With all the excitement of Hawaii at the weekend the Cycle Show slipped into the background a bit but the team have been putting their collective heads together to provide a comprehensive review of what was on display for the coming year.

Today's coverage will be of the bike brands that were at the show, there were a couple of significant absences from Giant and Cannondale, while part two of the report will be on the other things that caught our eyes in the way of wheels, tribars and so on. All the reports are in alphabetical order for ease of searching and the sequence doesn't indicate anything other than that!

BH

The Llanos brothers ride these bikes and we watched Eneko win Lanzarote on one this year so there's a certain degree of pedigree about what might otherwise be taken as another 'me too' carbon framed triathlon machine. The frame shape is distinctly familiar but the finishing kits range from the Ultegra-equipped LT10 with drops, clip-ons and Shimano Ultegra wheels at £2,399 through to the over-blinged LT40 with Record components, Corima disk and 4-spoke wheelset and a Vision carbon integrated tribar at £4,999. Pick of the bunch for value would be the LT20 which has an Ultegra/FSA mixed groupset, Mavic Cosmic Carbon SL wheels and an integrated alloy Vision tribar. www.bhbikes.com

BMC

If there's any European nation who understands that 'form follows function' it's the Swiss. After all, how many nations do you know who have a typeface (and its derivative) named after it? But, somehow, the design of their bikes has always seemed just a bit too 'edgy' for triathletes. Well, forget that reservation - the Time Machine 2 and 3 are definitely interesting and, now that they come with the option of a complete bike rather than just as a frame for the UK market they are very keenly priced too.

The entry-level TT03 has an alloy seat tube but the rest is carbon while the TT02 is full carbon. Both have the Easton EC90 aero fork and both have the Easton deep section alloy Vista SL wheels. To keep the price down on the TT03 the groupset is Campag's Veloce (Shimano 105 is an option) with an Easton alloy Aeroforce base bar and clip-ons for the front-end control system. The saddle is a Fizik Arione Tri 2 so for your £1,799 there's not much that you'll need to change. Upping the stakes a bit to £2,599 (or £2,549 in Ultegra SL) gets you a Campag Centaur groupset and Easton's Attack TT carbon front-end plus the added comfort of that carbon seat tube.

If you want to 'roll your own' the TT02 frameset is £1,499 and the TT03 is £1,099 and both come with fork, headset and seatpost included. Should you fancy a TT01 then you'll need to re-mortgage - the frame alone is €8999 so you'll be looking at around £8-8500 for a complete beast and quite possibly more if you have tastes that exotic. If you do the math you'll see that the TT03 really is quite a bargain in terms of the build-up and Extra, the UK distributors, have been able to leverage their connections with both Fizik and Easton to make this happen. www.bmc-racing.com

Cervélo

You can bet the boys at Cervélo are happy that Chrissie Wellington rode one of their P2 Carbons to victory in Hawaii! However, although the P3C and P2C models are the ones that grab all the headlines, our Editor has always reckoned that if you want just one bike to be both your triathlon and road bike then the Soloist is the benchmark to work from... Unless, that is, you can afford one of each or, like Chrissie, your team management is also a Cervélo distributor... For 2008 there are the usual tweaks to the colours but, in terms of models and geometries, the only change is the new RS road model which is a derivative of the R3 with a taller head tube. www.cervelo.com

Felt

This is a brand that has made a real name for itself with tri-specific bikes over the past few years and having names like Michellie Jones riding them hasn't done anything but strengthen their position. In the UK the trade distribution comes from Saddleback who have also just taken on Zipp wheels as well; the two do go rather nicely together!

The 2008 story is a bit simpler than in previous years; one frameset, the DA, with four versions. The B12 is the base version and doesn't have the Bayonet fork but your £2,000 still gets you Dura-Ace/Ultegra SL, FSA cranks, Profile cockpit and TTR wheels so it's a pretty mean machine. Step up another £500 to the B2 and you get the Bayonet fork, a better grade of carbon, Dura-Ace/FSA groupset and Vision cockpit - that's £500 well spent! Oh, and before anyone bothers to tell us there's something wrong with the picture below - we know, those aren't the wheels you get with it!

If you've got £3,500 to spend you'll get the B2 Pro with the same frame lay-up but the added extras of a Zipp 606 wheelset, Vision carbon cockpit and a full Dura-Ace groupset. Lottery winners can blow £4,500 of their wad on the full-spec DA and get a frame upgrade and a Zipp Vuka cockpit. Nice but, possibly, a bit OTT and, as with all expensive things, a decreasing VFM proposition - we'll just have to wait for the Snake to test one and tell us what we've been missing! www.feltbicycles.com

Focus

Focus are huge in Germany and, through their distribution deal with Wiggle, are beginning to make inroads in the UK. Stuart Hayes has been riding one of their road frames this year, the Izalco Extreme, but what caught our eye was the entry-level pricing of their Izalco Triathlon. If you are looking for a starter triathlon bike and you want something designed for the job rather than adding clip-ons to a low-end road bike then this is well worth a look.

Designed with proper tri geometry (78 degree seat tube) and sensible alloy aero tubing it is fitted out with all the proper kit. There's a carbon aero fork with an alloy steerer, a full FSA Vision basebar and clip-ons, Easton Vista wheels and a Fizik Arione tri saddle. OK, by now you'll be expecting a Tiagra groupset but what you actually get is a set of SRAM bar end shifters, Rival front and rear mechs, an FSA Gossamer chainset plus FSA brakes and levers. That's all good, solid stuff that's a step up from some of the cheaper alternatives. Possibly the only thing you could say against the whole ensemble is that the colour is a bit off - white, yes, but white and green, mmmmm. Oh, we nearly forgot. The price? £899.99!! Sod the colour, that's an absolute bargain!

