About bikes, cycling and cycle to work - Tredz Blog

Jody Wins Mens Kilo

You shouldn't ever really expect anything at this level of competition, but it's hard not to predict Jody Cundy will be there or there abouts every time he enters an event. Another international competition (the Paralympic World Cup this time), another Gold for Jody in the Kilo Sprint.

By the time this has been published he will have also competed in the Mens Team Sprint. Fingers crossed, but we're pretty sure he'll give a very good account of himself.

We are all as usual, in awe. Congratulations mate.

In other Jody news, the Beeb has got a good article and short video about him on their site. Well worth a look.

Let your kids cycle!

This article in the Times has raised our ire this morning. Over protective parents are not allowing they're kids to cycle, or if they do, only within a protected environment.

According to a survey done for Cycling England, three quarters of the children are allowed to cycle recreationally, at the weekend or after school, but only one in five is allowed to do so to actually get around in the week.

There is clearly a major problem with this attitude. Raising kids to see cycling as only a means of having fun rather than as a means of transportation reduces it to a childhood activity that many kids will simply grow out of as soon as they get the keys to their first car.

Don't take this to mean that we disagree with having fun on a bike. Bikes are fun. But they must also be promoted as a healthy, efficient (the most efficient) way to get around.

Another telling statistic at the end of the article shows the future may not be written yet. According to Sustrans 47% of kids want to cycle to school...

Maybe we should let them.

To lube or not to lube?

Just got this e-mail from Marc:

Hi just taken arrival of my new bike from you, thanks.
Do I need to grease the chain and if so what do you recommend any brand etc

Ok, although we pre-grease everything that needs it before the bike leaves us, we reckon the chain should be greased after it's first ride.

Wipe the excess off, spin the chain for a minute and you're good for your next ride

With regards to which lube, there's a pretty big choice of very good bike lubes out there. We can narrow it down by telling you not to use your Dad's garden shed grease or that old bottle of WD-40 we've all got. They'll both attract more crud than keep off and in the long run do more damage than good.

Use a proper bike lube and you'll have started looking after your bike the right way from the off.

Paralympic World Cup

Jody Cundy and the rest of Britain's top disability cyclists will have one final oppurtunity to test themselves in competition, at this weeks Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. The whole event lasts from the 7th - 11th May, with the cyclists taking to the Velodrome on the 8th and 9th.

Watch out for Jody in the LC2 Kilo and the team sprint.

There is a highlights programme scheduled on Sunday 11th May at 16:00 on BBC2.

As always, best of luck to Jody and the rest of the British team from Tredz.

Bank holiday ‘Street Party’

Tredz Swansea are having a spring street party this Saturday. We’ve got the MAD stunt team holding display shows throughout the day and Wales’ Grand Slam winning rugby captain, Ryan Jones, will be here too.

The mooted game of rugby on bikes has been vetoed (I'm telling you it's got potential), but this is still an awesome combination, right?

What's more we've got loads of bike clearouts, like this ‘07 Commencal Meta 4 Numero 1, reduced from £2199 to £1467. Other killer offers for the day only include:

£75 off the’08 Specialized Hardrock Sport bike. £299.99 down to £225

20% off all clothing

20% off Hollywood 3 bike car rack. £69.99 reduced to £55.99

£5 off all childseats

10% off all helmets

25% off pedals when bought with shoes

There's going to be plenty of giveaways throughout the day too.

So if you’re coming down to ride Afan or Cwmcarn this Saturday, why not stay on the M4 to junction 44 and come join us (directions are here).

Tredz in Afan (again)

Matt and Glen (of Tredz Cardiff fame), went to Afan today for a little spin on a few of our test bikes. The Specialized Stumpjumper Expert and the Specialized Enduro Expert to be precise.

There are a few perks of working here...

Jody Cundy drops in

Jody dropped by today to source some shoes (he ended up plumping for the Shimano R-300, their benchmark competition road shoes) we of course grabbed him and sat him down to get the latest. Five minutes in and he's already telling us about some of the amazing training techniques he and the rest of the British team are using.

Try this on for size. Slipstreaming behind a motorbike on the track and racking up speeds of up to 75km/hr. "You don't want a blowout when your're doing those speeds." Jody grins.

As well as chasing down a motorbike, Jody has been fine tuning his equipment for the run up to the Paralympics. Including the same £2000 handlebar as Chris Hoy and crucially a new leg. No more NHS kit for Mr Cundy these days as he's getting equipment befitting a premier world athlete. Ossur, one of the worlds leading provider for non-invasive orthopaedics also provide equipment for athletes. They provide prosthetics for the likes of Oscar Pistorius.

Fairly auspicious company then.

He gets the prototype next week, and will be participating in the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester on the 8th - 9th May, with possible BBC highlights on the following Sunday.

How to return a test bike

Some customer recently returned a couple of test bikes, a Specialized Pitch Pro and a Giant Reign X1 (click the links to see what they look like sans crud), to be precise. Not that you'd be able to identify them that easily...

