LikeBike 2015 offered a wealth of odd bike kit for cash-rich cyclists - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Schiller S1 water bike is claimed to offer a cycling experience on the water, either for exercise or a great view down into clear water. The S1 costs $4,500, weighs 31kg, packs down to fit in a car and takes 10 minutes to assemble. The S1 Carbon weighs 27kg and costs $6,995. The engineering was done by a former America's Cup sailboat racer and the S1 is claimed to be very stable. "When it's calm it's like road cycling," inventor Judah Schiller told us, "and when there's a bit of chop it's more like mountain biking." This was not the maddest thing we saw at LikeBike - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Monaco is famous for its motorsport heritage and streets swamped with supercars, so that was all the excuse that Rotwild needed to get the new Mercedes AMG GT onto its stand alongside its AMG-Rotwild limited edition bikes - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Among its pretty titanium bikes, Nevi had this, the one-off Fabric, which was commissioned for the show. It's wrapped in a very expensive Italian woven fabric with intricate attention to detail around the BB and chainstays where it fits perfectly. Why? Because Monaco - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Ktrak snowbike claims to 'redefine the mountain bike'. It's a retrofit track and ski conversion for riding in snow. We can't tell you the price because, oddly, it was unattended for the whole show - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The ultra-stubby saddle fitted to the Ktrak snowbike to help you move around on it - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Never knowingly out-blinged, MCipollini showed this Luxury Edition RB1K with logos in platinum, gold and diamonds. At €54,000 it was the most expensive bike at the show, which is no doubt why it was secured in this impossible-to-photograph glass case. - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The head tube badge of the MCipollini Luxury Edition RB1K is made of gold, platinum, white diamonds and black diamonds. Probably best not ride it in winter… - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Pininfarina Fuoriserie bike (the name means 'limited edition') is inspired by 1930s coachbuilt cars. It costs €9,000 and takes two months to build. The chromed steel frame has walnut finishing, a pedal assist motor, luxury leather saddlebags, saddle and grips, and LED dynamo lights. A total of 30 will be built - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The interlaced leather grips are inspired by the interior of the 1936 Lancia Astura Bocca, a famous car from Pininfarina's history - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The walnut briar-root top tube finishing and chrome logo is another reference to Pininfarina's heritage in luxury car design - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Zehus Bike motor is fully contained in the rear hub and is able to recharge while you coast. Thanks to its discreet location and attractive chrome finish it doesn't look out of place on a stylish bike and we saw loads of them around the show - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Fuoriserie comes with beautifully made saddle and frame bags in matching leather made by The Bridge - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The saddle is made from the same woven leather as the grips - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Italian framebuilder 43 Milano makes the individually numbered frames - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Pininfarina also showed its Cambiano concept car, built in 2012 to celebrate 30 years of its Style Centre in the town of Cambiano - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
These crazy-looking bar-ends suit name of the bike they adorn – the Bestia Nera (Black Beast) by T.Red. Thankfully they're made of foam - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
T.Red claims to be the first to mate a disc brake with a tri-spoke carbon front wheel. We've certainly never seen it before but we doubt it's been high on many industry to-do lists - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Bestia Nera (code B_02) has a carbon aero track frame of T.Red's own design with a cutout for the rear wheel. It's intended for the street, though, hence the flat pedals - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Here's a drivetrain you won't have seen before - track cranks with a fixed gear and an e-motor rear hub (Zehus again) built into a carbon disc - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The rear wheel is T.Red's own super-deep rim with a cover over the spokes - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
And here's the Bestia Nera in all its glorious insanity. We saw it being ridden through Monaco to the show one morning and it looked incredible. In Monaco, among the Lamborghinis and Bugattis, it didn't seem so ridiculous. We're not sure that would apply in Milton Keynes - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The front brake is operated by a reversed Avid XO hydraulic lever on the left bar - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The swooping frame adds to the visual drama. The Bestia Nera weighs 9.9kg with the e-motor and costs €6-10k depending on spec - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Zanotti Coren has been around for a few years now but is little-known and looks as bold as ever - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Coren's carbon construction allows radical shapes and naked carbon is used as a design feature - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Zanotti may have got carried away with the minimalism in the cockpit - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Coren runs a Gates Carbon Belt drive and is available as a fixed, singlespeed or pedalec - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
