THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Milan bike show: New toys, and a pitch for new cyclists
Coming a week before the 2004 world road championships in nearby Verona, the 62nd annual Milan bike show, September 17-20, marked the beginning of the 2005 selling season for road bikes and products in Italy. In a season that’s packed with international trade shows, Milan 2004 set itself apart with a focus on improving the climate for cycling in Italy and worldwide.
Maurizio Fondriest, one of several former world champions from Italy who showed up to speak about the future of cycling in Italy, stressed the need for better bike paths. The 1988 world champion, who hails from Cles in the Dolomites, said he envisions completely interconnected bike paths criss-crossing the country, providing safe, quiet routes to anywhere on the boot-shaped peninsula, and offering Italy’s geographical, historical and gastronomic delights to cyclists worldwide.
Show organizer EICMA, the trade association of Italian bicycle and motorcycle manufacturers, provided a hint of what a more cycling-friendly Italy might look like by setting up an automobile-free zone on several kilometers of one of Milan’s major thoroughfares on Friday and Saturday night. It was the first time since World War II that this wide boulevard had been closed to traffic; cyclists, pedestrians, shoppers and onlookers reveled in it.
Restaurants and bars set up tables in the middle of the street under illuminated bicycles suspended from cables every few dozen meters. A wide, continuous stream of people walked and rode among the diners and drinkers, while street performers did their acts surrounded by huge crowds. Bicycle companies set up demos with daredevil BMXers, and dancers performed on a raised stage on bicycles. It was a true celebration of cycling.
On Saturday and Sunday, thousands of cyclists met for organized rides as part of a “Milan that pedals” celebration. A group of 1500 cyclists tackled an 80km loop to the east, while a similarly sized group set out on a 110km ride to see Fausto Coppi’s house. The largest group, with some 8000 cyclists dressed in orange, had their choice of either an 8km or a 21km loop in the city.
New stuff from Campy, Look
While there was plenty to be seen on the roads in and around Milan, there was also no shortage of new ideas and products on display at the show. One of the things evident this year was a number of established brands branching out into new product areas.
Take wheels, for example. The category has plenty of competition, but Campagnolo and Look are diving in nonetheless. Campagnolo-branded wheels are well established among Campyphiles, but the Vicenza-based company has had a hard time selling wheels to Shimano devotees, despite offering Shimano-compatible freehub body options. So Campy started a new company, Fulcrum, to challenge Mavic, the 800-pound gorilla of the wheel business. The Fulcrum Racing 1 goes up against Mavic’s Ksyrium SL or Equipe; the Racing 3 takes dead aim at the Ksyrium Elite N; and the Racing 5 tackles the Cosmos.
The Racing 1 resembles the SSC SL in more than just the shape of its flat aluminum straight-pull spokes. Like the Ksyrium, it is road-tubeless-tire ready, with a sealing hump on the bead ledge and spoke holes that do not go through the outer wall of the rim. But rather than using Mavic’s patented FORE technology of drilling and tapping the inner rim wall for large spoke nipples, Fulcrum’s large aluminum nipples are dropped in between the rim walls at the valve hole and moved to their holes individually, by hand, with a magnet working on a little pointed piece of steel threaded into the nipple and designed to help it squirm out of a spoke hole.
The rear spoke pattern is like the Campy G3 pattern, with two drive-side spokes balancing each non-drive-side one. The rim is machined at three angles between spokes to eliminate unnecessary material, but a section adjacent to the valve hole is left unmachined to balance the heavier weight at the rim weld joint on the opposite side.
Look is also selling wheels under its own name and a new one (VO2 Max); the French company’s CW38 deep-section carbon-fiber clincher showcases Look’s carbon technology.
Look also offers a new pedal, the Keo, with an all-composite body. In the titanium-spindle version, the Keo weighs in at a scant 95 grams per pedal. And for the first time, Look has changed the cleat design it has used since the dawn of clip-in pedals. The new cleats are still three-hole plastic jobs, but they are narrower and have built-in low-friction Teflon ends to eliminate squeaking noises and ease entry and exit.
Look for more show news online at VeloNews.com and in the next issue of VeloNews magazine.
