Author: beccitom

I was umming and aahing about whether or not to go for a ride this Sunday, being with stationary bikes all week I was getting a bit jaded with it all!  Luckily in Bath we have very energetic and enthusiastic cycle clubs, and I could just not ignore the tweets and Facebook reminders about Velo Club Walcot’s  weekly Sunday ride.  I summoned all my willpower to gear up, looking out the window at a grey misty gloom.  I got to Bath Guildhall at 9.25 with the off time being 9.30. At 9.30 nobody appeared and I was getting a bit twitchy as I’ve been out on rides where groups leave on the dot! I didn’t need to worry as a few seconds later folk started to turn up.  We did brief introductions, chatted a bit about our bikes giving any latecomers a bit of leeway to get to the start point.  I fiddled with the zip on my left shoe cover, it was pretty wrecked but luckily the velcro strap at the top stopped it flapping around.  There was no way I’d be cycling in today’s freezing conditions without some thermal foot assistance.

We headed off down Great Pultney Street making for Bathampton and the old Toll Bridge.  The descents and flats were chilly, no time to warm up, so it was good to get to the foot of the Bannerdown climb to get warmed up.  One of the gang’s chain flew off right at the bottom, typical, a chain always chooses the best moment to dislodge itself from the drivetrain, even if gears are perfectly adjusted and by the looks of it the bike, a Cervelo with nice red spoked wheels, was running sooo sweetly.  He quickly sorted it and was soon closely following the main bunch.  Bannerdown seems less daunting going up than coming down, so we soon got to the summit!  After a short wait we all set off again.  Near whiteout conditions prevailed on the plateaux at the top, but not bad enough to make cycling difficult or unpleasant.

Map of the ride

Its fairly flat up on the Cotswolds Plateaux so we bowled along at a good pace.  It wasn’t your typical chaingang with riders taking turns at the front, not so, the pace was just that slightly bit more relaxed with riders a bit more spaced out 2 abreast, with each pair of riders pushing their way against wind resistance.  Paul who was leading the ride let the group know that a steepish bend was coming up and to go carefully.  One of the group had sped ahead a bit so we kept our fingers crossed that he would read the road well.  Unfortunately when we came round the bend we saw the guy on the floor in the middle of the road with his mangled bike.  I stopped at the back to warn traffic, and the others went on to retrieve him and the bike.  Luckily we were a hundred yards from the White Hart Pub at Ford where we could sit outside and sort things out.  The guy’s back wheel was totally bent, like he had come down heavily on it, so he got on his ‘phone to arrange transport.  He really was quite beat up by the road with two big bloody gashes to the head and one to the leg.  A bar person kindly brought a hot drink, and the manager even came out and got the guy indoors to keep warm until help arrived. The guy wasn’t wearing a helmet and it was lucky that nothing more serious occurred, this really underlines the importance of wearing a helmet, even if just to prevent those nasty scratches when skin contacts the gravel.

The ride then turned west towards Acton Turville and then to Pucklechurch, on to the Bristol Bath railway path and back home to Bath.  This final stretch was pretty uneventful, apart from a nice fast blast down the Bristol Ring Road where we were all strung out in a long time trial like line!  The ride ended up at the inimitable Chelsea Cafe where we had seriously good coffees and cakes, what a refreshing ride!

Today was pretty interesting in the shop, quite a varied bunch of jobs and people coming in and out.  We’ve got a pair of wheels to rebuild at the moment, reusing the rims and replacing with new hubs and spokes. Long story but a seized in rotor bolt which was so seized in even a drilled in helicoil couldn’t remove it, meant the customer asked me to build a set of strong wheels.  First job of the day was to order a front hub (we had a rear) and more spokes as we’re running a bit low, its surprising how a box of 100 spokes can soon disappear with all the repair jobs in!   Wheel building seems a black art, not because of the complexity, but because of obtaining the correct spoke, hub and rim combination which more often than not are due in stock a week or so after you need them!

After getting all the orders done we had the first job in, servicing a nice GT racing BMX.  Its old brake arms had given up so we replaced with a nice pair of Deore brakes, cables, grips, pedals and some gold chain tensioners.  The bike had a flat rear tyre and the freewheel was needing some feeding with oil.  The rear wheel was pretty buckled so gave it a good true, wasn’t very happy with the result so checked spoke tension and most were well below what they should be.  Re-tensioned it and it turned out great. The bike looks lovely with the gold cable ferrule, nice crimping I hope you’ll agree!

