Tech

Having a cycling woman in your life makes buying Christmas gifts the easiest thing in the world. Just like our male cycling counterparts we love all the gadgets, gizmos and gear that goes along with our chosen sport and pastime, but unlike the majority of male cyclists, we’ve probably also got a pretty strong list of window shopping contenders in mind. The array of women’s kit available now is impressive, especially as compared with not even a decade ago, and probably offers a bewildering selection for the gift-buying partner, but if you’ve an idea of her cycling style, you can’t go far wrong.

You’ve got your bike set up perfectly? You’ve been riding long enough to know what works for you so you don’t need anyone to come along and tinker with it. They’ll just mess everything up, right? Wrong.

Buxom tourers, fixeds, titanium, powder coat paint, commuter lights and lots more are on the agenda as road.cc's Mr Eclectic, Shaun Audane, looks for trends amongst some of Eurobike 2010's more esoteric treasures while humming selected tracks from the Specials' first album.

Hidden right in the middle of Brighton, up a maze of stairs behind an easily ignored door a small yet impeccably-dressed cycle clothing empire is growing. Morvélo is the lovechild of Oli Pepper and Dave Marcar, both graphic designers by trade who a couple of years back were looking for a way to combine their artistic sensibilities with their shared passion for bicycles.

Fixed bikes were well to the fore at last week's Core Bike show with a really interesting selection of machines reflecting how diverse the one geared bit of the road cycling world is becoming. We've already showcased the track classicism of the fixed version of Colnago's Master X Light and featured the new line of Traitor bikes here and here, so let's take a look at what was on offer from Cinelli, All City, Light Blue and Identiti.

Cycle sport's top teams are already battling it out in the first ProTour race of the season so let's take a look at what they will be riding this year. The 2010 season sees two big new teams on the block in the shape of RadioShack and Team Sky and the usual merry go round of riders and changes to sponsors and equipment suppliers.

During quiet moments I often find myself hatching cycling challenges; they provide me with tangible reasons to get out on my bike and train, especially during the cold winter months. “Something to aim at”, as Tom Simpson would say. Some challenges, however, seem to appear out of left-field and, no matter how ridiculous, plug away at my subconscious until I do something about them.

At the end of September Jo Burt and I headed out to Milan to check out Italy's top bike show. In the first installment of our adventures we looked at what the likes of De Rosa Casati and Montante had to offer.  Now it's time for another trawl through the sublime and the ridiculous (which being Italian could easily pass for sublime too) as we look at the bikes being displayed by some less well known brands and from an ultra-bling one and we've included one of our Milan videos too - more of those in our video section. 

Most of us will have heard of Bianchi Colnago, De Rosa and Pinarello Italy's successful international bike brands, but there are other great Italian bike companies with a long history too, Casati, Guerciotti, Carraro, Bottecchia and Basso may be not so familiar but they've been around a long time too … and new ones like Guerra, Montante, and NoBrain that you won't really see outside of Italy. To find out what they are up to you need to go to Milan.

Well, that's the end of bicycle exhibitions for the year. The Cycle show in Earls court was a good show although I am still not that sure what its exact purpose is? It isn't quite a trade show for brands to show case new kit and it definitely isn't a place where you can purchase the latest bit of bike jewellery.