Our core business is niche Price Comparison websites. We have some very successful sites like Boot Mooch and iPod Prices that perform a simple but valuable service saving people 30 minutes or more of their life finding the best price for their chosen purchase.
So unsurprisingly we get a pretty much continuous stream of enquiries asking when Bicycles will start doing price comparison.
When we explain that we purchased the Bicycles domain to provide an extensive cycling resource through which we would deliver the same high-quality price comparison we have been met with some bemusement – “why make finding the best price more complicated than it needs to be?”
In the world of very obvious things the answer to this question is, well, very obvious.
So in the imminent future coming to some web pages very near here Bicycles Price Comparison will be born in its purist form, no noise or distractions just the most direct route to the best price.
We’ll start with a small range of popular bikes, components and accessories and slowly grow it to include the whole gamut of your cycling needs. In common with all of our sites we’ll add products on request and we’ll work with all of the retailers to see if we can’t get some exclusive discounts for users.
In 1982 at the tender age of 15 my pal Duncan and I persuaded our parents to let us ride around northern France unaccompanied and carrying all of our own gear. We used the same bikes that we rode to school on and whilst I was very jealous that Dunc had 5 more gears on his bike than I had it didn’t occur to me that my 5 were anything less than enough…. and they weren’t because then we used up all of our gears and then pedalled harder.
In a bid to relive those days and share some of that magic with my kids (each just either side of my age back then) I proposed a pedalling road trip from Santander to St Malo. Hugging the coast, riding no more than 50 miles a day, swimming every day and living on Nutella and buns they both took me up without a second thought.
Despite my opening statement it soon became clear that we were going to be in need of another bike and being in my forties I wasn’t keen to compromise.
Thinking that a nice touring bike would be the perfect N+1 bike (N+1 is the formula that determines the optimum number of bike required by a single owner where N= the number of bikes currently owned) I set about drawing up a shortlist.
To cut a long story short I ended up choosing a 2011 Kona Sutra which through a turn of good luck I was able to take delivery of a couple of months before it hits the shops proper.
My first impression of the Sutra is that it is heavy, but it is worth remembering that Kona have supplied the 2011 Sutra with both mudguards and front and rear pannier racks so this was never going to be a light bike
Moving off from stationary you can feel the effort to get the bicycle rolling but that effort is quickly rewarded with a great feeling of momentum, even in to the wind there is a feeling that the bike is carrying you… joining in… up hill you’re on your own – time to zip up the man or woman suit and get on with it!
Handling is great. I haven’t a vast amount of experience with touring bikes but without the furniture I’d bet it handles as well as most road bike at the same price point and better than you’d realistically need it to on tour. With the loads I have taken so far there has been no significant difference in handling either.
I changed the saddle for a Brooks B17 Narrow Saddle which despite being barely worn-in has never caused me any pain but apart from that I can’t see anything to mess with, it is a bike at ease with itself.
The Avid BB7 cable operated disc brakes make for easy, confident stopping. They look easy to mainain and adjust and are universally rated as a great option for this job.
The mix of low profile Shimano Deore XT Shadow Rear mech and a Shimano Tiagra at the front, coupled with a Sora Chainset is a well considered balance of budget against performance which provides a very pleasant ride. Pleasant, like nice, could be seen as damning with faint praise but if you’re going to spend day after day in the saddle of a bike I reckon pleasant is everything that you’d hope for!
The bar-end shifters are fabulous. Easy to reach, firm and postive, the shifting is a delight. The front shifter is friction only which is a welcome return for some of us!
The wheels are also pretty impressive: Shimano Deore Disc hubs which are nice and easy to self service are attached to solid touring rims and the tyres are Continental 32c Contacts which feature a ubiquitous safe-guard system designed to keep you puncture free…. but they all say that don’t they…
I’ve only ridden just over 100 miles in the few days since my Kona Sutra arrived but these have been pretty varied including dry, wet and snow covered roads and tracks so I already feel like I know it pretty well.