Next up an oldish bare naked shiny alu Marin mountain bike, which was pretty nice, although beat up.  This is for a Polish guy who is a great customer, not the one who spends the most, but very friendly and pops in once every couple of months for some small item.  He was riding somewhere and the chain snapped so it was just a simple job of putting a new chain on.  Well that wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t great pointing out that the brake blocks were down to the plastic, the bottom bracket was wobbly and all the cables were frayed.  He’s very grateful I pointed all this out and is going to bring the bike in soon to get the rest done.

We had a bike dropped off with a Kryptonite lock attached to the front wheel, lost key see!  Its lucky I know someone with an angle grinder, the steel in those locks is hardened so bolt croppers might be a dead loss.  Finally I finished up the end of the day sorting out the order for components for a 3 speed fixed hub gear road bike conversion.  The bike frame is with Argos in Bristol, so I sent them details of the components just to check that they’re all going to fit and so they can decide if any modifications are needed to the frame.  So a really varied day all in all!

The first Breeze ride for women will be on Saturday 4th of February, these are rides solely for women guided by women! All abilities are welcome and future rides will be planned according to how the first planned rides go.

 

So if you’re looking for a simple, friendly way to get into cycling, meet new people and see some lovely countryside, don’t hesitate to pop along to http://www.goskyride.com/Search/Details?eventid=3498 and sign up!

In a dark greasy corner in a bike workshop in Bath lurks a beast, of a pump!  Seriously the Lezyne Steel Floor Drive has been in use in our workshop for around 6 months now and has proved indispensable. Firstly its appearance, it looks solid especially the nice aluminium feet at the base, they’re textured to give grip and reassuringly long to keep the pump upright.  The hose clips over the pump handle using the threaded ‘flip chuck’ valve to clip it to the base of the pump, this makes it look really neat when storing it.  The handle is one of the nicer features, a bit thinner where your palms rest to aid grip and made of a very durable varnished wood.  With all the use in the workshop some of the deeper grooves in the grain have become embedded with black grease, giving it an aged appearance which is nice.  The barrel is pretty plain, painted in a variety of colours but really its just a simple tube.

In use the pump is really great.  The barrel and piston is long enough to not have to double over when pumping which is great for your back.  The best thing about it is that it takes very few strokes to get a tyre up to full pressure, road tyres can be up to 110 psi in a matter of 10 strokes!  The flip chuck is a great mechanics friend, you screw the chuck onto the valve and of course you’re guaranteed that it will always push air into the tube and its never going to pop off.  Also when removing it you never have to struggle with a QR lever and the subsequent ‘kickback’ when you release the lever.  It really is much easier to get on and off than the lever types of pump.  I have had issues with it taking out the valve cores on presta valves, but Lezyne have updated the pump with an Air Bleed System (ABS) button, which releases all the pressure in the tube and means valve cores stay put.  If you already own this pump or any Lezyne pump the new ABS chucks can be bought separately.  The guage is housed in a big chunky ring of engineered aluminium at the base of the pump, I’ve got to say its become pretty obscured at times by dust and muck from the workshop.  A quick wipe gets rid of the muck and the dial can be seen again, mind you it is necessary to get down a bit and take a squint at it as the numbering on the dial is ‘sparse’.  Having said that it doesn’t detract from the pleasure of using such a solid feeling pump. The video below shows it (and me!) in action thanks to Bath Uni CC.

Overall a brilliant bit of kit.

One of the great things about having a bike shop in Bath is being able to try out new bikes on some of the most amazing terrain.  So last Sunday we took out 2 new Lapierre Audacio road bikes for a 50 mile test ride along fast twisty A roads, bumpy rutted back lanes and up the big ascent of Burrington Coombe.  We think we’ve covered all the terrain bases

The 2 bikes we were riding were the Lapierre Audacio 400 Tiagra 10 speed triple and the Ladies Lapierre Audacio Tiagra 10 speed triple.  We’ve written before about the bikes aesthetic appearance so we won’t bore you with that again, anyway there are lots of pictures over on our Facebook page albums of the 2 bikes.  We really want to give you out impressions of how they ride, after all that’s more fun than drooling over photos online of bikes!

