All the best new MTB tech coming your way this year – we report from the first major bike show of 2024

While last year’s Core Bike Show was generally a deeply depressing tour of brands that were just trying to survive extinction, the general vibe of Core '24 was a lot more upbeat. Sure #surviveuntil25 was still the general mantra, but at least the dealers there were actually placing orders rather than cancelling them. While a lot of brands were clearly still sitting on new designs until they’d sold through on surplus of the old ones, reassuringly enough folks were showing fresh gear to make it well worth the visit. So here’s my show and tell of the highlights for the year ahead...

Hope

We've already gone into detail about Hope’s new carbon cranks, press-fit bottom brackets and the Bronze colorway, but seeing it up close really brings home the quality behind it. The cranks are particularly impressive with their replaceable sandwich pedal inserts and handmade foam core arms. The high price also becomes a lot more explicable when you learn that they’re only planning on making 12 of them a week at most.

Their HB 916 high pivot Enduro dominator has also been updated to be fully compliant with the latest SRAM T-Type Transmission. That includes a UDH rear mech mount but also an extra roller and suspension kinematic change to reduce chain growth to almost zero. This inevitably adds drag and weight but apparently makes the suspension more sensitive and most importantly means it won’t potentially snap your very expensive T-Type chain or rear mech at full travel.

Giro

Giro have a new lightweight full-face – the Coalition Spherical. We’ll have one in for test soon but at under 800g for all sizes, it’s competitively light for enduro/trail use and has 23 vents including a massive mouth port for cooling. It still has a full DH protection rating thanks to the new ‘Halo’ fixed chin bar system and Giro’s Spherical MIPS helmet within a helmet design. Fit is tuned with pads rather than a ratchet cradle, the chin strap gets a Fidlock buckle, pads are ‘Ionic’ stink fighters and there four color options at $299 / £299 / €299

Topeak

Topeak had their usual wall fulls of different parts and accessories but what really stood out was the kit for tool geeks and weight weenies. Their new digital pocket torque wrench uses a traffic light system that lights up as you load up the bolt you’re being careful with. It comes in a neat wallet with a selection of Allen and Torx heads, but it’ll also light your wallet up with a heft price tag.

Speaking of light, the new ‘Fezar’ – it makes more sense if you say it quick – carbon bottle cages look like carbonized shoe laces, but are said to be properly secure and weight in at between 10g for the road version or 15g for the MTB version.

Kids Ride Shotgun

At the other end of the spectrum, child stowing and towing specialists ‘Kids Ride Shotgun’ have recognized the fact that their elasticated ropes are now being used by e-bikers to pull exhausted un-motorized pals up hills too. Cue a new version with a max towing weight of 220kg – which should be more than enough to handle prime mover duties for even the meatiest mates.

Rapid Racer Products

RRP have a new brace bolting section design that now clears all RockShox fork crowns including the giant oversized ones now appearing on some e-MTBs. The new more secure mounting means they can now offer a bolt on version of their biggest guard too so you’ve got a choice of three sizes now. All RRP guards will feature an extended seal guard section and a tacky pad to give a more secure, less scratchy contact point for your precious fork paint.

Torq

Torq will be adding a fourth fuelling option to their existing bar, drink and gel range this summer with their new jellies. A packet of six of these translucent energy bullets will deliver the same, easily assimilated 2:1 ratio carb payload as Torq’s other products but in an easier to chew format than a bar. They’ll come in three all natural flavors and as usual for Torq, they are artificial colourant free and completely vegan too.

Enduro Bearings

Enduro Bearings have designed a new range of MaxHit bottom brackets for all variants of the increasingly common, but seemingly increasingly complicated T47 standard. These use Enduro’s normal concept of as many big, ultra high quality bearings as possible in each race. They’re also sealed with a fixed one side, floating the other alloy tube to keep your balls clean from the inside too.

Crankbrothers

Crank Brothers had some new tool-in-a-tube designs and a really neat bottle cage including a tire lever with a tubeless stabber kit hidden underneath.

DMR

UK brand DMR had new gear at both ends of the radness spectrum. Their new Trailstar Ti has arrived early for their thirtieth birthday celebrations, but translates the legendary hardcore jump, park or trail performance of the Trailstar design into ultra tough titanium. Adjustable UDH dropouts let you fit the latest SRAM or tension the chain for singlespeed use, but it’s a limited edition offering so be quick if you want to bag a piece of high performance heritage hardware.

Urban riders, gravel adventurers who don’t like clipless or fans of small platform pedals are the target audience of the new DMR Flat 4. Interchangeable pins or rubber pads sit on a tough alloy body with DMR’s legendarily durable and serviceable bearing and spindle system keeping things sweet on the street.

Campagnolo

Campagnolo debuted a new GT version of their 13-speed Ekar gravel groupset on a new Basso bike at the show. This uses all the same signature features of the superlight carbon cranked Ekar group but with alloy cranks to lower price and create a direct competitor for Shimano GRX 820.

Lyon Cycle / Forbidden

Lyon had a very special dream build on its stand that’s going to be auctioned for the family of Nils Amelincks (founder of Rider Resilience who sadly passed away late last year). The base bike is my favorite current trail bike – the Forbidden Druid V2 – in a not released yet ‘Dr Greenthumb’ dark green, with top spec SRAM and top spec Industry Nine wheels wrapped in Conti tires. So if you fancy winning one of the best bikes possible and supporting a superb cause, you can buy a £4.99 raffle ticket at thedreambikecompetition.co.uk

Endura

Scottish apparel brand Endura will be dropping a big refresh of their MTB range later in the year. That includes a ton of favorites relaunched with new fabrics including Polartec Alpha and Powergrid – which we’ve really liked in other gear we’ve tested recently. The Singletrack fleece is getting a slimmer fit and extra windshell protection too and we’re super keen to try the new MT500 Waterproof Bib Pant dungarees – which come in men's and women’s versions to handle different ‘drop and go’ needs. Unfortunately it’ll be September before most of the new models are available, but hopefully we’ll have samples in for test before then.

Challenge Tires

Italian handmade tire brand, Challenge, were keen to share the news of their latest, deeper tread Gravine tire for dirtier gravel rides. It comes in race and reinforced versions and while I bought home 40mm samples for test, 45mms will be available shortly.

Reilly

Final visit of the show was to Reilly who’ve taken on board a lot of my criticisms of their over stiff Gradient T47 gravel bike in a new version. This uses a similar titanium tubeset but with a conventional bottom bracket and increased tire clearance. The real star of their room was the new Reflex gravel race bike though. This mixes cold forged 6Al 4V aero headtube, seat cluster and dropouts sections with subtly shaped 3AL 2.5V tubes. Add their own carbon integrated cockpit and carbon seat post and tire clearance up to 700 x 47mm and you’ve got the promise of a very high velocity yet versatile machine. The plan is to visit Reilly down in Brighton to ride both bikes and have a tour of their bike building and anodising processes at the same time, so keep your eyes skinned for that soon. 

Show secrets

More than ever, the really interesting stuff I got to see were things pulled out of boxes or from behind curtains that I’m not allowed to tell you about yet. But keep your eyes peeled for news and tests from Norco, Cane Creek, Peaty’s, Panaracer, Forbidden, Stan’s No Tubes, Feedback Sports, GT and more that I’ll undoubtedly remember immediately after my editor has pressed publish on this.