Overall I’d describe the ride as steady, comfortable and engaging. It’s not a bike that rewards spurts of effort – when climbing a hill you get no great payback by popping out of saddle and honking, better to drop a gear or two and keep doing what you were doing. The same goes for upping the pace – you’ll get to your desired speed but you’ll get there gently and without fuss… it’s very civilised.
I think that I’m going to ride this bike a lot, it suits me.
I am writing about one of my favourite cyclists who was in my favourite race this year. The author is Bradley Wiggins and this book is an autobiography of his time in this year’s Tour de France. Wiggins is also the leader of the first ever British road racing team – Team Sky. The most important thing I have learned about this book is cycling can be very difficult, but if you work hard enough it can be very rewarding!
This book is about Bradley Wiggin’s time at the 2010 Tour de France and how he copes as the leader of Team Sky. It involves the people who help him and his friends from the other teams. He explains what happens at every stage and how he aims to get on the podium for the general classification (overall winner).
Bradley and Cav (Mark Cavendish) are really good friends. In the book Bradley talks about Cav’s behaviour, their friendship and Cav’s personality. Cav is a pro sprinter and this year won 5 stages of the Tour and 10 other stages in the last 2 years. He “mouths off” to the other sprinters and really does not like losing. Mark is also very confident and cheeky, but this is only his cyclist attitude. Bradley explains that outside the races he is a pretty cool guy. If he gets some thing wrong and knows its his fault, he will apologise to the team, but if he thinks that he was lead off too early or too late then he will sit down with the team and discuss it. Bradley and Cav have been good friends since they were in their teens.
The next subject is injuries. Bradley talks about his injury when he fell off his bike and ripped a muscle in his groin. An injury can do serious damage to the GC (general classification). You can go from being 1st to 20th in a single slip of a tyre. He also talks about the chain reaction of people falling off a bike. In the peloton (the biggest group of riders) if someone’s bike handling skills are not very good and you break too hard or your tyre slips on a corner, you can cause the end of many people’s Tour and that won’t make you a popular person. But seeing as they are pro cyclists this hardly ever happens.
Another important subject of the book is Bradley’s team- Team Sky. Every good cyclist will have had a good team to help him or her because the team is the most important thing for a cyclist’s health. The team will have their own chef to cook meals and mechanics to fix bikes to their brand new structure. In the book Bradley talks about the mechanics never getting a mention and quotes mechanics “basically keep the show on the road.” They also have to stay up all night to get the bikes perfect because like crashes, mechanical problems are very bad when you are doing good.
The cyclists all have different jobs on the team for example, sprinters, climbers (people who are best at going up hill) and GC contenders. The team have special mattresses with built in ipods to help them relax because recovery is really important.
In conclusion I thought that this book taught me how challenging and hard it is being and becoming a pro road cyclist. I really liked this book and it taught me a lot. I am going to read his next autobiography on the 2011 tour and let’s hope he wins this time!
If I were half the blogger that I should be then this post would have started a couple of weeks ago and continued in regular installments as the build of my very first bicycle wheel took shape.
You should have enjoyed a near real-time blow by blow account of the highs, lows successes and failures as I selected my hub, rim and spokes; calculated the spoke length, and made sure that I had all of the right wheel building kit.
But I’m not, so you didn’t. Instead you get some words of reflection and advice without the tears and tantrums but with a more detached sense of perspective. Admittedly less entertaining but definitely more useful.
But Who Really Builds Their Own Wheels?
Wheel building is perceived as something of a dark art. Most people who are prepared to work on their own bikes stop short of headset installation and wheel building / truing. The former is largely due to the cost of a bicycle Headset Press against the fee charged to do the job by the Local Bike Shop (LBS).
But taking to a wheel with a Spoke Key and Nipple Wrench is a whole different kettle of fish, and starting from scratch takes a higher-still degree of confidence…. A level that many see as treading the fine line between confidence and stupidity…
In my experience the difference between doing something well and just scraping a result is, well, experience. I’ve learned, at cost, that you should never hang you first piece of wallpaper in the eye-line of your favourite chair. I’ve also learned that novices in any pursuit do not perform better by using the wrong tools – mole grips are not spanners, as all of the round bolts in my shed will testify…
But enough of that for the moment.
