Friday Randoms Part 2 - Eurobike 2012

Bos have updated their Idyll fork in a big way. We saw their all-new Idyll Rare earlier in the year on their World Cup racers' bikes and that experiment with air was so successful Bos have taken the huge step of going to air on all their forks. That's right, all of their downhill, freeride and trail forks are now air sprung. We know some of the more XC-orientated manufacturers like DT Swiss have gone down that road a while ago, but Bos are the first company to do it for gravity riding. It's no surprise to us that the fork looks this good too, Bos take pride in the appearance of their products and we think the Idyll is now looking better than ever. Bos say that matching this fork up with their Void rear shock would save a full kilo from your bike and there's no compromise in performance...

Along with an air spring, the N'Dee has a new name too - the Idyll SC. It shares the same damping as its bigger brother, the only difference is the loss of the upper crown and a 20mm drop in the travel to 180mm. Again, just look at it...

Saracen had their updated Myst downhill bike on show. Out back is now a carbon rear end, which saves a whopping 600g from the bike. They've also smashed the paintjob this year, hitting the right balance between distinctive and not being so garish it burns your retinas.

The Myst's little brother, the Ariel, also gets the same lovely paintjob.

When we posted about the Pinion gearbox with a beltdrive earlier this week a couple of people asked about doing one on a hardtail. Nicolai have done just that...

Kali had a few new bits on display, taking pride of place was this, the Avatar full facer. They offer a carbon and composite version, with the carbon one weighing in at less than 800g.

Kali's top enduro racer, Andrea Bruno has helped them develop this enduro friendly Avan Super Enduro lid (the enduro-friendly clue is in the name). It goes straight down the route of new-school trail helmets, offering more protection for the back of the head than their other open-face offerings.

Your knees haven't been forgotten by Kali either and they had this Aazis soft pad on show.

It's all about the details. Park Tool had this handy little gadget on their wall - the VC-1. One of the problems with tubeless is that valvecores can get jammed up with latex and you simply can't get enough purchase on them with your fingers. This grips the valve core and allows you to open it with a spanner. (sorry about the photo, but we really wanted to show ya it)

We've been waiting for this for a while - the Urge All-M. We are already big fans of their Endur-O-Matic open-face helmet and this promised to offer the same kind of protection, but in a lighter and better-ventilated package. There are a huge range of colour schemes on offer, but this blue one was the show-stopper for us.

We also previewed Urge's Realjet for you back in April and now we finally got to see one in the flesh. It's even better-looking than in the photos. Admittedly we can't say for sure when we'd ever wear one of these, but we will say for sure that we want one...

Urge also unveiled this, their new entry-level offering, the Activist. It's quite a general type of helmet and we could see it being popular among commuters. The very cool thing they have done with this is to ABS dye the outer, rather than paint it which reduced the environmental impact of producing them significantly.

Prologo are a name more usually associated with road cycling, but on their stand were these, the Scratch Pro and Scratch 14 saddles which are aimed squarely at trail and gravity riders. That road background means they are both light and good-looking and we are excited to see more companies like this cross over into MTB.

All-new for Rose bikes was this - the Root Miller. Running 130mm out back, 120mm up front and a dropper post, we can see this appealing to a big group of trail riders.