About bikes, cycling and cycle to work - Tredz Blog

Giants in perfect condition

Giant scr2 bike arrived to-day at 11.00hrs, bike in perfect condition, thank you.
Regards,
Dave

Cwmcarn downhill trail review

Downhilling - great fun, but strangely hard work. Why is pushing uphill so much harder than riding? Not something that keeps me awake at night but an issue none the less. However, it’s not an issue at Cwm Carn, arguably Wales’ premier permanent downhill course (there is an excellent XC course there but I can’t bring myself to go there and not take a downhill bike!) opened in August 2005 and is served by the Cwmdown uplift service.

One prebooking (essential) and £22 later provided unlimited uplifts for a day. Bike-wise I took my Specialized Big Hit which performed as faultlessly as ever. The course is steep and technical enough to warrant a full downhill rig, tyre-wise (the most important consideration after shocks says me). I was expecting mud, so took along a pair of Swampthings, however I was selling short the quality of the track surface which was as solid as ever. I ended up keeping a pair of Minions on (always super tacky). Interestingly, I spent the day with several riders on Specialized SX Trails, a ‘do it all’ bike that seemed more than capable. The SX is an excellent choice if you’re not as obsessed as myself and don’t own a different bike for every day of the week!

Specialized one-to-one

TredzTalk recently managed to interrupt the Sales Manager at one of the UK’s premier bike brands. Barnaby Postance of Specialized UK is famous for a minute.

How’s tricks?
I miss the summer, but I’m excellent thanks.

How long have you worked for Specialized?
12 years in all; 4 in my current role.

Describe Specialized UK to an outsider?
Small, there are only 20 employees. It sounds cheesy, but we really do make a good team. Although this can make recruiting a problem as outsiders sometimes find existing relationships intimidating, don’t they?

Cannondale bikes available

As promised recently, Cannondale 2007 bikes are coming back to Tredz. Well, they've finally landed. I thought you might like to see one of them in action under Aaron Chase...

Compression clothing review

Compression clothing has become the new must-have for athletes. Clothing manufactures are now making garments that not only breathe and help regulate temperature, but that can actually help your muscles function. Therefore your t-shirt can increase in performance! Why do you think Paula Radcliffe wears those funny socks?

Essentially compression helps you via two functions:
a) compressing the muscle by pressure and the weave of the garment helps push used blood back to the heart quicker
b) compression and weave helps muscles maintain the correct anatomical position – they don’t move about so much wasting energy.

2XU is an Australian company new to the UK. Their range of sportswear have all been developed with the help of the Australian Institute of Sport. Their compression clothing uses 50 denier yarn – a thicker weave than most, giving stronger compressive power. This apparently delays the onset of lactic acid build up by up to 36%.

Our local downhill course

Tredz downhill rider Jules pretty much lives on his local run at Kilvey, Swansea. We thought we'd show you it...

Gonna race Lance?

Lance Armstrong ran (not rode) the New York City marathon this month in 2:59:36, an hour under my PB, saying "the hardest physical thing I've ever done". New York is probably my (and the wife’s) favourite city to visit and I’m fantasising about racing Lance Armstrong in next year’s NYCM – and obviously losing. That said, I went mooching about online to try and find a pucka training plan (I always blame previous plans, not the runner, for underachieving) to get myself on form in 11 months.

I didn’t find one, which is a great excuse for not training properly, but I did come across Gmap Pedometer. This is a great distance calculator that uses Google maps. Map your run accurately and G-map will tell you exactly how far it is. I thought it was perfect for planning an alien road bike route.

Kona Cowan jump bike review

Having spent a summer with my Tredz supplied Kona Cowan jump bike, I thought I’d let you guys know a bit about it in this short review. Straight out of the box it looked great with its sweet paint job, but I can’t leave anything alone for long. Due to my riding style the front brake, both mechs, shifters and cassette were all junked in favour of a DMR single speed converter (smother riding and less to go wrong). This made the Cowan much more trail happy. I also changed the Tioga tyres for Maxxis Wormdrive semi slicks which roll loads faster (even though the boys say I've nicked them off my gran's shopping bike).

The Cowan feels surefooted thanks to the Marzocchi Dirt Jumper forks (in my opinion the only choice of fork manufacturers) but still light enough to be chuckable in a skate park or mini ramp. On the trail its super fast for minimal resistance, although it wants to do its own thing in the mud (those tyres again). The bottom bracket is high so it manuals well, and it has a short wheelbase so it handles well on the street.

