Just as we were looking forward to the imminent arrival of spring 2003, along come Shimano with some choice nuggets of information about their 2004 range. Seems terribly early, but in the twisted calendar of the bike industry those '03 bikes just reaching the shops now are old news. They're all busy speccing up next year's stuff, and a lot of what they do depends on what Shimano have to offer.

We don't have a great deal of information, but what we do have we'll go into more detail with over the next couple of days. The highlights are an all-new freeride/DH oriented groupset called Saint, a new platform SPD using the mud-shedding design already seen in the XCish PD-M959 pedal, an XT level tubeless compatible MTB wheelset, a 10-speed Dura Ace road group and all sorts of actually rather cool stuff for the "comfort bike" market.

Hopefully that's whetted your appetite - we'll have some more details shortly, but now we've got to dash off to the National Cycle and Leisure show in pursuit of more shiny newness...