I went to the CFOSE 5th edition today, being held at the White Orchid Convention Centre, near Manyata Tech Park, in Bangalore --
http://tradeshows.tradeindia.com/cfoseindia-aug2016/
http://www.cfoseindia.com/
There did_not seem to be many visitors. Regarding the various booths --
* Track-n-Trail -- I would have liked to see more variety of cycles on display at the booth, since I think they import the widest range of brands/models. Plus they have their own brand, Montra. I was there with some friends, whose interest was in hybrids, so those were the ones we were looking for specifically. TnT had the Montra Trance & Montra Blues hybrid models on display, alongwith some Cannondale ones. There seemed to be a fair range of MTBs, though I did_not look at those.
* Hero -- They had some UrbanTrail HT MTBs on display. More of interest to me were their new Milano SS/Fixies. They had couple of those on display. They had also hooked up couple of MTBs to trainers & a video game. Folks could pedal the real bikes, & the video game screen showed how they were doing against the other rider. That was a nice attraction.
* Firefox -- They had the Rapide on display, which is a really nice hybrid, IMO. They also had some other Firefox bikes. I spent some time looking at the Trek MTBs, & the Trek FX 7.2 hybrid.
* Merida -- they had a few MTBs & road bikes on display. There was a (IIRC) Speeder 100 hybrid on display., which seemed to be a nice performance-focussed hybrid.
* Schnell -- I don't think I had heard of this brand. They said they are an Indian brand, based out of Pune, and manufacturing abroad. Looked at couple of their hybrids; those seemed to be nice options. Website -- http://schnellbikes.com/
* Komorebi -- Again, had not heard of them. They said they to are an Indian brand, from Bangalore. They had some hybrid & road bikes on display, which had been manufactured abroad. Nice option again. They said they were looking to start manufacturing in India & hoped to launch those soon, starting with road bikes, then MTBs, & finally hybrids. Website -- http://komorebibikes.com/index.php
Other than those, there were booths from Atlas, Avon, Phoenix, Java, Voltas etc. Some of them again, I had not heard of before. They had electric & folding bikes on display, among others.
There were also some booths from apparel manufacturers & bike accessory manufacturers. When I was leaving the expo, couple of folks approached me outside the convention centre. They said they were from BigBen, and said they manufacture bike saddles and pedals. They too a closer look at the Brooks saddle on my bike. I mentioned to them that it would be nice if they could make a Brooks-like saddle for the Indian market. Something that would be sold for much less than the price of the Brooks saddle. Now waiting to see if they pursue that. Website -- http://www.indiamart.com/big-benexports/ (See the leather saddles section.)
Overall, a nice but low key expo. I'd say, before the general public get's excited about cycling, we probably need the cycling businesses to show more energy. Then again, there was one chap riding around a penny-farthing bike (Firefox branded, I think). Not sure if he was a visitor or from the company... but I guess the expo wasn't so dull after all. :) Oh, and there were some food stalls next to the expo booth area. Pav Bhaji, chaats, rolls and tea. Something to keep the stomach happy. :)
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