As you’d expect from a Kona, the build quality is very high and the only warrantyish problem I've encountered is a pringled rear wheel - in all fairness I was doing back flips on dirt at the time. So, all in all, a very competent jump bike from a super reliable company. Cheers Tredz, what you getting me next year? More reviews soon of other stuff I have broken.
Posted by Edd

Royale Parkour

Great weekend: lots of family time, a little bit of work, managed to ride in Afan on Saturday and Gran and Gramp babysat last night so we could watch the new Bond movie. It was excellent, taking Bond back to the start of his career (similar to Episode I of Star Wars actually being the 4th film). He’s not even got his 00 licence to kill at the beginning. Far less double-entendres and menial Moneypenny; much more fast action and espionage.

Almost as eye-catching as the awesome Aston Martin DBS and the sexy ladies is the opening scene with the baddie played by Sébastien Foucan, the creator of parkour. Bond chases him all over the place and they’ve filmed some truly amazing stunts (despite wearing wires when jumping off the 200 foot crane). Foucan is an incredible athlete. He’s recently worked with Madonna but has surely found a new high for his profile here - he even got more screen time than the Aston.

Raleighs go down well this week

Dear Tredz,
Just to let you know that we are really pleased with the Raleigh Hotrod and cycle helmet we purchased from you this week, I am sure our son will be thrilled when Santa brings it. So glad that we found your site cheaper than anywhere else and superb customer service. Best customer service that we have received for a long time. We will purchase from you again and would recommend you.
Thank you for being so helpful,
regards Alison

19 hours to complete

Nice email in today:

I'd just like to say how delighted we are with our order [Raleigh Crush]. It came within 19 hours!! There was a follow up call on our internet order to make sure all was ok. Product was exactly as promised. Very professional set-up - thanks.
CE

Breast Cancer Awareness Initiative

This year more than 1.2 million people around the world will be diagnosed with breast cancer. More than 400,000 will not survive the ravages of this terrible disease. While the numbers are bleak, there is reason to be hopeful. Thanks to the tireless efforts of researchers, breast cancer can be detected earlier and treated more successfully than ever before.

That’s why Jagwire, the brake and gear expert, is supporting this vital work with the Pink Cable Housing initiative. When you buy one of the new pink cable housing kits, Jagwire and its partner distributors will donate a portion of the profits to breast cancer research organizations. As they say in their press release "It’s one race we must win." Bravo Jagwire.

Folding A-Bike on TV's Ch5

Channel 5’s Gadget Show now features Top Gearesque challenges. This week the presenters raced each other in a transport triathlon. A featured product in this race was the new folding bike from Sir Clive Sinclair: the A-bike. I’m not a fan of the bike reviews these ‘experts’ impart on the public (too narrow in product offering and rarely focused on riders’ experiences) but this is apparently a more entertaining way of informing us about technology.

Personally I think riding this thing is a bit frightening (those 6" wheels – argh!), but I do think there’s a market for a tiny folder, certainly in anti-car London. The A-bike is definitely portable - at just 5.5kgs it's the lightest folding bike on the market. The question is, would you rather ride it or carry it? Either way you can buy the A-bike here at Tredz.

Triathlon Lesson - Swimming 3

Okay, my learning to swim extravaganza is now into week 8 and things are moving up a gear (no pun intented). Coach Andy decided to give us all a fitness test - great! The basic idea for this week’s class was to see how many lengths we can get in during the lesson’s hour. The structure is in the form of a pyramid session. So we swim 1 length then rest, then swim 2 lengths (without stopping) and rest, then swim 3 lengths and rest. This goes up to 6 lengths and then back down to 1 again. To make it more difficult we were given a different stroke/technique to use on each section of lengths. This started with a float and a basic leg kick. The next 2 lengths are the same but incorporated holding your head under water and breathing to the sides. By the time we got up to 6 lengths we were swimming full front crawl using flippers to aid propulsion.

CAN is never followed by a T

Triathlon excellence? Maybe. Exceptional athleticism? Probably. Parental passion? Undoubtedly.
Watch this video (all 6 mins) and I promise you two things:

i) you’ll have a tear in your eye – regardless of how tough you are;
ii) any excuse you manufactured to stop you taking part in a triathlon will be declared null and void.

Marketing Kona bikes is a tough life

TredzTalk managed to pin down Kona’s European marketing main man Russell Carty to find out what goes on in his typical month:

This is supposed to be the “quiet” time of year, but not for me. We are already well through planning next year [Kona’s 2008 bikes] and it is going to be another busy one! The past few weeks I have also done some travelling too.

