We've just uploaded our biggest batch of pictures yet from last month's Eurobike exhibition in Germany in the process we've created a new gallery of road bikes, our biggest yet, and another gallery of singlespeeds and fixeds. Our Urban, utility and commuting gallery has now double in size – it's enormous with well over 200 pics in it in fact all our picture galleries are stuffed to bursting point. Oh, and we've added Filippo Pozzato's Ridley Damocles to our Pro bikes gallery.
We've got lots of stories to come from all the shows we've been at in the last few weeks but in the meantime here are a few of the highlights from our latest batch of Eurobike pics… to see all the latest pics together click on the Upload 11 tag and treat yourself to 32 pages of bikes and beatifully hand-crafted captions.
Carrera Phibra
Such a shame that you can't get these bikes in the UK because Carrera had some very striking looking machines to show off. None more so than the Phibra which combines the two dominant design cues currently fashionable among Italian bike manufacturers; dramatic curves and an integrated seat post.
The Phibra's curves are if anything curvier than most and Carrera combine that with some really beefy looking tube profiles. Carrera call their method of construction 2b which stands for double arc block, they say it gives the strength of a monocoque but with the option of custom fitted geometry. There was no-one to ask what that all means when we passed by, but our guess is that it it's a fancy way of saying the frame is made in two bits and then stuck together – Colnago do something similar.
The Phibra wasn't the only interesting looking bike on Carrera's stand either, the Hercules and the Estremo are also worth a look as is their lugged steel offering, the Redwing. To look at them all together simply click on the Carrera or Carrera 2010 tabs or seem them with loads of other lush looking machines in our Eurobike road bike 6 gallery.
Evil Bikes
Formed by a collective of designers and engineers from a mountain biking background Evil bikes had probably my favourite looking single speed/fixed at the show, plain and simple TiG welded steel, in blancmange pink with cool graphics – the word is that Evil will be making different sticker kits available every month so that you can repeatedly transform the look of your stead. Nice one, mind you they'd have to to a long way to come up with something better than the pop art homage on their singlespeed.
Evil also had a cool looking hub geared urban bike on their stand too which is well worth checking out. Click on the Evil tab to see more or to see the full gallery of fixed and singlespeeds head over to Fixed gear and singlespeeds 3.
Another very lovely range of bikes posted in the new fixed gallery are these beauts from new German outfit Schindelhauer – the one that particularly caught our eye was this brushed and lacquered item made from hydro-formed aluminium, the detailing was superb and check out the ports for internal cable routing. Hit Schindelhauer to see more.
Gomier road bike
Not sure whether this falls into the sublime or the ridiculous category… yes I am, it's sublime, partly because Mr Gomier (or whoever the bloke in charge was) tried to flog me one on the last day of the show.
These beauties were in the Taiwanese pavillion which is as much about manufacturers showing off what they can do and the custom paint jobs on these bikes were really beautifully done. Retro being the fashion most of the bikes on display were lugged steel some of them though had carbon back ends – the rear stays slotting into the main frame via a steel lug with an amazing hammered pattern – now that's putting the “hand” into handmade.
Hit the Gomier tab to check out all our Gomier pics, and though they didn't go in our Weird and wonderful gallery it's well worth taking a gander at all the new stuff that did.
MTB Cycletech
Possibly my favourite range of bikes at the show were these babies from Swiss outfit MTB Cycletech – not cheap, but very cheerful tourers, urban and generally do anything bikes. Again the detailing was superb. MTB Cycletech's materials of choice are titanium, and steel – Reynolds 953 and 853.
The touring type bikes were 26in wheeled affairs while their urban bike, the Jalopy was running 700Cs the latter was available as a pure singlespeed or with a hub gear – with it's mountain bike derived frame it was basically a road going 29er and certainly looked well up to a bit of light trail use too – all you' need to do was flip the riser bars the right way up!
All their bikes managed the difficult trick of looking both classic, different and modern without looking a mess. One of the trends of this show we all picked up on was the return of the bar-end shifter – on some bikes it simply looked like they'd raided the parts bin where they popped up on the MTB Cycletechs they just looked right.
To see more click on the MTB Cycletech tab or go to our bulging Touring and trekking bike gallery.
Finally a teaser which one of these three bikes had the man from the UCI reaching for his tape measure, oh, and as a tie-breaker, what bit did he stop to measure? Check them all out in out Time Trial bike 2 gallery.
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nope, I wasn't tempted not for that one… maybe for this Gomier Forever frame… maybe http://road.cc/sites/default/files/images/Gomier%20Forever%20frame.jpg
Hope you didn't cross Mr Gomier's palm with silver- it looks like Gypsy Rose Lee's fairground caravan crossed with a kitsch canal boat.