Let me tell you why I decided to build a wheel.
My ‘best bike’ is a Cervelo RS built up with a Shimano Dura Ace groupest, Fizik saddle, 3T Ergnonova Team Bars and Arx stem. I bought the parts online and built it myself – with the exclusion of the previously discussed headset installation which I outsourced to the LBS. Apart from the satisfaction of doing it myself I worked that the savings I made by buying components from the 4 corners of the country would more than fund all of the right tools for the job so equipping a workshop in the process.
The only area that I compromised on (by my own set of notional standards – you know what I mean we all have them) were the wheels. I bought a factory built Shimano Ultegra Wheel-set.
Before I go any further I should say that this wasn’t too much of a compromise, these are fantastic wheels and 3 years on they are as strong and true as they day I bought them. If you’re in the market for wheels that punch well above their cost don’t give it a second thought. I should also say that this was a special build and on a normal day Shimano Ultegra would certainly not be a compromise!
So I decided that I was in the market for some wheels, I decided that I wanted them to be fast, long-lasting and repairable. The last 2 requisites meant that I was probably looking at hand-built wheels so it occurred to me that maybe those hands could be mine so in order to test this theory I decided to build a wheel from scratch.
The build would use cheapest quality hub, rim and spokes that I could source online; I would use the right tools and I would take my time – the last one was the big challenge.
Stage 1: Tools.
Stage 1 of this project was to get the right tools: a Wheel Truing Stand, a Dishing Tool and a good quality Spoke Key (after all we’d be spending a lot of time together).
I already owned a Tacx Exact Wheel Truing Stand, which is at the budget end of stands but I reckoned that it would suit my purposes for this build and prove whether more costly kit was required should I be taking my wheel building forward.
I managed to source a fabulous French Dishing Tool on eBay (it is painted with Hammerite which makes it a proper tool in my book!) and finally I bought a Park Tool Spoke Key which is a massive improvement on those round spoke keys that you get in the ubiquitous starter tool kits that we all buy.
Stage 2: Components.
Every wheel build starts with a single component. For me this was the hub, more precisely a Campagnolo Mirage 32 hole front hub.
What extensive research led me to this decision? I wanted a front hub because it was more straight forward to build and get the spoke measurement right, and less costly particularly when you can find one with a buy-it-now price of £5 on eBay.
So now I knew the number of spokes that I needed but until I had a rime I couldn’t work out the spoke length. So I went to Chain Reaction who had a Mavic A 119 Rim at £16.
Now I have a hub and a rim, each have 32 holes so I need 32 spokes that are exactly the right length. Since you’ve stuck with me up to now I think I can repay your interest in one foul swoop by telling you about Edd.
It’s by far the best spoke length calculator I have found on the net and judging by the web noise on the subject it is a life saver.
Decided on a 3 Cross lacing pattern and with Edd’s advice I ordered my spokes – one word of warning, they generally come with nipples so you don’t need to buy them as well… but you can never have too many spoke nipples right?!
Stage 3: The Build.
Let me make another introduction, I’m sure you’ll have met before but if not then please meet Sheldon Brown.
Lacing a bicycle wheel:
Sheldon showed me how to lace my wheel. As I mentioned I went with a Cross 3 Wheel pattern which means that each of the spokes on my wheel crosses 3 others before arriving at the rim… my decision was easy, it was what Sheldon was showing me… novices seldom benefit from swimming against the tide.
I made a couple of mistakes as I went along on the lacing – as long as you’ve nailed the Key Spoke it pretty soon becomes obvious when you’ve gone wrong. If it looks wrong it probably is… Lacing over now comes the technical stuff..
Tensioning a bicycle wheel:
For Tensioning the Wheel I found this guy on You Tube:
Truing a bicycle wheel:
And I stuck with him when it came to truing because unlike a lot of the others I watched he just went at it without instilling any fear in to me – because from here on in it was just confidence and the ability / readiness to retreat (or tactically withdraw if your ego gets the better of you).