German carbon specialist UBC manufactures the frame on behalf of industrial designer Christian Zanotti - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Gold plating was a theme of the show and none took it further than Hungarian brand Veloboo. This model, named Gold, has extensive 24k gold plating and costs €38,000 - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Veloboo Gold's ornate gold head tube badge. The bike is said to have been inspired by 1920s styles - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The leather grips are beautiful and, yes, those are gold-plated brake levers you can see behind them - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The gold-plated seatpost is topped with a handsome leather saddle though if we were to be picky we'd point out that the hue of the saddle doesn't quite match the grips - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Oh yes, did we mention that the Gold's frame is made from bamboo? Designer Antal Szalay told us that "I rode a bamboo bike and enjoyed the feel but not the aesthetic so I set out to create a higher level of bike design." - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Veloboo used LikeBike to debut the €26,500 Naja, which has its saddle and one-piece Cinelli cockpit wrapped in manta ray leather, which is apparently a desirable material in high-end handbags and shoes. It didn't feel like it would be very comfortable - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The name Naja comes from the genus of snake species that comprises most cobras. So there - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
A manta ray leather chainstay protector. These might catch on - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Naja runs an ultra-exclusive Campagnolo Super Record 80th Anniversary groupset - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Naja is made from bamboo with "secret other materials" to form some unusual shapes in the frame. Veloboo says it's aimed at sportives and racing but don't expect to see one lining up at your local 3/4 circuit race any time soon. Like the Gold, a total of 30 will be made - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The design of the BME B-9 NH is, rather obviously, "inspired by the F-117 stealth bomber". It's a huge cliché and, as the plane was introduced in 1983 and retired in 2008, a rather outdated one. Still, at least BME went to town with the angular aesthetic. The singlespeed, belt-drive, all-carbon B-9 NH weighs 8.8kg, costs €7,800 and production is limited to 100 units. Actual sales may be limited still further… - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
This is the Black Edition. No other colours are offered. - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The AE21 has a 250W electric motor in the front wheel and a hub gear at the back. The drivetrain is fully enclosed. The AE21 weighs 22kg - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Uniquely, the space between the AE21's frame spars has been used for luggage - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The luggage space has room for a laptop bag and a lock. The battery range is 50km between charges - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Nemus Bikes from Germany is a spin-off from Ligno Tube Technologies, an industrial manufacturer using natural materials but built to exact technical specifications - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
These wooden tubes are manufactured to exact tolerances and properties, so they are far more consistent and suited to bike building than other natural materials. The outer layer can be customised according to taste (or lack thereof) - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
And here's the bike that those tubes go into, the Nemus, a 'sporty urban bike' that costs €6-7,000 and weighs 10.5kg. The painted sections (they're more than just lugs) are aluminium - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Brooks Cambium grips were on lots of bikes at the show… - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
…and usually accompanied by a Cambium saddle - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Here's another Nemus in a different finish that better shows off the wooden tubes - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
We've seen the Stringbike before but it's worthy of a second look so you can marvel at its weirdness - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Stringbike went to great lengths (though who knows how long - ha!) to show its system on every type of bike - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Lousy idea, beautifully executed. The engineering skill required to make this work is impressive but it could have been directed to something more worthwhile - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The hideous mutation of e-bikes continues. The SEV eTricks S01 breaks down another wall by not even bothering to have pedals. It's basically an electric motorbike - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The BHT Inquisitor is a monocoque-framed downhill e-bike, intended as your own personal uplift system - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
British firm Cofa Engineering appears to specialise in the near-impossible. Its stand was the most eclectic and also one of the most interesting that we found - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The Cofa Noah suspension bike was designed and built to demonstrate what's possible and also to address the bending moment applied to a long-travel fork by a big hit - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Cofa made this wooden bike with the intention of claiming the speed record from the Splinterbike following a challenge by a timber merchant - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
The drivetrain uses string in place of a chain but that wasn't the hardest part – that was the axles and bearings - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Even the saddle has to be wooden. We like the clever height adjustment but don't fancy sitting on it for long - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
This unpadded carbon saddle is called Berk. You can make you own jokes about that - Jamie Wilkins / Immediate Media
Held in the fittingly glamorous location of Monte Carlo, LikeBike is an ultra high-end bike show where virtually every machine is made of exotic materials and features a double-take inducing number of zeroes on its price tag.
As with all shows we’re lucky enough to visit, among all the gorgeous bikes there was a wide selection of gear causing quizzically raised eyebrows, disbelieving head shakes or outright gales of laughter.
Scroll through the gallery above to see some of our weird and wonderful favourites from LikeBike 2015 and check out more weird and wonderful galleries from our bike show travels.
Jamie Wilkins is a freelance cycling journalist with more than two decades experience. He has contributed to publications including Cycling News, Cyclist, 220 Triathlon and Rouleur. He has lived in the Pyrenees since 2018 where he runs the Escape to the Pyrennes guest house.
This website is owned and published by Our Media Ltd. www.ourmedia.co.uk
