gearEleven International: 2012

Saturday, December 22, 2012

2013 Team AG2R La Mondiale Pro Cycling

Ag2R Cycling Team is part of the UCI Pro World Tour in 2013.
The Team is the only french team to compete in the 2013 UCI World Pro Tour.

The team main sponsors are: Odlo cycling wear, Focus bikes, Fulcrum Wheels, Campagnolo Super Record 11 EPS groupset, Michelin tires, San Marco saddles, Deda, Ekoi helmets, Elite bottles, Look pedals

Japan Mini Velo 2012 trend (Part I)

Here is the second post specific to japan market only Mini Velo.
These are getting a lot of attention abroad recently.

A quick reminder of what is a Mini Velo category bike.
To sum it simply, it is a 20" wheels sized diamond frame style bicycle.
Confused?
It is an adult bicycle designed with 20" wheels.

(Diamond frames refer to the frame shape featuring 2 triangle, hope this helps to understand)

Ok, back to Mini Velo Show!
The range of Mini Velo available in 2012 have grown up significantly in Japan.
More brands, more models, more exciting designs.

Enjoy!

Tour de France 2012 daily stages & teams

The most prestigious bicycle race of the world, The Tour de France 2012 is upon us. For 2012, the race starts from Liege (Belgium) and will gt to France the second day. From June 30th to July 22nd 2012, it is the 99th edition. 20 stages and 1 prologue to cover 3497 kilometers.

The stages:

Christopher FROOME Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Christopher FROOME
Nickname: Froomey, Froomdog

Mark Cavendish Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Mark Cavendish is one of the fastest sprinting professional cyclist and has won 29 Tour de France stage. This makes him the second most winning stages of the Tour de France history.

Alejandro Valverde Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Alejandro Valverde
Nickname: Balaverde (The Green Bullet)
El Bala (The Bullet)
El Imbatido (The Unbeaten)
One of the best Spanish professional cyclist of its era.

Pierrick Fédrigo Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Cyril Gautier Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Cyril Gautier
Cyril is a Bretagne born professional road bike racer part of most prestigious road racing teams such as Europcar and AG2R.

Pierre Rolland Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Pierre Rolland
Nickname:

Bradley Wiggins Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Bradley Wiggins
Nickname: Wiggo

Thibaut Pinot Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Thibaut Pinot
Nickname:

André Greipel Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name:André Greipel
Nickname: Gorilla

One of the fastest sprinter of the road racing planet often winning sprint stage on the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta Espana.

Vincenzo Nibali Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Vicenzo Nibali is a professional road bike racer who won the Giro D'Italia 2013 and the Tour de France 2014 and Vuelta Espana in 2010.

Vicenzo riding style is more of the classic style which means staying sat on the saddle while climbing (en facteur) or riding under heavy gears while current style of riders are to stand on the pedals (en danseuse).

In cycling history, only 6 riders have won the 3 Grand Tour; they are Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali.

Peter Sagan Pro Cycling Racer Profile

Name: Peter Sagan
Nickname: The Terminator, Rambo, Cannibal

Japan Mini Velo Trend for 2011

Japan is famous for fashion trend setting, for few years now there are a specific Japanese bicycle niche, the so called "mini velo"
Usually they are diamond frames designed and equipped with 20" wheels, featuring drop bars or flat bars or even mtb models getting trendy recently.

Mini-velo are not foldable bikes, if so then it is called "folding bike".
The word "Velo" is french for bicycle, so rather than calling it a Mini bike, japanese have branded it "mini Velo", a good sense of history, culture and chic wording.

If you want to sell bicycle to Japan, whatever the brand, it must includes "Mini Velo" in your catalog.
Most mini velo in Japan are the product designed by the local distributors and wholesalers, which explain why the bikes are not on another market catalogs.

Most of the bikes are small size frames, rarely bigger than 51cm.
However, I think there are some good opportunities for playing with mini velo design.
Carbon frames would be nice visually.

Here a quick look at the Mini Velo currently sold in Japan:

Bianchi, Made in China and Taiwan bikes, cromoly frames.

Drop bar, Brooks saddles, shimano gearing.

Flat bar, sora gears, spring saddle

Bruno is very popular, you can see the bikes every where in japan cities.

Fuji, also have colorful drop bar mini velo which features lugged forks and cromoly frames

The bike retails for about 69,000 yen in Japan

9 speed Shimano Sora, 20" wheels, drop bar, looks like a real bike but in mini version.

Gios, playing with Cromoly 4130 Taiwan made frames, Gios coloring, these are a getting pricey.

This model retail for 138,600 Japan Yen.

This model is Retailing at 76,440 yen in Japan in 2011

Kuwahara, the company that is famous for having being featured in the movie E.T. (the bmx that flies front of the moon).

Well the bike is an Allien machine, it is a MTB mini velo, retailing at 268,800 yen.

Louis Garneau, the japan company that use "Lous Garneau" name to sell bicycles, sells also 4 models of mini velo. All are built with Aluminium frames.

Road model equipped with Shimano 105 gropu retails at 144,900 yen.

The full suspension MTB mini velo retail at 120,750 yen.

Seraph is a brand from a japanese wholesaler, they sale cromoly lugged frame and fork mini velo.