Iain Treloar runs you through the ins and outs of a major product launch.
It’s product launch season for the bicycle industry. Sometimes all this equates to is companies whacking a different paintjob on last year’s product, or introducing some minor upgrades, and then inviting stores and media along to ogle it. Sometimes travel is involved; sometimes you get a test-ride; quite often there are canapés. After a whole lot of handshakes and business card swaps, you leave with a head full of dreams and hands full of catalogues and that’s the start to a new season.
The bike nerd in me kinda loves this time of year, even if the cynical side of me finds it tough to get all that excited. It’s a complicated internal tug of war that this year led to me sitting a couple of launches out, just because the excited me didn’t overcome the cynical me.
But there was one product launch that I was super excited about, and had earmarked in my diary from a long way out. That wasn’t because it was anywhere particularly glamorous—a warehouse in the windy west of Melbourne—but was everything to do with the products.
Monza are one of the largest distributors in the Australian market, with a broad portfolio of brands. As it so happens, among this portfolio are some of what I think are the most exciting products of the 2016 season. Here are five things that stood out from this year’s Monza dealer show:
-
This is a big company:
Rather than taking press and dealers to an exotic location or a sanitised hotel, Monza’s dealer show felt pretty authentic; it was held at their massive facility in Altona North, with a number of sizeable marquees set up around the back of the warehouse showcasing their products. To get to the display area, visitors were guided through the company’s busy warehouse. Racking filled with boxed bikes, parts and accessories stretched to the ceiling and ran the length of the enormous hangar. There were thousands and thousands of products, worth millions of dollars; cycling in Australia is not a niche business and the enormity of the Monza warehouse proves it. To give you a sense of scale, each of those boxes in the picture above is the size of a bike.
-
The Cannondale Slate is perhaps the most exciting bike of the year
Whilst there isn’t always a great deal of innovation year-on-year, sometimes a product comes along that really shakes up the scene. The Cannondale Slate is one such product. It’s not trying to be Cannondale’s version of anything else; it’s properly unique.
So, what is it? Well, that’s the tricky question, because it’s pretty wide-open in its application. It’s ostensibly part of the ‘gravel bike’ category, which is the big new genre of the moment. Whilst that sounds fairly narrow-focused, it actually does a bit of a disservice to the category—gravel bikes promise to be extremely versatile and maybe the best all-round bike available, like a cyclocross bike tweaked to be less aggressive, more comfortable and better-mannered on-road. If you were to buy one bike to do everything, it would probably be something like this.
Hallmarks of the category:
- Big tyre clearance (better grip, better comfort)
- Disc brakes
- ‘Endurance’ geometry
- Tough enough to take a battering
The Slate is an eccentric version of the above; it features 650b tyres instead of 700c, even larger volume tyres and—most prominently—a short-travel Lefty Oliver suspension fork. Although the pricing’s a bit unreasonable (this was around $4,500—pricey for aluminium and Ultegra), it looks like an outrageously fun machine and we can’t wait to get out hands on one for a review.
-
The Cannondale Synapse Adventure looks pretty great
This is a model that the Australian market missed out on last year, but it’s great to see the powers-that-be at Monza taking a risk on it this year. I’m a big fan of the aluminium Synapse, having owned one myself a couple of years back, but its transition to a disc brake model was flawed in its execution—the mechanical brakes were unforgivably heavy in their feel and severely distracted from an otherwise impressive bike (for our review, see https://rideonmagazine.com.au/reasonably-priced-roadies/). The Synapse Adventure uses SRAM hydraulic disc-brakes, has a sweet paintjob and comes with mudguards. This deserves to be a popular road commuter, and looks pretty on the money for $2799.
-
GT Grades are finally here
Another model that got passed over for last year’s range is the GT Grade. It’s also in that gravel/adventure road bike category, and was one of the best reviewed bikes of the last year. Available in two aluminium and one carbon framed variants (pictured above is the $2,399 SRAM Rival 11-equipped aluminium Grade AL X). These are more accessibly priced than the Cannondale Slate, although, for my money, lack a little in that bike’s x-factor. Either way, the Grade is another one that we’re pretty excited about getting our hands on.
-
SRAM eTap is good to go. Nearly.
One of the most hotly anticipated product launches of recent years is the wireless, electronic groupset from SRAM. After a couple of years of testing and build-up, it’s been released. Monza had several groupsets there for media and retailers to play with, along with a few guys from the company’s Chicago office to talk us through it. I’m a SRAM fan and have their groupsets on both of my current road bikes, so I got a real kick out of seeing it in the flesh. Only two hitches—
-It’s most likely going to be obscenely expensive
-It’s not actually available domestically until Autumn 2016.
Other than that, though, I’m all for it.
Honourable mentions to Louis Garneau’s nice (but derivative) lace-up road shoes and impressive range of clothing, and to the pretty displays from Brooks and ENVE.
We’re looking forward to showing you more from Monza over the coming year, because they’ve got some great products in the pipeline.
Ride On content is editorially independent, but is supported financially by members of Bicycle Network. If you enjoy our articles and want to support the future publication of high-quality content, please consider helping out by becoming a member.