Starting with the deluge after a night of hard rain combined with a strike by train and subway workers, getting to the 64th Milan Bicycle Show was by no means an easy task.

Even more cars than on a normal day packed flooded roads, and the occasional vehicle stalled in water above its wheels brought urban traffic to a complete standstill in places. It is a good bet that many people who had planned to attend to the first day of Italy’s premier icycle industry trade show ultimately gave up in frustration.

The sun came out in the afternoon, but the rain returned later to wash out the evening’s closure to motorized traffic of Corso Buenos Aires, one of Milan’s primary thoroughfares. Closed and decorated with giant illuminated bicycles as part of Bike Days, the wide street becomes a giant walking mall, with shops throwing their doors open, but the street performers, the crowds, and bicycles being ridden along it were largely absent.

The show opened amid cautious optimism for a good turnout of bike-shop buyers as well as consumers (unlike most bike shows, which are for bike-industry personnel only, the Milan bike show is open to the public all four days). The crowds did come on Saturday and Sunday, but it will take the dust to settle at the end to see if industry buyers were opening their pocketbooks sufficiently to buoy the spirits and prospects of the show’s exhibitors.

As always in Milan, the booths are more likely to be tastefully decorated and manned by people dressed a notch classier than at most bike shows, and the same can be said about the attendees. The influence from British Columbia, however, brought an amazing Ewok-villagelike wooden construction of narrow boards high up in the air for riders to negotiate death-defying tightrope-like rides or gap jumps from.

Campagnolo
In addition to its new integrated-spindle cranks, the flagship Italian component company’s “skeleton” brakes appearing throughout its many groups will be a must-buy for Campyphiles. Saving 35 grams per pair, the brake arms are forged in a new cutaway shape; they are not the older brake with material machined away. The oversized new hubs have the same bearing system but a one-piece aluminum freehub body and the new shell design saves an ounce – 28 grams. All in all, the savings mean that a Campagnolo Chorus group is now lighter than a Dura-Ace group, and a Record group is 248 grams – more than half a pound – lighter than its Dura-Ace counterpart.

Selle San Marco
“When you buy a bike, you look for the proper size, and the bike shop personnel help you to do it,” says Selle San Marco’s Marco Capretta, “but when you a buy a saddle, you are on your own to figure out what will fit you.”

This is what a No. 245 looks like.

Recognizing the competing desire of the consumer to find the ideal saddle for their needs without buying lots of expensive saddles and devoting lots of time to trying them, and that of the bike shop to sell a saddle without devoting a lot of time to it, the Italian saddle manufacturer has developed its S.I.Z.E. system, categorizing all of its models by size. A consumer looks up their weight and pants size on a chart for either male or female riders weight on the saddle’s packaging.

Using the system dubbed “Superficie Ideale per la Zona Ergonomica (Ideal Ergonomic Surface Zone)” one of the S.I.Z.E. numbers that the charts generate of either 225, 235, 245 or 255 are borne on each of Selle San Marco’s 15 saddle models.

The S.I.Z.E. number does not correspond simply to the saddle’s width, but rather to a combination of many dimensions over the saddle, including its width and curvature at a number of different points. Having researched how different people fit on different saddles, Selle San Marco has come up with a formula to match riders of a certain weight and body size to a certain S.I.Z.E. saddle.

Within a S.I.Z.E. of, say, 245, there will be a number of saddles for different users and uses, like MTB, road racing, triathlon or commuting, with and without ergonomic cutouts. Consumers can narrow their search to saddles that will likely fit them, and then select the one within those that meets his or her usage requirements.

Vittoria
It’s hard on the body riding narrow tires on super-stiff carbon bikes and wheels, and big riders and triathletes have often had trouble with pinch flats and high wear rates on too-narrow tires. Responding to these demands, Vittoria has broken out of its traditional molds and now offers its flagship Open Corsa EVO CX clincher and Corsa EVO CX in 25mm and 23mm, respectively, up from its solitary width offerings of only 23mm and 21mm on those models, respectively, in the past. Additionally, the superlight Diamante now comes in a 700X25 model that only weighs 190 grams, to accompany its standard 700X23 offering.

Finally, the Triathlon EVO CS tubular not only is available a millimeter wider, at 21mm, than the Crono EVO CS, but it now has a superlight butyl tube that maintains a sub-200-gram weight while not bleeding air like a latex tube. So a triathlete required to leave his or her bike overnight in a transition zone will not come out of the swim to find soft tires.

Furthermore, Vittoria’s Pit Stop aerosol fix-a-flat is claimed to be the only solution of its kind for a high-pressure tubular. Adding only 18 grams of expandable latex to the tire, the Pit Stop instantly inflates a narrow tire to 90 psi while filling leaks (other than cuts). You can continue to ride the tire, so this is not just a temporary fix; in fact, CSC’s mechanics filled all of the team’s tires with Pit Stops prior to Paris-Roubaix this year (and won the race). One note, though: the gas in the cylinder is propane, and being highly volatile, will all bleed out overnight, so you’ll need to pump the tire up with air the next day. With a Pit Stop, a rider need not peel off or throw out a flat tubular; he or she can be back on the road immediately and can still wear the tire out before replacing it. And a triathlete in a race using either tubulars or clinchers need not carry a spare or spend the time to change a flat tire.

In other Vittoria news, it is offering a butyl inner tube from tubulars it has been making for some time as a superlight tube for clinchers. Only weighing 55 grams and not being vulcanized in a mold to form the weak seams and weak spots around the valve of other superlight tubes. It is formed in a tube, and its ends are overlapped and glued, forming a strong, thick spot for the glued-on valve that won’t fail like other superlight tubes. Finally, the Geax line includes a 29er – a version of the Saguaro, a lightweight cross-country tire, in a 29X2.2 size.

When pedaling, the Equilink pulls down on the top lever to stop the suspension from bobbing.

Felt
The Felt Equilink rear suspension system features a long vertical link connecting the upper lever to a short little link behind the bottom bracket. Since the little link drops down to the rear, the chain tension pulls it down further, and the vertical link then pulls down on the upper lever and hence the seatstays. So pedaling forces, no matter which gear the bike is in, counteract the suspension squat due to the rider’s weight dropping down on the pedals. Simplicity, light weight, no bob without the need for a special shock and super-fine tuning – isn’t that what we all want?

Time
Time's ASX monocoque carbon cranks, available with a titanium or stainless steel integrated spindle, have an ISIS attachment for the left arm.

The wide, double-race bearings (for rigidity and long life) are available in faster-spinning, longer-lasting ceramic-ball versions. They range in length from 170mm to 177.5mm, with classic or compact spiders.