Progressive Bikes, UK distributor for veteran Canadian manufacturer Brodie, has sent us details of Brodie’s 2008 range. And there’s quite a lot going on.

Brodie is very proud of its new Custom Select Shaped tubing. The tubes, found on the Marathon FS series and Lightning XC hardtails, look hydroformed, but in fact the shapes are formed by mandrel rather than high-pressure liquid. The new tubing, along with new dropouts, has let Brodie cut the weight of some FS frames by 0.75lb. Hardtail frames have got 0.3lb lighter, still quite significant. Pictured are the 100mm-travel Mettle, the Kinetic hardtail and the 130mm Loki bike. Brodie will also be debuting the titanium cruZado hardtail.

On the subject of hardtails, Brodie’s “Hardass” beefy hardtails get some attention too. Again, that tubing puts in an appearance on the Bruzza and Holeshot, which share a new frame. There’s a slightly longer top tube than in 2007, the top tube has been dropped further and there are new forged yokes in the back end. Apparently the frame is a massive 2.4lb lighter than the 2007 Bruzza, which was clearly quite a beefy bit of kit. The 2008 model looks like being a rather more versatile bike.

There’s no change to the 7-8in travel frames, with the Diablo, Damien and Devo returning with updated spec. Brodie’s 6in bikes have been on a diet, though – the all-mountain Zealot comes with a complete Shimano XT groupset and weighs in at 33lb. Other bikes in the 6in range, like the Pariah pictured, go for a more overtly freeridey spec with twin-and-bash chainring setups.

And of course, no range would be complete without a cyclocross bike. With a triple chainset and disc brakes, the Ronin clearly isn’t pitched at the hardcore ‘cross racer but should prove a versatile all-round tool for the (considerably larger in number) rest of us.

With any luck we’ll manage to get our grubby mitts on some of Progressive Bikes’s Brodie demo fleet shortly – in the meantime, have a look at www.progressive-bikes.co.uk or www.brodiebikes.com for more details.