.For me it really has gone downhill for a cyclist as it is now just a glorified bike shop. If you are looking for a new high end bike then it's good as you can see them all in one place and quiz people, otherwise a waste of time really. The Hub hasn't reappeared which was a useful area and the number on "stalls" for that type of info is limited and scattered all over the place
. Seems popular still as a general public nosing about thing still.Saw Maggy and had a brief chat, which was nice. I was even cheeky enough to ask why he wasn't riding the Bec hill climb after his previous DNS when he did his shoulder in
. He gave some pitiful excuse about being at the show. Was hoping to see Shanaze but she wasn't due to be there until the afternoon.Nice looking holidays by the lakes in Italy run by the same Italian Bike Hotels brand as do the Riccione holidays so have the same features. Nice bloke on the stall and very helpful.
Lovely bikes on the Milani stand. Small Italian manufacturer who do a nice modern plastic bike and some stunning retro steel ones including a fixie I could happily have wheeled out with me.
Condor's new graphic look naff, and there are some truely hideous TT bikes about. The new Cervelo P4 is horrid as is the new Fuji which has a hidden rear brake encased in a wrap around from the seatstay. Basically a fairing but getting round the regs, whether it works or not I don't care as I'd never be seen dead on something that looked that ugly.
BC has some of those Wattbikes (they use them to test people for the academy set up with a 6second kick to see what their initial umph is) where you can do a test run, quickest of the show wins a signed GB jersey. No warm up and straight in I did my 200m flat out sprint in 11.25 seconds with an average of just under 900 watts (whatever that means, it's less than my hoover I know that), the gear was a bit small but they said they keep it fairly low so everyone runs the same and it allows the under 16s to have a go too. Hoy puts out around 2,000 for the same thing but then his thighs are about the same size as my waist
. If you're going have a go on it, you've got a target time to beat now 
. I had the quickest of the day at the time I did it, then again the show had only been open 1.5 hours at that stage .
