I just came back from Interbike 2014 last week in Las Vegas. I'm going to break up my observations into three sections: Brompton, Tannus Tires and overall observations.
Brompton
The big news this year is the addition of new colors, which will replace some of the current colors. Admittedly, these new colors look just slightly different from the colors they will replace.
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| Lime green, which I think replaces yellow or maybe Apple green |
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| Lagoon Blue, replacing Arctic Blue |
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| Berry Crush, replacing Claret |
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| Lagoon blue main frame with orange extremities |
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| Cherry Blossom, replacing hot pink |
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| Vanilla main frame, replacing desert sand. The extremities are Turkish green. |
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| The MetroGnome crew admiring the new colors |
Damn, I thought I had a picture of Tempest blue, which will be replacing Cobalt blue. Oh well, there's a good one
here. I hope I got all the new and replaced colors correct... if not, let me know in the comments.
Also, there will be an option to have black handlebars (except for the P-type), seat post, and cranks on select color schemes. I think the current selected color schemes are lime, white, lagoon blue, and berry crush (although these are subject to change).
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| Lime green with blacked out extremities |
Tannus Tires
I was able to ride a prototype formulation of Tannus tire polymer (tentatively dubbed Aither 2.0) on a Brompton, and I must say I was very impressed. Although there is still a touch of dead feeling to it, it feels much closer to a tubed tire, and there is much less rolling resistance. The tire will be designed specifically to fit a Brompton and is about 90% developed, targeting final release in early 2015. The new tire will be available in black, and perhaps only black (which would be fine by me).
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| Tannus Tires with their current generation of tires. |
Overall Observations
There was a big push to electric bicycles this year. There were at least a dozen that were available for demo rides outside, and a few more inside on display. They were all fun to ride, from the top of the line
Stromer ST2 to the more frugal folding
e-Joe Epik. I was particularly impressed with e-Joes... they got all the basics right (throttle controlled and/or pedal assisted), costs under $1350 for the base model, and were a hoot to ride. I can really see how these electric bikes could get a lot more of the casual riders and potential commuters out on the road. I'm looking forward to getting my
ShareRoller soon.
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| Electric e-Joe |
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| Yeah, it doesn't fold like a Brompton...but it's still fun to ride! |
I also noticed more folders this year. However, they were mostly cheap copies of Dahon / Tern models. Dahon had a model with a Rohloff hub as well as a 30th anniversary edition which looked very nice (and should be at over $5000 each). Tern had some minor updates, one of which was adding a custom BionX kit. I had a go on this one also and it was fun.
