from the new gravel insert while still offering excellent rim and pinch flat protection. We’ll hopefully find out firsthand soon.
