Stuart Hayes has landed himself a nice two-year sponsorship deal that gets him a very cool Focus Izalco Extreme as a race bike and a Team version as a training machine. The brand name Focus may not mean very much to you -- unless you're up with either the European bike market (where they are one of the top selling brands on the continent) or happen to frequent the Wiggle website. Wiggle are the sole UK distributor for the brand and see it making significant inroads into the market over here, helped along, no doubt, by their sponsorship of Stuart and his potential to get a slot for the Olympics next year.

The Izalco Extreme is actually a top bit of kit: full Shimano Dura-Ace, a set of Lightweight carbon wheels plus all the extras and at £3,299 it's really rather inexpensive (a set of Lightweights will set you back about £1,900 on their own). The Focus brand was founded by German cyclocross champion Mike Kluge and has been producing bikes for 20 years -- and they are obviously doing the job pretty well, ProCycling recently gave the Izalco Extreme a very positive test report.

The one bike that's obviously missing from the range is anything that could be described as a triathlon or time trial machine and we understand that there is one in development that may well make an appearance later this year when the 2008 model range gets unveiled at the various bike shows. We'll let you know as soon as we get sight of one...