For those with deeper pockets and greater ambitions there's the Izalco Chrono. All-carbon, co-designed by Avanti in New Zealand, used by the German and Australian triathlon teams - it's got the right pedigree. Component-wise there's an Oval carbon fork; SRAM Red shifters, mechs and brakes; an FSA SLK Pro chainset; FSA Vision Trimax front-end; Easton carbon aero wheels and a Fizik Arione Tri 2 saddle. Can't fault that lot and at £3,799 it isn't even too outrageously expensive - the SRAM/FSA groupset accounts for around a third of that! www.focusbikesuk.com

Pinarello

No, it's not a mistake. Pinarello really do have a tri bike in their range for 2008 and we don't mean the Montello. The FT1 is £2,499.99 and, while it borrows stylistically from the Montello, it has a proper 76° seat angle so it should deliver the goods while looking molto bling. The assembled equipment package is a bit less than exciting as Pinarello have kept everything other than the Dura-Ace/Ultegra bits in-house and used their own M.O.S.T bars, stem, wheels and chainset but it's tidy enough and the style is enough to lift it above many of the 'me too' frames. With a decent set of aero wheels, Pinarello's UK importer also handles Corima so it should be possible arrange a trade-up quite easily, this is a very stylish alternative. www.pinarello.com

Scott

Scott is another brand that has made a feature out of its triathlon-specific bikes in recent years and prodes itself on the fact that they aren't 'just another carbon monocoque' design. The Plasma was joined late last year by the women-specific Plasma Contessa and they both remain in the range for 2008. The Plasma Pro and the Contessa, both just under the £2,500 mark, offer a pretty standard mix of Dura-Ace and Ultegra with a profile cockpit and Fizik Arione Tri saddle but, somehow, the wheels don't seem to quite match up to the rest of the package - they are Mavic's Cosmic Elites. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the wheels, and they would be an excellent starter set, but the bike screams out for something a bit more deep section.

And, of course, there's just that option with the Plasma Pro Ltd which will set you back over £4,300 but has full Dura-Ace and a set of Zipp 606s.

There was a very interesting Plasma variant hanging on the wall; David Millar's. The fact that it was Millar's was interesting, the 'very' part comes in the fact that, being built from tubes, he was able to specify a rounder top tube than the normally flattened one. Apparently he rides with his knees very close to the frame and kept knocking the wider tube and so they swapped the top tube for one off a road frame. Just try doing that with a monocoque design... www.scottusa.com

Specialized

Specialized have a problem. A BIG problem... Macca won Hawaii on an S-Works Transition! And, to be completely blunt about it, there aren't any left! There may be just a few left in the supply chain - aka at your local dealer - but the whole of the current production run is gone, sold, snapped-up, unavailable. Bugger! And you can forget the cheaper models, they're pretty much sold out too. In fact the only 'real' Transition on Specialized's stand was their somewhat 'used' display bike, the other two models were just plastic shells and not carbon fibre at all.

The Transition model in 2008 is a different beast to the 2007 one - it's now a very funky shape, sort of a merging of a Cervélo P3C and a Specialized Tarmac. Having only one bottle mount is a pain for the long-distance user, Specialized's aero bottle is way too small to be useful, so rear-mounted carriers are going to be a must. But that's a small price to pay for what is, by all accounts, one of the hottest-looking bikes in the 2008 line-up. If Spesh can make more of these then we can't see it being anything other than a screaming success but, as they are essentially all hand-made, we suspect that the supply issue will continue until they do the next production run for what will become the 2009 version.

Of their other models, the Allez range has been widely used as a triathlon starter pack bike and that's probably not going to change much with the 2008 line-up being the usual, if slightly more condensed in terms of models, value for money proposition while the Tarmac is a great performance road bike that suits a lot of people just fine as a tri bike. And, of course, it's carbon fibre too... www.specialized.com

Trek

Pretty much everything at Trek is new for 2008. All the old, familiar road models are gone and there's a new alloy range - all with the new Madone-derived sloping geometry - that runs from £470 through to £1,000. From these the 1.7 and the 1.9 are the stand-outs with a great package for the price but the cheaper models are excellent value for those looking for a cheap start. The WSD range is slightly different with the better specced models coming from the 2.1 and 2.3 versions that have no male equivalent in the UK.

The new Madones fall into two camps; the Performance models and the Pro models. The difference? Headtube length. The Pro headtubes are shorter by 3cm on each model for a more aggressive position. Our advice is to get properly fitted and then buy the frame that fits - sometimes a taller headtube is a blessing, especially on longer distances like Ironman. There is also a sub-Madone Madone, the 4.5. Same Performance geometry (no Pro version) and the £1,400 price-point tells the story - it's not US-built in OCLV carbon but made in the Far East. Can you tell the difference? Only if you're seriously geeky and carry spec sheets in your head!

The Equinox range uses the 2007 geometry which the Snake liked so much and offers one alloy (the 7) and four carbon versions. There's a WSD in the 7 but not in the carbon range. The new top-of-the-range TTX 9.9 SSL comes in at £4,200 with its SRAM Red groupset, Aelous wheelset and Bontrager integrated bars and it's a stunner. Go Dura-Ace and alloy aero wheels and you'll save £1,000 and also lose that extra-light carbon. Interestingly, the alloy 7 at £1,300 appears to be identically specced to the carbon TTX 9 at £1,900 so that pretty much tells you what the carbon frame has to be worth to you in terms of comfort (or bragging rights...). www.trekbike.co.uk