I was in Whistler a few weeks back. We organised a Bikepark meeting there and it was great. All our European parks came out and met with our North American parks and we had a great time. We were on the mountain, riding loads and we have some wild nights in the bar too - no more Snapps Leogang!

After Whistler I had a week to recover and then I collected Chopper (Grant Fielder), one of our Clump riders from Nice airport and we headed to Bergamo in Italy where Grant was one of the star riders. We had a fun weekend partying and loads of people showed even with all the rain.

Bike delivery goes perfectly

Received a great email to close the week as well as it started:

Dear sirs
I ordered my son a bike for christmas on Wednesday 11am 8th Nov. and received it on Thursday morning 8.30am 9th Nov . considering this was being delivered to Ayrshire in Scotland i would say that this is excellent service. I would  also like to thank you for all your help giving to me with this purchase and would have no hesitation on recommending  your site to anyone.
Once again thanks for the excellent service
yours P. Burns

Seal Skinz sock review

These Specialized shoes are great. My wife would say they smell a lot, but they keep me stuck to my bike brilliantly. Unfortunately, they’re well ventilated at the toe. This means my poor little piggies get damn cold when you start to see your breath. As we all know this problem is greatly compounded in the wet. Therefore, I've invested in a pair of waterproof Seal Skin socks.

And wow, what a difference. Forget your Goretex this and compression suit that, these things have made the biggest clothing difference I’ve found through technology in years. I swear they’re amazing. I’ll also say they aren’t water proof. I usually manage to put a foot down in every puddle on the mountain and this meant they let water seep in the end. But they are very, very water resistant because of a liner which, when you first put them on, makes you think someone’s wrapped your feet in several Tesco plastic bags and tightened them up by wrapping a couple of dozen elastic bands over the top. Don’t let this initial feeling stop you having the confidence to put them into practice. I wouldn’t want to walk in them all day, but after several 2-4 hour rides I can say they work very well indeed. My feet are much dryer and infinitely warmer and this doesn’t come at the complete cost of breathability. These midlights are now an essential part of my kit until next March.

Giants still going down well

Hello tredz,
Many thanks for a brilliantly priced bike and excellent service - received my Giant SCR on Friday, under 24 hours after ordering it. Took it out his weekend and it's a great piece of kit! I shall be telling my friends.
Grant

2007 Cannondale bikes available

Cannondale bikes are returning to Tredz. When I started working for this firm (a very long time ago) I was madly in love with everything Cannondale. I thought their product line up was excellent, but their marketing was even better with Missy and Tinker – very go on, just get out and try it; very Nike. This resulted in me trading in several weeks’ holiday pay with my boss to buy my first and only Cannondale, a '97 M300. It was over priced and under spec’d, but it became my most prized possession that side of the millennium.

Well, after us saying Au Revior about six years ago, I'm delighted to say America’s most innovative bike producer is back in the Tredz fold. The product has never been a problem, but they’ve taken a while straightening up their warranty and backup systems so that we (and I guess lots of other dealers) could finally take them seriously. Our first order went in today and should be landing this month. While I still can’t quite my head ‘round the lefty, I’m itching to get my spuds on the 2007 line up. Some of the '07 range is listed on Tredz but don’t be put off if you don’t see the model you’re after, just call us on 01792 560651 or email info@tredzblog.co.uk to check availability.

Triathlon training weekend

Britain's Olympic triathlete Marc Jenkins (aka Jinx) is holding a training weekend on the 17th – 20th November. Marc lives in Bridgend and has been performing on the triathlon scene for over 15 years - twice winning the British Triathlon. The knowledge and assistance he passes on over these weekends is invaluable to the serious triathlete.

He’s planning of a variation of cycle routes, from quiet country lanes to open coastal roads and long steep climbs. The runs will take in the world renowned Merthyr Mawr Sand Dunes, used by many of the worlds best athletes. The wet stuff will be in one of the local 25m pools. Although, if you’re really game I’m sure Marc can be persuaded to hit one of the local beaches just outside the town. There are places left (just £75 for 2.5 days or £90 for 3.5 days) get yourself booked in here.

Trek 4500 gets 10 out of 10

Who says Mondays have to be bad? Get a couple of these in your inbox to start the week well...

