2009 Las Vegas Interbike Bicycle Show

September 23 - September 25, 2009
Page 4

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Products on Interbike report page 1: Cinelli, Milani Bicycles, Limar Helmets
Products on Interbike report page 2: Selle Italia, Carnac Shoes,Torelli, Campagnolo
Products on Interbike report page 3: Gipiemme, Scott, Woolistic
Products on this page: Orbea, Bici Support, Miche

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Bill and Carol McGann's book The Story of the Tour de France, Vol 2: 1976 - 2018 is available as an audiobook here. For the print and Kindle eBook versions, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

Orbea.

When I owned Torelli and Tony Karklins owned Chainwheel Bicycle Shop in Little Rock, Arkansas, he was one of my best customers. When he went on to start Orbea USA, he became my most formidable and capable competitor. Despite this competition we have remained friends because Tony is a really good guy. No one can not like him.

And to paraphrase Hyman Roth from the Godfather, I wasn't angry, that was business.

I stepped into the Orbea booth to ask Tony what was new from the land of the Basques. Of course he pointed me to the 2010 Orca, their top of the line; the bike the Euskaltel pro team rides.

The biggest change I see for 2010 is that Orbea has adopted the oversized BB30 bottom bracket shell system. I am sure soon all high-performance bikes will use BB30 because it makes for a lighter, stiffer bottom bracket. There's more info on BB30 here. Note that the Orca is built with Sram components. Sram had a surprisingly large footprint at 2009 Interbike.

Orbea's through-the head-tube gear cables

Here is Orbea's web site

Miche

I've never quite understood why Italian component maker Miche doesn't have a larger footprint in the bicycle trade. When I owned Torelli, the few items I brought in were well-made and trouble-free. In fact, I'm not really sure why I didn't import more Miche products. I should have. They do deserve more respect.

Miche offers a wide range of both track and road groups and wheels. I guess everyone is making wheels now. A parts company is certainly not going to make the kind of money they used to make selling after-market hubs and spokes since almost all wheels sales are now of the pre-built kind. Miche does, however, continue to make a wide range of hubsets.

Miche doesn't make all of its own stuff. Knowing where to let others fill on the holes in the groups makes sense to me. The control levers and derailleurs seem to all come from Campagnolo. I certainly can't complain about that.

Until this year Miche's top of the line group was the Primato. This year they brought out their 11-speed "Supertype" gruppo, made with lots of carbon, including the brake calipers.

Here's the Miche "Supertype" compact crankset. It's available in both 11- and 10-speed and 170, 172.5 and 175 crank lengths.

The Miche Supertype 11-speed Ergal cogset. Miche makes a slew of different road cogsets in steel and Ergal aluminum, in Campagnolo and Shimano compatible models. They still make 8-speed cogsets!! You cheap guys (that would include me) can keep on keepin' on. Track cogs from 13 to 18 teeth, both 1/8" and 3/32" are also in their catalog.

A gold seat post to warm the heart of an ex-1980s BMXer. The Supertype post was displayed in several colors.

Miche is now carried by several of the largest parts wholesalers in the US and their coverage in Europe, is of course, fairly complete. Their catalog also shows distributors in Australia, Argentina and Taiwan.

Here's the Miche web site.

Miche sponsored a pro continental team, Miche-Silver Cross, that was pretty good

Bici Support

Larry Theobald of CycleItalia was cruising the show and spotted this neat bike washing stand. Larry says he uses some of this maker's products in Italy and has been very pleased.

The bike without wheels fits inside the cabinet. Nifty. Lots of pro teams use Bici Support's products.

I don't know if Bici Support has any American distribution.