Judging from the state of the bikes and the massive sheepish grin on the face of the guy who brought them back we'd say they had a pretty awesome time.

Fancy finding out for yourself what a £2000 full suss ride feels like? Check out the range of bikes available here and call 01792 702555 if you fancy booking a ride.

Redesigning the bicycle

Reckon you can do better than Specialized and Giant? Here's your big opportunity. The 13th International bike design competition, the only such world wide event, begins on the first of May - with a first prize of $500,000.

You've got up until August 10th to enter. Enter the competition here and check out the high standard on some of the previous winners work.

Bamboo bicycles

After having drooled over the wooden bikes from Renovo, we're on the point of seeing bamboo bicycles from Sol cycles. Production starts this summer, with the prototype already having been used in a racing season. Apparently the bamboo offers amazing vibration dampening to weight.

Looks lush too, which helps...

More info can be found over at the Sol Cycles blog.

Commencal Absolut Maxmax customer

Thomas just bought a Commencal Absolut Maxmax jump bike from us:

Hi Simon

I received my bike yesterday and am very pleased with it.

Thank you for an excellent service.  I will recommend you to anyone who asks.
 
Kind regards
 
Thomas

Look at it! Not suprised he's happy. Hope you don't wreck that paintjob too quickly mate...

Cycling in Lebanon (circa 1994)

Carlton Reid, of Quickrelease TV fame is trying to raise enough money to release a video of the first bike tour in Lebanon since the end of the civil war there.

Help him (and yourself, who doesn't want to see this), by donating a little bit of money. He needs a grand in a month or the video goes to the back of his draw.

He's not even looking for hard cash, just 25 pledges are enough to force him to create the video. So get pledgin'. I want to see this.

Ras De Cymru

With British cyclists currently going through a hot streak, pro cycling is gaining more and more coverage inthe press. Which makes Nicole Cooks choice to participate in the Ras de Cymru as part of her Olympic preperation, a really brilliant decision.

A great race anyway, one of Wales' biggest, and the involvement of someone with as big a profile as Cook means that the audience and press coverage is only going to go up.

Although a large part of me doesn't want to see a massive increase in the amount of people cycling on Wales' beautiful (and generally beautifully deserted), roads, the more coverage an event like this gets, you can guarantee there will be more people wanting to get out there. Even an embittered local rider like me can't begrudge them that.

How keen a cyclist are you?

View this quiz on Quibblo More quizzes on Quibblo

Jody Cundy Article

Jody Cundy Tredz sponsored rider is gearing up for Bejing this summer. The Paralympics are his main focus now and in this Evening Post article he explains how he is still waiting to hear if he's been selected.

After his already successful year, not least of which breaking his own world record recently in an unoffical  demo in Manchester, we're pretty sure he won't get overlooked.

Best of luck Jody.

Which tyre for commuting?

Cycling through a city every day on a commute really puts your tyres under pressure. Hilarity aside, the debris and general poor condition of the roads is one of the worst things a cyclist has to deal with. That suddenly lumpen feeling that your back tyre is deflating with every stroke is followed invariably by the realisation you left your spare tube at home. Then it'll start raining.

I've personally spent too much of my wage in our own store buying inner tubes. Far too much. After struggling in on yet another flat tyre I decided to buy myself a pair of all conditions Armadillo's from Specialized.

Aside from an improved tread (with the obligatory slight increase in resistance), the tyres felt pretty standard. I simply don't get the miles in that allows you to talk in depth about tyre differences.

But I do cycle fifteen miles a day through some of the most crap ridden roads around. After two months of having fitted the Armadillos I've not had a puncture. Not one. Thats down from an average of 2-3 a month.

As a commuter who is invariably already late for work by the time he gets a puncture I couldn't recommend them highly enough.

Cycling part guide

Don't know your top tube from your handlebars (actually, you really should be able to guess that one...), then check out this really rather neat guide to bicycle parts from Quickrelease TV.

Now how about a video helping people translate downhillers speak into English?

April fools jokes

The April fools jokes we saw in the office yesterday (aside from someone pulling my chair from under me and shouting 'April Fools'... Yeah, brilliant), that particularly struck us were the BBC's flying penguins, Google's 'Virgle' space pioneer program and Bike Biz's revelation that General Motors had bought Specialized.

All good efforts.

But it also served to remind us of the best one we've ever read. Sheldon Brown's 'Real Man Saddle'. Real concrete saddles for real men...

Cycling path map

Dunno where to go on your bike now the weather is finally getting it's act together? No worries, Sustrans the sustainable transport charity have got a great free map showing all the major bike routes.

Not just free maps but loads of other really useful info. Well worth a browse.

World Championships

We're sure you're aware of just how well team GB has done at the track cycling world Championships in Manchester. Finishing with a total of nine golds makes this a wildy spectacular meet for the Brits.

You couldn't ask for a better show of strength before the Olympics, nor a better way to raise the profile of cycling.

Congratulations to Wiggins, Cavendish, Hoy, Pendleton et al from all of us here at Tredz.