(electronic music)
- I'm here at the Challenge Roth expo
and I'll be honest, I thought I'd been
to some sizeable expos in my time but this one,
it's enormous and it takes it to a whole new level.
So we're going to get in there
and have a look around and see what we can find.
(upbeat music)
So here we are at the Sporcks stand
which is a Spanish socks brand from Valencia actually.
And they've got quite the collection
of colors of socks here, all sorts
of different varieties and colorways.
Can't really miss them actually,
we've got some triathlon-specific,
run-specific and even bike-specific socks.
So pretty much everything you could want to choose from
and I think I'm going to be having a little look
at my favorite pair after this video's done.
So we've made our way to the apparel company Fe226.
So Fe representing the symbol for iron
in the periodic table,
226 for the number of kilometers
in a full-distance triathlon.
So quite a funky little name that they've put together.
Danish brand, very innovative
so this material here I'm told is one of the faster
that is on the market right now.
Many watts quicker than a lot of suits
tested in the tunnel and/or the track,
apparently with their top athletes.
In fact, Andi Boecherer,
who's going to be racing here in Roth this weekend,
he will be wearing this suit.
Franz Loschke who was third in Frankfurt last weekend
wore this suit too
and apparently this is an excellent material
for really feeling cool in the hot conditions
that we're getting in Europe right now.
This has been treated with something called ColdBlack
which can make even a black suit like this
feel a lot cooler in hot conditions
so that's excellent for long-distance racing.
The material's got something really funky about it
called four-way stretch so it just feel really flexible.
It is as fast as a swim skin in the water,
even though it's not a swim skin,
it's just a regular tri suit.
So there's an awful lot of features in this suit
that makes it really appealing
to triathletes racing long course.
So something a little bit more fun here,
we're at the KMC stand and you can see here behind me
their collection of different colored chains
that they offer.
And that's what's particularly unique about the KMC chain,
it's an extremely durable and lightweight chain,
anyway but all these different colors you can see here,
they apparently will last for thousands of kilometers,
they tell me, which is pretty cool.
The colors don't wear out
and obviously you can choose any color there
that might match your particular frame color.
So that's a pretty exciting thing
to have on your bike if you ask me.
And interestingly too, at Challenge Roth this weekend
Andi Dreitz, he's going to be riding,
I presume a blue one to match his bike.
(upbeat music)
Right so we're at the Swiss Side booth now
and this is some very exciting kit that we've got here.
This is F1, Formula One technology
brought over to cycling.
And this here is Swiss Side's pressure measurement rake
as they call it.
So as you can see, it sits here on the back
of the seat tube behind the rider
when they're riding out on the real world
and the whole point of this is that a rider
can go into the wind tunnel
and get the measurements registered
in there in the wind tunnel.
But as they say here at Swiss Side,
they don't want to win the race in the wind tunnel,
they want to be effective out in the real world too.
So this measurement rake here,
you can see all these different data points
that come off it, and that allows them
to work out the pressure losses out there in the real world
so they can mimic, hopefully what's happening
in the wind tunnel, take it out onto the road
with the riders and they've actually already done this
with Patrick Lange and Laura Philipp
and they've already been testing to kind of make sure
that what they're creating in the wind tunnel
is the same out on the road.
Pretty nifty stuff.
So we've arrived at the CUBE stand now
and they've got another really exciting bit of kit.
This is brand new, just released yesterday
ahead of the Tour de France,
the team that's racing on it there.
This is the new CUBE C:68 Litening SLT
which is their brand new aero road bike.
Three years in the making, I've been told
in their design and R&D,
they've been testing that out with the top athletes
like Andi Bocherer and others
and this is a really stunning bit of kit.
I mean, it's completely integrated,
there's not a cable in sight on that frame.
To be honest, I wish I could go
and take it for a ride myself.
(upbeat music)
Right so now we've moved onto the VELOSOCK stand in the expo
and this is a little bit different,
I haven't seen one of these before
but I think it's a really good idea.
So this is a cover for your bike, as you can see,
covering the drive chain, the wheels,
basically everything that gets dirty on the bike
and well, stops stuff getting scratched
or covered in oil or dirt.
I think that's a really cool idea.
One step further, they've actually got an entire bike cover
which means if you're putting it on the bike rack,
outside the car, then nothing's going to get dirty
or get the rain on it if you're going on a long drive.
Or even, as I've seen in transitions here already,
you can leave your bike racked overnight
with this cover on it.
(upbeat music)
So if you hadn't already noticed,
I'm in the Quintana Roo stand here
and I couldn't possibly walk by without a quick stop
because the color schemes in here are absolutely super.
There's all sorts of bright colors,
you got bright blue, bright red, bright pinks
and this one here on my right shoulder
is probably my favorite.
This is an army green with the black decals
and it just stands out, for me, really well.
I'd love to ride a frame like that.
So we've made our way to the Deboer stand here at the expo
and this is the Fjord wetsuit, their brand new suit
or one of their two brand new suits
and I am luckily going to be able to give this thing
a try in the swimming pool.
