iceBike* 2020 – News from Thule, Park, Pro, Lazer and more

We’ve just been spending the day down in windy Milton Keynes for iceBike* 2020, Madison’s house show where it had many of its brands on display and lots of new bits and pieces on show for the coming year.

DT Swiss dropper

First Look: Madison Mountain Bike Outerwear for Autumn 2023 - with dungarees!

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This was our first chance to see the new DT Swiss XC race components, launched last month – which includes a minimal, super light short-drop dropper and lightweight suspension fork that you’re bound to see in an upcoming Olympic event this summer…

Thule Wander Way rack

Going ‘peak STW’ for a moment, Thule has released a rear rack specifically for the VW T6 van. It anchors securely onto the rear door (which will still lift if the rack’s empty) and it’ll take two – and up to four – bikes. It’ll fit a couple of ebikes and will fit tyres up to 3in apparently. It’s £450 and additional bike trays are £89.

Thule is also doing a kit bag for those weekends away. It’s has compartments for clothes, glasses, tools, helmet and shoes and even a place for stinky socks…

Elite Sterzo for Zwift

Did you know that there was an off road course on Zwift? It was news to us, but then no one here has a pain cave (not for bikes anyway…)

Shimano AM9 and GR9 shoes

This was the first time we’d seen the new Shimano top-end enduro/trail shoes – the AM9 and GR9. The AM9 shoes are the clip-in shoes and the GR9 ones are the gravity/flat pedal version. They look super smart in this matt blue finish (blue is very in right now apparently…) whether you’re clipping in or not.

Lazer – affordable and unobtainable.

At iceBike* 2020 Madison was keen to showcase the newest helmets from Lazer and equally proud that not everything is a £200 mega top end helmet that only pro riders will use. The new Lazer Chiru helmet is £39.99 (with a MIPS version about £20 more) and features deep coverage, a large fixed visor and the wonderfully named ‘Comfortablefit’ system. It’s also compatible with Lazer’s rear LED helmet light.

And then just to show that sometimes it IS about the super-exclusive high-end helmet, Lazer showcased the new Genesis helmet – at 200g or so, the Genesis is Lazer’s lightest helmet ever, in an ‘iceBike-only’ pair of colours – gold/purple flip flop and chrome-dome. If your dealer hasn’t ordered a pair, you’re not going to see them elsewhere…

Dynaplug prototypes and teasers

The innovative tyre plug company, Dynaplug has been busy since launching its full range to the UK through Madison this time last year. On the stand were two beautiful bikes from Dear Susan featuring a selection of Dynaplug’s existing and future products… (And there’ll be more on this bike shortly!)

This bar-end prototype has a collar that fits to an ODI Lock-on grip, giving the internally threading unit somewhere secure to anchor to. The end then unscrews to reveal one of Dynaplug’s tubeless tyre plugs – and it sits in a captive chamber so you won’t have to fish anything from the middle section of your handlebars… There’s one for road bikes too (below) which has an expanding section.

There was also a nice reinforced resin version of it’s double-ended Racer plug, for road bikes (but perfect for XC racers too). The steel-reinforced rubber mount sits under your bottle cage and the double ended Racer plug simply clips securely in place.

Park Tool Bleed Kits

These are Park Tools workshop-grade tools, but they need showing off as they’re so comprehensive in their scale. That are two sets – the BKD-1 for DOT fluid (SRAM, Hope, Hayes etc) and the BFS-1 for mineral oil brakes (Shimano, Magura…). They feature syringes, every conceivable adaptor and hose for idiot-proof brake and dropper bleeding.

Saracen jump bikes

Saracen has refreshed its jump bikes for 2020 while the rest of the stand featured its ‘Ride like Danny Hart’ downhill bikes and the Ariel enduro bike, but it was conspicuously free of mid-travel trail bikes, which makes us wonder what we might see from the brand later in the summer… Hmm…

Kryptonite anchors and combinos

Daryl from Kryptonite was quick in suggesting that security isn’t very sexy, but it is of great concern to anyone with a half-decent bike. Kryptonite has just introduced a security plate that allows its Evolution ground anchor to be secured to moving things as well, such as pickup truck beds, trailers and campers so that you get the same high security features as its popular home floor anchor.

Kryptonite also showed off some chunky combination locks at iceBike* 2020. We’re big fans of combination locks as who wants to carry all those keys around? It also allows a lock to be kept outside the pub/cafe with easy access only to those with the magic number. With 100,000 combinations and security as high as its regular keyed U-locks, Kryptonite is keen to promote combination locks to those of us who can never find where the key is…

And finally…

We can’t tell you anything that was discussed in this room. But whatever it was, took 90 minutes… As always, stay tuned to Singletrack for the latest news when we get it.

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