Thursday, February 19, 2009

A Preview from the Taipei Cycle Show

Via the Folding Society, I found a link to this preview document from next month's Cycle Show in Taipei:

http://download.taipeitradeshows.com.tw/2009/cycle/Show_Preview/P30-35.pdf

Now I never know what items that grace the booths of these shows will actually show up at your local bike shop, but here are some of the bits I found interesting in this document.

The Dahon Curl sure looks like it folds up into a tiny Brompton-like package, a feat that I'm sure required a lot of work by engineers, designers and more than a few patent attorneys.

A couple of companies are showing quick release pedals, which are very handy things to have on a folding bike.

Tsai Jung decided to incorporate a kickstand into their pedal. I'll probably stick to leaning my bikes against handy objects.

Kenda is making a full coverage tire liner that'll probably make your favorite lightweight tire perform just like your favorite heavyweight tire. But if you're like me and hate flats, you'll probably give these a try anyway!

For you bar-end shifter fans, you can thank those spandex-clad triathlon folks for keeping your favorite shifters from being historical artifacts. AD-II is targeting these shifters at those tri-folk but they'd probably be happy to sell them to folks building touring bikes as well.

Internal gear fans will want to check out HammerSchmidt's internally geared crankset. I know I'd like to check out that crankset.

There are other goodies in the PDF and I'm sure lots more stuff will be at the show. Taipei is too far for me to ride given the amount of time I can take off from work (I think there is a bit of water between here and there as well), but the guys from Velo Orange will be over there checking things out. Their blog, which always has cool stuff BTW, should have some reports from the show next month.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

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