More London Bike Show 2015 highlights: Beacon, Canyon, Genesis, Guru, Schwalbe and more

We’re spoiling you now, with another roundup of new bikes and products from the London Bike Show 2015 that took over the ExCeL Centre in London over the weekend. This time we’ve got new stuff from Beacon, Canyon, Genesis, Guru, Mosquito Bikes and Schwalbe. If you missed our first show roundup, be sure to have a read of it here.

Mosquito Bikes unveil The Escapist steel frame

The Escapist is a new frame from London’s Mosquito Bikes, a bike shop that predominantly specialises in exotic and high-end brands (Moots, Pegoretti, Alchemy, Independent Fabrication etc). Some 20-years ago Mosquito produced their own-brand frame but that slipped into the history books, but with a resurgence in UK made steel frames at the moment, they felt it was the ideal time for a revival.

The frame is still very much in development, this one is awaiting a coat of paint, and after the show it’s going to be built up for some test riding. It’s constructed from Columbus Life tubing and the exquisite welding is from the skilled hands of Jon Chickens down in Brighton.

Mosquito will provide a full bike fit with each frame bought, and will offer stock and custom geometry options. If you want some idea of what the finished frame will look like when painted and stickered up, Google has the answer. More details on this new frame soon.

Canyon Inflite and Urban bikes

Canyon unveiled the Urban as a prototype a couple of years ago, and it has now gone into production. Canyon might be best known to road.cc readers for their race bikes and Grand Tour victories, but they have a keen interest in utilitarian bicycles as a form of transport, and there's no denying it's a popular segment of the market.

The radical looking frame is packed with details to make it ideal for popping to the shops and dashing across town. There are disc brakes, a single ring drivetrain and internal cable routing, and there are eyelets for mudguards and racks for loading up with luggage. The VCLS seatpost smooths the ride. This Urban model is priced from £1,099, but the Urban range starts at £599 with rather more conventional, mtb-inspired, bikes.

Rather more conventional too is this Inflite AL. It’s a cyclo-cross bike at heart, but recognising that many people buying ‘cross bikes aren’t actually using them to race 'cross on, this model is specced as a purpose-built commuter bike.

The aluminium frame and carbon fork are accompanied by proper full-length mudguards, complete with mudflaps, and disc brakes.

One very neat detail is the application of reflective decals on the fork, top tube, down tube and rear stays, something I’ve tried, rather unsuccessfully, to capture in this photo. We've seen a few manufacturers are doing this, and is certainly a smart idea for daily commuters for providing a bit more visibility. Every little helps and all that. There are two models, the Inflite AL 9.0 S at £1,449 and Inflite AL 8.0 S at £1,199.

Guru release new Photon V.4 

Guru are a Canadian company and this is their Photon SL, one of four bikes in the Photon range. Guru makes their top-end frames by hand using a tube-to-tube construction process.

The claimed frame weight is sub-750g, so healthily light then. It’s not light on your wallet though, a frameset costs from £3,449. It's a very nice looking frame, with squared rounded tubes and the internal routing is Di2 compatible.

If you have your heart set on a Guru but don’t have the budget for the Photon SL, this Photon V.4 (below) is a bit more affordable, at £1,795 for the frame. It’s a brand new frame for 2015 and will be available this spring.

There are four models in the Photon range, this is the least expensive. It’s available in stock sizes only and features a BB86 bottom bracket and similar tube profiles to the Photon R.

It’s made from T700 carbon fibre with a Guru tapered fork and 27.2mm seatpost, and is Di2 and mechanical groupset compatible. A 54cm frame weighs a claimed 850g.

Genesis Bikes go carbon with new Zero

Genesis Bikes might be best known for their steel and aluminium bikes, but this year they have branched out into carbon fibre, with the release of the Zero. It has been developed with the Madison-Genesis race team, so expect a racy sort of bike, and the tubing profiles certainly give the bike a purposeful stance.

There will be six models in the range, we’ve zeroed in on the range-topping £4,499 model here, specced with a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset including C24 clincher wheels.

The race team have been using 25mm tyres for the past couple of season, so this bike is specced with 25mm Continental tyres too. The range starts at £1,299 using essentially the same frame but using more affordable components. An ideal bike for someone getting into racing, or a rather rapid sportive option.

Back to what Genesis Bikes are best known for, this is the latest Croix de Fer Stainless. The frame uses a US sourced KVA MS3 stainless steel tubeset, the same as used in the latest Equilibrium Disc. Plugged into the front is a new carbon fibre fork which sheds weight over last year’s chromoly fork, and looks good to boot.

It has has more length between the axle and crown, allowing wider tyres and mudguards to be fitted. The frame is Di2 compatible and features a PressFit BB86 bottom bracket.

Schwalbe Durano Double Defense tyre released

Schwalbe have released the new Durano Double Defense tyre, which has been completely updated for 2015, largely in response to the very popular Continental Gatorskin. The tyre incorporates a new snakeskin fabric in the sidewall, along with the RaceGuard under the tread, to provide vastly more puncture resistance.

It’s currently available with a folding or wire bead an in 23 and 25mm widths. A 25mm folding version weighs a claimed 295g. Schwalbe tell us though it’s slightly heavier than an equivalent Gatorskin, it’s much more resistant to punctures. Well they would say that wouldn’t they. We’ll be getting some in to test soon so we can find out for ourselves.

On the right of this picture is the Durano Plus, a 28mm wide tyre with a SmartGuard protection belt made from elastic rubber, and is billed as the most puncture-proof racing tyre they produce.

Beacon Bikes 

Hailing from the Ribble Valley, Beacon Bikes showed a large number of bikes at the London Bike Showing, including their top-end BF_100 pictured below, which starts at £2,799. Beacon have only been going for a couple of years, but their profile is growing, and last year they supplied a bike for Davina McCall to do her crazy Sport Relief triathlon challenge aboard. 

Something that will appeal to many is the company’s online bike configurator, which allows you to easily customise the tailor the specification of any bike however, and show you an accurate picture of how it’ll look. So if you wanted to upgrade the wheels or just the saddle, you can do that. They've put hours of work into the configurator so it shows you every possible bike build. Very impressive, and it's very easy to use. Go check it out on their website.

The BF_100 is their flagship carbon bike and it’s ridden by the Great Britain Olympic Triathletes and Team Haribo-Beacon. 

At the other end of their range and their most affordable carbon offering is the BF_60. It starts at £1,299 for the pictured bike, but like all bikes in their range, it’s fully customisable through Beacon’s online bike configurator, so you could easily upgrade the wheels or handlebars if you wanted to.

Beacon don’t just do road bikes, they also do cyclo-cross. This is the BF_45 and it costs from £1,999 and features a full carbon frame with internal cable routing and the rear derailleur cable externally routed, and is fitted with disc brakes.

That's it from the London Bike Show for another year. See you there again in 2016.