From the moment I got on the bike cycling down the Upper Bristol road I was struck that the bike is very direct, you put a bit of power through the pedals and it responds instantly, accelerating quickly.  This directness doesn’t compromise comfort, I think my first comment within minutes of riding was ‘wow this is more comfortable than my CAAD 9!’  The pencil thin curved seatstays are definitely doing their job here.  This matches up with what the expert reviewers tell us about the bike.  I deliberately threw the bike over broken up tarmac at the road edge, which isn’t hard to find in Bath.  The bike sailed across it with no juddering, the carbon fork also doing its job admirably of smoothing the road up front.

We headed out along the cycle path to Saltford where we turned off at the pub to head onto back lanes towards Compton Dando.  These lanes are very twisty and undulating so it gave me a chance to test how precise the steering was and whether the bike would be thrown off course by the bumpy nature of the lanes.  The steering and ability of the bike to stay planted to the road and the chosen line really impressed me.

We then picked up faster and wider A roads heading out to Chew Valley Lakes.  This would really give me the chance to test the speed worthiness of the bike, and how well it could be made to respond to steering input at speed on the flowing bends.  I put my foot down on a nice twisty flowing wide open bit of A road just after Blagdon.  The bike flew and I seemed to be able to get it to go faster and faster.  As for steering I felt that it just went directly where I pointed it, skimming the edges of corners or more upright through the middle, neither a problem.

We then turned up Burrington Coombe, which we think we last went up on the Exmouth Exodus at night, being led up by one of the amazing riders (with one gear!) from the Bristol TDO’s!  Burrington really is not terrible steep, but there are some little ‘ramps’ – steeper bits – up some of the twisty corners.  I stood out of the saddle on these short steeper sections and the bike carried on dutifully with no hint of flex, the light weight of the bike at 9kg also helped ascending.  The third little chainring was welcome on the last very steep hill after the cattle grid, a good thing to have for long rides in comfort!

All in all the bikes are pretty amazing, comfortable, fast, they corner well and go uphill fine as long as you can muster the energy!  I’d say its more comfortable at the back than my CAAD 9 and the front end is slightly higher so while less racy is more suited to long sportives and rides such as this one.  The only upgrade we made were to Conti Gatorskins just to ensure no punctures.  In the future I am going to build some new wheels as the Shimano WH-R500 aren’t the lightest, I’m thinking of some Hope hubs with Mavic Open Pro silver rims and silver spokes, I just want to stand out from the black wheel, rim, spoke crowd!

 

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At the start of the new uni year Bath Uni CC made this short video: http://vimeo.com/30399514 to advise students on how to check their bike over ready to start cycling to uni or for fun.

 

As people start returning to work and students start to return we thought we’d highlight this helpful little video once again!

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The ladies Lapierre Zesty is an amazing full suspension bike.  It’s been a favourite of the reviewers this year, and they ride lots of bikes so they should know!  Becci’s ridden her’s for a couple of months now and is dropping off stuff she’d never have tackled before, so its definitely confidence inspiring.

Have a look at what the pros say here:  http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain/product/review-lapierre-zesty-314-l11-41164

 

 

 

The Kinesis KM220L is a ladies specific hardtail bike, and its got glowing reviews from the bike mags.  We built one up and took it on quite a few rides.  Our verdict is that the reviewers were right, its very light thanks to the smaller size specific tubing and new ‘Kinesium’ tubing used.  It’s also responsive, the very stiff frame helping get all your effort through the pedals and to where it counts – this thanks to the down tube being flared and flattened where it meets the bottom bracket.  The geometry is spot on with a shortened top tube making for an easy reach for the shorter female torso.

Read the Bikeradar.com review here and see what the experts thought:  http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain/product/review-kinesis-maxlight-km220-l-12-45498

 

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The Racelight TK2 is Kinesis’s evolved winter / commuting / training bike, I say evolved because look closely at the frame and you’ll see tweaked tube shapes that add stiffness and lightness where it counts. For instance the hourglass shaped seat stays reduce road vibration and the down tube is aero shaped at the top and ovalised at the bottom bracket to increase stiffness in the critical pedal power transmission interface.  The frame has also been praised for its versatility in accepting full length mudguards and proper rack, really great if you intend to use the bike all winter and for touring.

Why not read the independent verdict here  http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-kinesis-racelight-tk2-12-45502 and have a look at the photo album of the bike we have built up here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.247499878604936.63218.183099578378300&type=3

 

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The Lapierre Audacio is really great looking, but even more importantly the ride quality more than lives up to its appearance.  Don’t just take our word for it, have a look at the review from bikeradar.com here: http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-lapierre-audacio-400-db-11-43525

 

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