Guys,
Your service was spot-on: I had ordered the wrong size bike, but Simon's call put me on the right track. Delivery was next day, as ordered, and bike was packaged superbly. All the information I needed to get the bike on the road within 10 mins was included, as well as tools, bike info and other special stuff.
I have ordered a bike before, but the attention to detail in bike packaging and service here was way above my expectations. I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending Tredz. I gained much confidence from information on the website which told me I was dealing with people who know what they're talking about.
I ordered, and was nervous until my bike arrived. But I need not have been. Tredz filled my every expectation - and more! I would also like to say the Trek 4500 hardtail mountain bike is a cool-as-hell work of art!
Thank you,
Rick

Powerball review

What are Powerballs? An odd looking 'device', somewhere between a Yo-yo and a Sonic Screwdriver. They are in fact an excellent, if unusual, training aid. Powerball takes a little practice to master (as do all the best things), although some people 'get it' straight away; see their video demos here (the world records are hilarious). Basically they use gyroscopic force to exercise the wrist, grip, forearm, bicep or shoulder (depending on how you use them). Their usefulness for cycling is obvious - strengthening the wrists and forearms is a major bonus to your riding capabilities – but they’re also great for any racquet sports. And don’t forget: more muscle means less white finger syndrome. That said I won’t try to describe using them as it would take more typing than my now exhausted arms could cope with, better I direct you to their site.

Besides the varied practical applications, setting speed records between mates and work colleagues is top fun. I say this as the current shop champion (not boasting at all!) with a top speed of 14034 rpm, beat that (again, not boasting at all). I doubt any of this will make any sense if you haven’t tried one so there really is nothing for it but to get your hands on one and try it out for yourself. I know its early (and a cheap plug) but did I hear someone say 'stocking filler'.
Posted by Chris

A touch of frost...

is a rubbish TV programme, but it makes for stunning riding conditions. I popped out at 7am this morning to take the long way to work via my local trails (just 10 mins riding from my house! Gloat, gloat). Frozen earth makes for easy pedalling, amazing traction and beautiful views. No point to this post other than to say: isn’t riding on dry winter days superb - good for the legs and great for the soul. This season doesn’t have to be all about rain, mud and early nights. Get yourself some warm tights (under baggy shorts if modesty dictates) and windproof gloves and get out there.
Posted by Simon

Pleasing gloves

I got this mail yesterday from someone who liked their Sombrio Forensic gloves (and us):

Sombrio gloves received, thanks very much for your consistent high level of customer support.

Regards
Dave

Ed Tucker one-on-one

The first of many one-on-ones with riders and bike industry peeps kicks off with a cup of tea and a chat with Tredz team rider Ed Tucker to see what makes him tick.

So, firstly, who are you?
My name is Ed, I’m 22 and I’ve been riding bikes for 10 years.

Bike riding seems to get more complicated by the day, what are you into?
I’m basically what you would call a freerider, meaning I like burning round the woods doing big hucks.

Ok, burning is riding but Hucks? Come again?
Oh, that’s speak for leaping off big drops and gaps, you know like you see on the videos. Like the disorder DVDs.

Specialized join NASA to combat global warming

Specialized stated its support this week for the Sagan Center’s (not support Satan as I first read it) efforts to shed light on global warming and the investigation into the potential of life on other planets. Supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NIA), the Sagan Center launches The High Lakes Project - First-Ever Expedition to Uncover Secrets about the Evolution of Life and its Adaptation to Climate Change.

Read the whole press release by clicking the Continue reading link below.

Book review of Ellen MacArthur

I'm into my spy/espionage stories, so for paperback thrills I like bit of Frederick Forsyth or Tom Clancy. The SAS boys, Chris Ryan and Andy McNab are pretty good too. To tone down the violence and world-wide destruction I'll go with a bit of law from John Grisham or an autobiography. I got Gordon Ramsay's for my birthday recently but I wanted to finish Ellen MacArthur's Race Against Time first and in between the trick or treaters, I managed to do just that last night.

This girl is simply unbelievable. The book isn't about her in a biographical sense - it's about the race. It's in a diary style (a la blog) and allows you to live with her anxiety, exhaustion and undying motivation every step of the way. By no means is it the most entertaining book you'll read this year, but if you want to see what a human being is capable of when driven by enough passion and motivation then it really does deserve 10/10. A couple of snippets to share :

...wave landed on the boat as hard as if an elephant had been dropped on us... We're in it - gusts over 45 knots, and the sea is pretty damn bad... it's impossible to even change your socks or stand up inside the boat without getting thrown over... My body has been pushed to its absolute limits; once again I found myself screaming at the heavens... I can't sleep, I'm struggling to even push food down I'm so nervous...

You'll see in the book that she refers to herself and her actions as 'we' despite being in a solo race. She's talking about her boat designers, her onshore support team, her sponsors, her fans, her family and friends - she's got real class and is an incredible team player. First rate Ellen, both you and the record.