So I'm going to pop over there now
and see what it feels like.
(upbeat music)
It's got some really exciting features,
now the first one I'll talk about
is this ribbed neoprene feature you can see here
which is something they call WhaleSkin.
They've taken seven mil-thick neoprene
and squashed it down into five mil
which then makes it legal,
that's as thick as you can have on any panel in a wetsuit.
Another really great feature
that they've got on this is their arms.
Now these are only 0.3 of a mil thick
which is the thinnest neoprene
that is available on the market, full stop.
And another really excellent feature on these
is, and something I don't really want to try too hard,
but I'm told they're completely rip-free.
All in all, I can see these being really popular.
(upbeat music)
Right now, although this strictly speaking isn't tech
I couldn't really walk past the Clif stand
without a quick peek at their vast array
of tasty flavors.
Most notably, their very famous Clif Bar.
In fact, they've been around since the early 1990s
so they're an industry leader on the nutrition front
and I must say, this is some of the stuff
that I always used to love having
in my back pocket when I was training
or even having on an Ironman or a long-distance race
so I guess I should have a try
of one of their flavors.
(upbeat music)
Moving onto helmets and we've stopped here at the Uvex booth
and this is their current top-of-the-range
TT helmet, the Race 8.
And they say this is a very aerodynamic helmet
and it certainly looks it
and there's some interesting features on the helmet.
Most notably, the visor.
Like a lot of TT helmets now,
it has some magnetic strips
that means when you pop that visor off
it will snap on pretty much anywhere
on to the top of the helmet so you don't have to worry
about losing your visor when you take it off.
Really useful if it's a changeable type
of weather conditions race so I like that.
Another useful fact about the helmet
is it's got a really big ventilation vent
right here on the front which is a good thing
to have on a TT helmet 'cause often they can get really hot.
And finally, an aspect of this helmet that's just good
is it's got quite a short back,
cut it off quite low there
which means if you do pop your head down
which we often do when we're racing,
you're not going to have a tail poking way up into the air.
So Uvex don't just make TT helmets of course,
they also make a whole range of other helmets.
So this one here caught my eye,
quite literally with the flashing lights.
Is is their City Light version
which is obviously really good for being seen in the dark
or just in cities in general
so really like that function.
As you can see, it's got some flashing lights,
we've got the blue lights on the front
and then red lights on the back
just like you had on any normal car
so I think that's a really interesting feature
to add on to helmet, I haven't seen that
on any other helmets
and you probably can't fail to notice the vest
that I'm also wearing
which is another product that Uvex are making
for you to be really seen and nice and safe
when you're out in the cities at nighttime.
So this vest has the flashing lights
so you can see me, a bit like a Christmas tree.
But really safe, you can't really miss me
and it's got a charger pack inside there,
or power pack, rather, that you can charge up the batteries
so that you can always have your flashing lights going.
You don't have to have the one that comes in here,
you could use your own battery pack
either just plugs in with a USB.
So we've got another sock brand here
but this is a little bit different
'cause we're now in compression territory.
This is the CEP booth and they are a German brand
but with their roots very much based
in the medical profession,
which they've taken over into the sports industry
with all that technology moved over.
So they have all sorts of different socks on offer,
everything from short socks, running socks
and obviously the more famous long-sleeved compression socks
which you can use for training, for racing
or indeed as I used to often do,
when you're traveling on long-haul flights
or even long car journeys,
just helps you feel that little bit fresher
when you get to the other end.
(upbeat music)
So a quick stop here at the Orca stand
'cause this clearly caught my eye,
as you can see it's really bright
and that's the whole point in it.
So this here is a swimrun safety buoy,
so specifically for doing swimrun events.
I'm pretty sure Mark would really like one of these.
Now this has got some shoulder straps here
so that you can wear it for the entirety
of the swimrun race, obviously when you're running on land,
that's fine and even when you're swimming,
apparently that's not a problem either
'cause it's got some chest straps as well.
It's also got another feature for training
if you want to just use a waistband
like a traditional swim buoy
so that's pretty useful,
you can take that off if you want to for swimrun races.
So really interesting bit of kit there.
So I couldn't walk past the Zipp stand
without quickly stopping to have a look
at this disc behind me
because this is their Super-9 Disc, current model
but it's an anniversary disc
which was from the 1980 original disc wheels.
So this is the 30th anniversary,
last year they brought this out.
But in 1988 they had four original colorways,
they had white, blue, pink and yellow.
And obviously this is the white one here
but you can buy all colorways on the Zipp website.
But this is just a really funky disc,
you don't see many brightly-colored discs
outside of the pro ranks.
So if you fancy having a little bit
of something different on your bike,
well this might be for you.
So that was a fun wander around the expo there,
definitely got in amongst it
and found some interesting bits and pieces.
In particular, the swimrun gear caught my eye
and if was something of note that you like,
please drop it in the comments below,
I'd love to hear that.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this video
so please hit that thumb up like button
and find the globe on screen
to get all the other videos on our channel.
And if you want to see another tech tour,
well you can find that here.