And you will go wrong, best to accept that now and think of it as a positive… every time you have to de-tension the whole wheel you’re one step closer to the goal…. half full right?!
It probably took me 6 – 10 sessions of 15 minutes or so each to end up with a wheel that I would be prepared to put on my bike.I reckon that I have it true and dished to within 0.5 mm which might not be the 0.05 mm offered by some Professional Wheel Builders but better than I’ve had some wheels returned by other (less) professional wheel-builders.
So would I trust myself with several hundred pounds worth of wheel components to build my own dream wheels?
Without a doubt. I’m not going to hit that 0.05mm tolerance but I have all the time in the world to get them right and there is an endless supply of support out there.
The actual process is pretty straightforward and after the initial fear and frustration dissipates it is extremely therapeutic. My stand is now appended to my desk where it has become the ultimate de-stressing executive toy:
Whilst it isn’t perfect I think that the Tacx Exact Wheel Truing Stand is fine unless I could borrow one of these. Again I have the advantage of time over the Pro, at no point will my hobby prove any more unprofitable than it already is!
If you’re considering it I’d recommend having a go. Yes there is some initial outlay but all wheel building tools sell extremely well on eBay so it’s doubtful that you’ll lose out in any great way and you will gain some kudos for simply trying!
So now to plan my perfect pair of wheels….. In the meantime I’ve taken the whole wheel apart to start again – It’s funny I never liked jigsaws before now…
A bicycle is a human powered machine. We, the rider, make 3 points of contact with our bike and through these points of contact we move ourselves and our machines.
An hour of pedaling will see us spin our pedals over 5,000 times so logically if our bike doesn’t then fit bad things will eventually happen…. 5,000 times. Conversely a bike that fits us perfectly will make that hour of pedaling the best that it can be, in every respect.
So how bad could a poorly fitting bicycle really be? Well at best we’ll ride slower than we need to or we’ll have to work harder than necessary, at worst we could cause permanent injury and have to spend a long time off the bike.
I had my first bike fit 2 years ago shortly before starting the build of my Cervelo RS. It allowed me to buy all of components online with a high degree of confidence and the cost of the fit was saved many times over. But most importantly it gave me a level of confidence that I couldn’t have achieved by reading articles or asking more experienced riders.
I reasoned that having a no compromises bike, perfectly fitted meant that everything else was down to me – no excuses!
Today I had my second bike fit with Scot from Skinny Tyres. It was 2 hours of enlightenment and pure practical advice.
The session starts with a good chat about experience, injuries, expectations and goals. all of which lead to measurements and the dreaded flexibility tests. I’m pretty sure that my flexibility has worsened over the past 2 years… think I’m becoming a cyclist
Scot fits you to your own bike which I personally found much better than the previous bike fit jig, because this was my bike, I know how it feels and I could immediately recognise the changes he made. Some of the changes surprised me but each was fully explained and ultimately felt right.
Scot has a keen eye for detail proved by his showing me the slightly off angle of my brake hoods, an indication that my bars could well be a little too wide; correlated with the measurements taken earlier I was presented with a compelling case.
So should you get a bike fit? If you want to know exactly how you interact with your bike, dispel any uncertainty about your performance and protect against injury then it seems like a good bet.
There are many things that you can spend £100 on to improve your enjoyment of your bicycle but I wonder how many make such a difference or give such confidence?
On Saturday April 23rd 2011 at the Sportive Kinross three generations of our family will ride together.
Nothing particularly remarkable in this but for 2 of the 3 generations it will be their first Sportive. Lewis (13) and Grandad (who will then be a few days off 67) venture forth on this totally new experience with me as the seasoned pro – this will be my second Sportive!
All things being equal It will also be the first showing of the Bicycles Team Kit.
Through the year we plan to provide Team Bicycles jerseys to riders who can guarantee us firsts.
Not first places, but first time experiences.
Bicycles is about getting on your bike and doing stuff. We’d like the Bicycles jersey to come to represent riders who are taking the bike by the horns and giving it a go.
Because the key to growing cycling in the UK is inclusion, and the key to inclusion is making it easy for people to join in.
