Lots of colours and finishes for the TSR at BoA. Alex Moulton, who happened to be walking past was very impressed and took some time to study them in detail.
The pink TSR grabbed lots of attention all day. Something for the lady who has everything?
A TSR 30 was shown with chrome forks and rear triangle...
... and some deep section HED aerodynamic wheels...
Also, a turquoise TSR
The new Esprit was finally unveiled to the MBC, and there were no major surprises.
Photo: Flickr user Group51uk
Most of it was reported previously here on Moultonbuzz, so much of the following is a recap:
Alex Moulton said that he was pleased that the availability of HED wheels and frame skins would improve the aerodynamics of the bike.
Photo: Dynavector
Shaun mentioned that the reason for the revamped AM was a request from several overseas Moulton distributors. I can guess that these are Japan, Germany and possibly Switzerland. This seems to indicate that the AM is still very popular in these areas, perhaps more so than in Britain.
Three demo bikes were available for testing, and I had a go on all three around the new test track.One demo had the wishbone stem and Mosquito bars. Shifting was via a Shimano Dura-Ace 9 speed bar end-shifter down-tube shifer used as a thumb shifter on the flat of the mosquito bar. I really like this setup. The friction option of bar end shifters is an excellent feature to have when indexing becomes less than perfect on the road. Incidentally, the indexing on one of the New Series demo bikes was terrible!The drop bar models were both equipped with Shimano 105 Sti shifters, double chainrings and Capreo cassette hub.All three models seemed fast, comfortable and light. The suspension was extremely smooth, but plenty firm. Logic was telling me that I should like the New Series more, but the Esprit always felt better. The Double Pylon demo bike was using the softest of the available rubber compounds, so it felt spongier and bouncier than the Esprit, and perhaps with a harder compound I might feel differently.I rode a TSR 27 just afterwards and it felt heavy and sluggish by comparison to the Esprit, though I think it's perhaps an unfair comparison. The TSR was on Marathon Plus tyres, while the Esprit was on Stelvios, and tyres have a huge effect on how fast a bike feels.Also, the flat bars were wider on the TSR, and made it feel less stable. Alex Moulton believes that narrower bars are better on Moultons and I tend to agree.
One of the New Series demo bikes was set up with flat bars, but with a slight angle backwards and felt like a perfect setup for town. Though in what town could you lock up a New Series!
The test track is quite lovely - every garden should have one. There are a number of short sharp inclines and declines, and tight corners. Though a bike cannot be fully evaluated on a short test track, it does give plenty of opportunity to see how a bike feels climbing, descending and handling in tight spaces.
I have seen well over a thousand pictures of the BoA event in previous years, and studied them in great detail. So when I arrived for the first time on Saturday, it looked somewhat familiar. But nothing could have prepared me for the magic of actually being there.
Firstly, the sheer scale of the place is massive. Secondly, how many 17th century mansions will one get to camp outside? Fewer still, where the owner will encourage the campers to move further into the garden!
Photo from BOA 2005, by David Sanders
The weather was fantastic - beautiful sunshine for most of Saturday. And it was great to meet lots of people, all of whom shared a passion for Moultons.
Saturday morning was the bring and buy sale. Lots of bargains to be had, and a few bikes changing hands.
The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday afternoon assembly. The organisers called owners of all the models from the very beginning to line up and show off their bikes. Each model was called individually, and most had 3 or 4 examples for show.
Photo from Flickr user Group51uk
The experts, including Alex Moulton himself scrutinised the bikes in great detail and awarded a certificate for the best example of each model. The parade was cut short due to lack of time, so they never got beyond the AM-GT.
New product announcements followed. Highlights include:
- the new Esprit, the new version of the AM.
- framesets available for the Esprit and the Bridgestone
- frameskins and HED wheels.
- Pashley were showing off a few custom colours and finishes
- The superb new large bag for the TSR.
- Two new Moulton books
There was also a few words from a Moultoneer who had just completed Paris Brest Paris on a Pashley Moulton TSR 30.
