Narrow bars go mainstream, new Vittoria tyres, and more affordable carbon wheels: Six tech snippets from iceBike

Tradeshow season is getting underway for the cycling industry. While behemoths like Eurobike tend to dominate the headlines, there are tech nuggets to be spotted at smaller events too. This year we took a trip to iceBike, a primarily industry-facing show put on in both Manchester and London by Madison, likely the biggest UK distributor in the industry. It looks after a slew of brands, from giants like Shimano and Vittoria to smaller outfits that specialise in re-waterproofing for garments, or protective ceramic coatings for bike frames. 

After wandering the Lee Valley Olympic Velodrome in London for the day, followed by some thematic cocktails, here are the six most eye-catching things, either as standalone products or as something indicative of wider industry trends.

Narrow bars go mainstream 

Super narrow bars are nothing new, but currently, they tend to exist on the fringes. Even in top-level racing they aren’t widely adopted. I have tried out the 22cm Lambda X-Wing bars and actually found them to be surprisingly fine for general riding, as well as providing a noticeable speed increase. 

Now though, Profile Design has brought to market a 33cm set of drops in the form of the Canta Race bar. This is to my mind the first set of hyper-narrow drops from a relatively mainstream brand. The Canta Race is available in 33cm, 36cm, 39cm, and 42cm for £429.99. Unlike the Lambda bars I tested last year, the Canta Race features a greater forward sweep of the tops, to avoid one’s wrists fouling on them during sprinting. 

Despite the extremely narrow stance (the ones you see here are the 36cm option) and the inward aspect of the hoods, the Canta Race is UCI-legal. Profile Design doesn’t sponsor any WorldTour teams as yet, but given the effect that frontal area has on aerodynamic efficiency, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see teams - perhaps limited to breakaway specialist riders -  adopting bars like this in the near future. 

New gravel bars from Pro 

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Shimano subsidiary component brand, Pro, had a series of new bars on show at its stand. Some were under embargo and as such we cannot show you them, but what we can give you a peek of is the new Discover Aero gravel bar and the new PLT Carbon Ergo bar. The former is from the brand's gravel line and features a bar-hood transition specifically designed to mesh with Shimano GRX shifters, and has external cable routing via an underside channel rather than fully internal routing to help avoid too many headaches when playing around with setups. 

The latter is a carbon bar with ergonomics in mind, with a subtle 4º flare, light back sweep and down sweep on the tops, and comes in as narrow as 36cm to cater to smaller riders, or those looking to get more aero. Again, narrow bars are becoming increasingly common. 

Kryptonite lock that will resist 10 grinder discs 

Bike thieves have become ever more resourceful, and increasingly brazen, especially with the proliferation of high-value e-bikes. Previously locks had to resist prying, picking, and the occasional hacksaw, but now that battery-powered angle grinders have become the norm locks have had to step up their game. 

Kryptonite is one of the biggest names in the best bike locks sphere and has brought to market a new lock, the New York Lock Diamond, which is claimed to be able to destroy ten angle grinder discs before it can be opened, five on each side of the shackle thanks to it having a double deadbolt system. 

It achieves this by wrapping the steel core in a diamond coating, which itself is then wrapped in another steel coating before a TPE outer covers the whole lot to protect your paint. It’s a chunky lock and weighs over 2kg, as well as coming in at £269.99, but if you’re locking up an e-bike with a value in the thousands maybe this isn’t so much in the grand scheme of things. 

New tyres from Vittoria 

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Early in 2024, we spotted Wout van Aert using an unreleased 29c wide Vittoria Corsa Pro, and on the Vittoria stand it was confirmed this is a tyre that was coming to market, primarily to account for the move to wider (25mm) internal rim widths. With a 28c the square bead of the Corsa Pro didn’t necessarily mesh well with rim sidewalls, while a 30c or wider wasn’t aerodynamically optimal; what the pros want, the pros get it seems.

Aside from models that sit within our guide to the best road bike tyres, we also saw a  new line of eco-rubber gravel tyres which feature a natural brown tread made from recycled rice husks. And a unique construction involving a cotton inner casing and a nylon outer to provide increased sidewall protection whilst aiming to maintain that supple ride feel that cotton offers. 

Wallet friendly DT Swiss wheels 

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DT Swiss wheels feature on some of the bikes at the very top level of road racing and are among the best road bike wheels on the market. A new wheelset option from the brand is aiming to offer top-flight aerodynamic performance at a slightly more wallet-friendly price by marrying the top-level ARC1600 rim with a lower-tier 350 Spline hubset, with a price tag set at £1,399.99 for the pair. For now, these are limited to a handful of pairs per dealer, but a wheelset that offers top-tier aero performance at this price for only a moderate weight penalty is certainly compelling.  

The struggles of larger bike computers 

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The best bike computers are becoming ever larger, and now with the likes of the Garmin Edge 1050 and the Wahoo Elemnt Ace, the current crop of mounts are becoming too small to fit them. Aftermarket mount brand, K-Edge, has created a nifty workaround to at least make life easier for Edge 1050 users. A little insert swaps out for the standard computer insert, and allows the computer to be mounted a short distance further forward, as well as a little higher up. This creates enough clearance to allow the computer to mount without touching the bars or the mount, which I was told is enough to cause parts to fail through the transmission of high-frequency vibrations. 

There isn’t currently a workaround for the enormous Wahoo Elemnt Ace, and the weighty combo of such a large bike computer in conjunction with ever-larger bike lights slung underneath is apparently quite the challenge for the team.