One of the trends that became obvious at Eurobike this year was that, after a very intense period of innovation and fast changing standards in the bike industry, a lot of the possibility space for tyres, hubs and wheel sizes has been pegged out if not quite thoroughly explored. Rather than rush toward anything and everything new, this year many companies seem to have settled their offerings a little and become more cautious this year.
There are still small experiments and novel tyres around though, and Vee Tire Co. had a couple to show us, as well as David Cachon’s competition bike. Monster tyres are by no means a new thing, but slowly becoming a more refined thing, and Vee’s latest was this aggressive 29×2.6″ tyre – you read that right, twenty nine and two point six. Given the variety of tyres Vee have made before, and with 29ers showing up on the world cup downhill circuit this year, it’s not surprising they’ve made a high volume, aggressive 29er tyre. It has a folding bead, 72TPI casing, and Vee’s Tackee compound.
In other tyre sizes, Vee do make more some more aggressive tread patterns than the Flow Snap, but this is designed to be an all rounder for mud, loose soil and dry conditions.
The Vee Crown Gem is already available in many different sizes, being a mainstay of Vee’s lineup, but this year they also had one new version for fatbikes. The idea is that 4.8 studded tyres aren’t much fun in summer, so with this mere whisp of a 3.8 tyre you can keep your fat friend rolling through the summer months.
Vee rider and twice world champion trials rider David Cachon’s XC bike, which he’d covered in stickers, was also on show at their booth. It’s a Rose Granite Chief that’s been modified from stock with, among other things, a Suntour Auron fork. You can see an achingly beautiful video of him riding it along the Great Wall of China here.
You might remember that last year at Eurobike, digger yellow bikes were very much in vogue. At Eurobike this year, shades of metallic blood red like this one were absolutely everywhere, on all kinds of bikes, from industry giants all the way to prototypes we saw from small builders. We first saw it on Cotic’s Bfe frames around a year ago, so reckon they must now be some kind of bike industry fashion prophets.