I will write in much more detail over the next day or two, and post a few pictures.
Until then, there are lots of pictures on the Moulton Bicycle Pool on Flickr
BikeRadar is at the Eurobike exhibition, and reports this morning on a new bicycle from Cannondale
...the Hooligan, a small-wheeled, hub geared urban machine that looks like the bastard offspring of a BMX and a Moulton.
It sounds weird but it might just work. Those small wheels will give you excellent acceleration (ideal for urban riding) and a long wheel base should make for stable and predictable handling, the hub gears mean low maintenance, and the burly frame certainly looks tough enough to cope with city streets - we shall see, we've already ordered one in for test.
Of course we all know that Moultons are pure breeds, and while it's vaguely possible that a frustrated early APB might fantasize about a dirty weekend with something classy like a Rivendell, it would certainly never mix it's genes with a BMX.
When you look at those fat tyres, only one thing comes to mind... the Raleigh RSW.
Fed up with newcomer Moulton selling so many bikes, Raleigh needed to hit back.
They badly needed to compete with the Moulton bicycle, but couldn't get around Moulton's suspension patents.
So they developed the RSW. At first glance it was vaguely similar to a Moulton. They used balloon tyres to get around the discomfort factor of unsuspended small wheels.
The RSW was inferior in every way to the Moulton. It was 6lbs heavier and felt like cycling through treacle. But it was cheaper to manufacture, so Raleigh could sell it more cheaply.
The unsuspecting customer, walking into a bike shop to buy a Moulton could easily be convinced to buy this thing that looked a lot like a Moulton, but was over 10% cheaper, and had Raleigh's name on it.
Neo-liberal mass market corporation's greedy marketing tactics win out over sound engineering shocker.
So is history about to repeat itself. I don't think so. Firstly, Alex Moulton is unlikely to sell his company to Cannondale, as he did to Raleigh in the 1960's.
But more importantly, the original Moulton was sold to the mass market, and so was vulnerable to mass market competition, and big bicycle manufacturers.
Today's Moultons are a very much specialised product for a niche market. People who buy Moultons are a very different segment of the market to the majority of the market: mountain bikes that never see a mountain, junk hybrids, supermarket bike shaped objects and tour de france clones.
The story of Peter Lea is quite an amazing one. During his cycling career, he averaged over 17,000 miles per year and over 187,000 miles in total.
Peter ordered a Moulton S Safari in 1965, with a massive 68t chainring, close ratio block and completed a hugely impressive mileage on it.
The photo above shows Peter on the record breaking S Safari.
Peter completed over 75,000 miles on the S Safari, including a record breaking 30,108 in one year, all while holding down a full time job. When Alex Moulton heard of the record, he put the S Safari in his museum, and gave Peter a custom Moulton Speedsix as a replacement.
Ken Butterfield has since acquired the tangerine Speedsix for his collection.
Ken says...
I knew that in exchange for their new high mileage exhibit, Moulton bicycles had built Peter Lea a replacement and that this was a tangerine orange speedsix which was assembled at Bradford on Avon in 1970. This is remarkably late for a series two, as the Mk3 was in full production over in Nottingham and development work at the Hall was taken up with this latest frameset. Other speedsix specials are known to have been built in this period though, including ones built by Jack Lauterwasser himself. Peter Leas experience must have been considered valuable, as Alex Moulton wrote to him asking if he had any advice for a young rider who was going to ride to Australia on a cycle that he was making for him. This was of course the Marathon, and the young man was Colin Martin!
The pictures show Alex Moulton studying the unique Speedsix, at the Moulton Bicycle Club weekend at Bradforn on Avon in September 2006.
You can read more about Peter's unique history in issues 48 and 78 of the Moultoneer, which is the magazine of the Moulton Bicycle Club, and in Tony Hadland's excellent book, The Moulton Bicycle.
This is a stunning and unique bike, as the pictures show. Thanks to Ken for sharing.