Kinross Cycling Club, who are responsible for Scotland’s newest cycling event, are a great example of a new club who are getting people on their bikes by making it easy to join.
Some might say that with a purple and yellow kit they need to try that bit harder, but how many bike clubs ask potential new members if they need a new type of ride to meet their cycling needs?
They also invite you to join when you enter the sportive which is the very best type of up-selling in my opinion.
So Chapeau to the colour-blind cyclists of Kinross
The 123 years of Team Bicycles look forward to meeting you all in April.
Every cycling website has a heated debate about helmets somewhere in its midst. Bicycles won’t have this because we are going to risk the wrath of the fundamentalists and have a defined stand on helmets.
Bicycles Says:
Wearing a helmet is safer than not wearing a helmet.
Wearing a helmet is a matter of personal choice for adults.
Kids should wear helmets.
That’s it. No debate.
Personally I sometimes enjoy riding without a helmet, no justification I just like it… sometimes.
That said there are some dangers that are under-reported for those who chose to ride without their cycle helmet. I refer of course to buzzard attack.
We enjoy the company of buzzards on most of our rides, they are a beautiful sight (and sound) on our rides through South Perthshire. Occasionally we see them swoop for prey but on this occasion I didn’t, because I was the prey…
They say that if you hear the gunshot you haven’t been shot and the same goes for a buzzard attack. The first thing you know is that some very hard and sharp things are digging in to your skull. Not having buzzard attack in my terms of reference my immediate thought was that someone had thrown some chisel like things at me (not to say that chisel attack was in my terms of reference either). The first I knew that it was a bird of prey was when it let go (it quickly realised its mistake) and took its easily 5 foot wingspan back up to its perch.
Despite the confusion and fear (probably for both parties) I do remember momentarily thinking how utterly beautiful my attacker was…. and then I shouted like a very shouty thing and rode faster than I had before or since. After composing myself I did ride back but couldn’t see it – I’m guessing it was hiding in shame lest the other buzzards found out its mistake and teased it relentlessly.
So there you are, you have been warned. Next time you decide to ride without a helmet you will now do so knowing ALL of the risks.
As we plan our classics trip for next spring we got to talking about the incredible accessibility we all have to the heroes of cycling.
Earlier this year we were at the start of the Paris Roubaix where we got to see and talk to many of the riders who were happy to give up some of their time to the fans. Some of the Bicycles team made it to the Mountain Bike World Cup in Fort William where, despite massive crowds they got to meet the likes of Gee Atherton and Tracy Moseley who were only too happy to chat and sign endless autographs.
Despite being only 13 Bicycles Lewis has a pretty extraordinary history of cycling star gazing. Thanks to a freak of school holiday scheduling, Lewi (then 11) was the only kid who turned out to ride with Lance Armstrong on his impromptu Twitter ride in Glasgow. He rode like a demon to keep up with the bunch and held on long after many had given in. He recognised the value of the opportunity graciously given by a rider who wanted to give more than race results. Everyone has an opinion of Lance Armstrong, ours is that he invited us for a ride and we had a very special day – we even got to write a piece for Pez Cycling News who kindly sent us socks.
Lance, rain and a happy kid
Better than that Graeme Obree was there… Graeme is now @GraemeObree on Twitter and should he ever feel the urge to tweet an impromptu ride then we will be there like a shot.
And it’s not just stars of the saddle who become more accessible – the past couple of years have given us the opportunity to ride with the cream of Britain’s celebs as they ride up and down the UK for any number of charities. Nigel Mansell, Fern Cotton, Jimmy Carr… all there on the highway inviting us to join them.
Just last weekend we all could have been riding alongside Lizzie Armistead, Matt Lloyd, Russell Downing and a host of other pro riders at the Braveheart Cycling Fund Sportive.
And don’t forget Sky Rides – they have managed to get kids on barely ride-able bikes spinning along next to their (new) heroes. Chapeau Sky.
It’s bloody brilliant isn’t it? It’s something about bicycles and the people who ride them that make this quite normal, but it’s not normal and we should be glad to be part of a sport where this happens.
