Last year’s show attracted 18,000 visitors

Last year’s inaugural Cycle show was, by all accounts, pretty successful. 18,000 visitors isn’t too shabby. And the second one, in September, should be even better. We won’t embarrass the organisers by quoting too much from their press release, which has an air of the Cholmondley-Warners about it – “A must for all those with an interest in cycling”, “a veritable Aladdin’s cave”, “inter-active features” and so on – but in amongst it all is what we really need to know…

First and most importantly, the place to head for is the Business Design Centre, Islington, London. There’s a preview evening on Thursday 25 September and the show’s open for the following three days.

The first Cycle show came across very much as the polar opposite of the long established Bike Show. Bike does lots of riding displays and retail but struggles to attract manufacturers, Cycle majors on manufacturers and bolts on other features around the edges. The organisers are promising over 60 brands at this year’s show, covering all the bases from recumbents, through road bikes to MTBs.

As well as shiny new bikes, there’ll be personalities, health and fitness, travel, commuting and, yes, riding displays too. Thursday evening’s preview is centred around a special “Cycle for Health” feature, including sports therapy taster sessions, Spinning classes, training advice and all sorts of other stuff.

We’ll have more details of the preview and the show proper shortly. In the meantime, you can pre-register by phone on 0870 733 1022 or on-line at www.cycleshow.co.uk.