INTENSE
Price: £3,299.00 / From: Intense Cycles, uk.intensecycles.com
Intense Cycles is one of those brands that has just got IT, whatever IT actually is. Bursting onto the scene in the early 90s, Intense and its owner Jeff Steber have always done things a little differently to the mainstream. So when news broke towards the end of 2017 that Intense was going direct sale - only in the UK, you could almost hear the collective gasp. For a boutique company that’s occupied a higher-end niche of the market, the move was a surprise to many. Then again, given growing competition from online direct-sale companies, along with more aggressive pricing from the bigger (and arguably better resourced) brands, perhaps it was only a matter of when, not if.