And if the Pros want to know what a difference this makes let me tell you about a boy and a wristband. We were at the Rodez Départ at this year’s Tour De France. Lewis wanted to get closer to the Riders so stood alone on a barrier hoping that they might see him in his Mark Cavendish kit.
We told him that he was probably wasting his time but he refused to move and we went on to watch the signing on. Running back to us 10 minutes later he was close to tears but despite our initial fears these were tears of joy. A member of the HTC Columbia team had seen him and given him a pass to the village – he’d gone in quickly and met Thor Hushovd… now he was back in just about the happiest state a young cycling fan could be. We ushered him back in (in the process failing miserably to convince the Gendarmes that he should be accompanied) and he spent the next hour meeting Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins and countless others who all gave him their time and their autograph.
Lewi’s most precious possessions are those autographs and that wristband. Thank you HTC man, thank you Pro cyclists and thank you cycling.
I like experts who answer every question like it’s important, like it’s as good as any question they’ve ever been asked.
I like experts who don’t just know it, they get it… and they want you to get it… and they care if you don’t.
The ones that want to share are the very best.
I suppose that this is the Bicycles Expert job spec. This is what we need if we’re going to be properly inclusive and create a site where anyone on any bicycle can get involved and ask anything.
We know these people exist and we have found some. One has even come on board.
Scot Tares of Skinny Tyres will be our Coaching Expert.
Scot is a great coach and a first class human being. Through Skinny Tyres, Perth United CC and Perthshire Schools he works with every kind of rider from serious club racers to recreational riders, kids to silver cyclists. Scot has worked closely with the Etape Caledonia and helped a lot of people to reach their goals over those grueling miles.
I’ve had the pleasure of riding with Scot and it really is a pleasure. The advice he gives is for you, it is to help and improve you. It might help a lot of people but right now he’s using it to make you a better cyclist. His style is understated and his instruction is practical and immediately useful.
You’ve decided to do something and he’s decided to help you do it.
We’re going to use Scot’s expertise to build a raft of training and coaching stuff for everyone, whatever their abilities or goals. Whether you need something to help nudge you out of the house in November, build your legs for your first cross country, fine tune for a sportive or plan your ascent to the next Cat, we think we can help you. And of course there is Skinny Tyres if you want to experience great coaching and Highland Perthshire beauty first hand.
Of course, if you just want to know how fast to spin your legs when riding up hill (I think that was the first question I asked Scot), we’ll be there for that as well..
if you’re interested in getting involved with the testing of all this, all you have to do is register.
So please welcome Scot, a man who can truly be described as Bicycle Goodness.
Bicycles will try to do a few things that aren’t done elsewhere on the net. We will try to fill some of the gaps.
From what we see reliable cycling information is quite hard to find so people go to forums where they ask the same question for the 5th time that week and receive a lot of opinions with no way of knowing which are good ones. They might also receive the odd terse reply from a frustrated regular who put a lot of work in to an excellent answer 3 days ago.
We want to work with the people who can provide these excellent answers and can help Bicyclesists (working title!) with their day to day questions and also provide good quality permanent guidance to the recurring questions like “what bike should I buy with my £600″, “how much pressure should I have in my tyres” and “how do I train for a sportive”.
But forums do have some excellent stuff such as the “post a pic of your bike” threads which are really popular but as they are on a forum, they’re intrinsically transient. We think we can do something clever with this and make something , well, cool. The guys at Union Cycle Works have done a really nice thing with their bike stories and we’d like to give everyone the opportunity to tell the story of their bike(s).
The really big challenge we’d like to have a go at is getting people together to go for a ride. We know they like going for a ride together… we can see that at any Sky Ride, Sportive or club open day but how do they do it more than once a year and without significant organisation?
If there was somewhere they could describe when, where, how they like to ride and that place could crunch the data and make some rider introductions maybe we could all ride together a bit easier…..
Of course we need a critical user mass before it will really work but we know we can deliver the tech so we thought we’d give it a go.
If you would like to be involved please get in touch, you don’t have to declare yourself an expert… just interested in helping out.
