About bikes, cycling and cycle to work - Tredz Blog

Gadget Show bikes

Anyone else catch the Gadget show show recently?

It featured Brent Curry, a bicycle maker from Canada who has made a name for himself constructing quirky but usable bikes.

Although you might not recognise them...

Amongst other things he's created a treadmill bike, a quadricycle pickup truck (two cyclists driving a covered four wheeler) and, best of all we reckon: a couch bike. A reclining bike that has two separate drive chains and over 140 gear options. The frame can be adapted to take different couches on it, so you can take your favourite sofa (ideally molded after years of use like the finest saddle) with you.

You can even hire the couch if you're in the area and fancy the kind of relaxed ride most tourers can only dream of...

Bike storage

It’s easy to say you should just get on your bike and cycle to work. But we know that sometimes there are a few problems that might make it a little harder in practise.

Take bike storage for example. Although they take a tiny fraction of the space your average mini will in the car park, they often aren’t given due consideration by employers.

Anyone that works for a company that doesn’t give the bike due consideration should point out the window at the sea of tarmac reserved for the drivers. They should also point out there is an ever growing variety of ways to store your bicycle at work.

Especially ways that don’t involve creative use of the railings or trees outside the front door... At the very least providing sheltered parking places with somewhere to secure bikes. Preferably somewhere out of sight to opportunistic criminals.

If you have to lock your bike in public, check out this handy guide to locking your bike.

Somewhere safe keep your ride at work means one less obstacle to being able to practise hassle free cycling to work.

Tour de France review

The best team won the tour, no doubt about it. Whilst Sastre is a very deserving winner, the CSC rider was helped immeasurably by the discipline and sacrifice from the Schelck brothers Andy (who won best young rider) and Frank. They combined to push Cadel Evans beyond his comfortable limits in the mountains, leaving him unable to gain in the time trial where he was supposed to have dominated. Considering the crash early on that left him pretty badly damaged and the lack of support from his team, it was a superhuman effort from Evans to come second.

So what stood out?

Mark Cavendish. Hey, how often do we get to celebrate our very own cycling superstar. This guy looks set to dominate to dominate the sprints like no one since Cipollini. "Simply too strong and too fast." And that was coming from one of his rivals, Robbie McEwan. A win in the Madison in the Olympics would cap a truly amazing year for him.

Andy Schelck. The young rider with a big future. He won the white jersey this year after helping constantly keep Evans in the red in the mountains. Always there to help Sastre and his brother, after this years tour and his performance at the Giro he must be considered a future yellow jersey contender.

The dopers. Yeah, they were there, but they didn't dominate in a sport that looks to finally be rewarding the clean riders rather than cheats. As far as we were concerned it's actually good news that Ricco et al got busted. Good riddance.

Cwmcarn test day

Another lush day in Cwmcarn and this time it actually managed to coincide with one of our test days!

The lovely peole that turned up on the day, not only got a day of sunshine in a beautiful part of the world, but also got to ride some flat out awesome bikes over an increadible trail.

So why weren't you there?

The next one is back in Afan on August 10th. For further info check out our test bike website, where you'll find a very juicy selection of full suspension bikes to choose from.

Shimano SLX lands

Shimano is shifting around it's MTB family tree a bit with the arrival of SLX.

Sitting in between the Deore and the XT, it takes up the place of the old LX group, making it a mid level trail groupset. The LX becoming a new commuting and hybrid group. According to Shimano, the SLX is lighter than the LX and tougher than the Deore XT.

We've had some in the shops for a little while now and I sat down with our resident bike component geek (uh, I mean expert), to get his rundown on it.

Cycling with children

We're not going to bang on about the benefits of cycling for you or your kids (the freedom, the health gains, the exciteme... damn it we can't help ourselves), but we would like to stress how important many families find cycling together. Seeing the world and sharing an adventure collectively is something that both you and your children will treasure.

The range of options is pretty incredible now to help you cycle with your kids. From tag-a-longs to kids bikes to baby seats, no matter what age the child they can get involved. Involved is the right word too, as you'll find even the most restless of kids is happily occupied on a bike.

And when they start overtaking you, you've got the perfect excuse to upgrade your bike...

So, here's our how to cycle with children guide:

Bikes for Beijing

On one of my frequent trips to the kitchen (where the location of my peanut butter is a closely guarded secret), I happened to walk past this:

Even the thought of my impending toasted bagel wasn’t enough to drag myself away from it.

But why was this Cervelo P3C, a TT animal, hanging around in our warehouse? I got the answer to my question as soon as I popped my head into our Swansea store.

Not everyone has one of these tattoos (or those tan lines), and Simon Richardson was pretty happy to show his off. As well as his new Isaac Sonic frame that we are helping build.

My god that thing is light. 880g frame weight on a 54. According to Isaac’s burbling page: “The mere sight of a Sonic will inspire powerful envy and painful longing. Isaac offers no apology. Ownership is the sole remedy.”

Well quite.

Anyways after a pronlonged spell of powerful envy and painful longing on my part, Simon told me he was off to Switzerland for some chocolates. Or intense training. I forget which.

Seriously, the entire get up was very impressive and we wish him and the rest of the GB Paralympians the best of luck in the build up to Beijing.

The race begins...

Like every office monkey, I live for the weekend. Not least, for the time being, because I can actually get to watch some Tour de France. This weekend I got lucky with stage fifteen.

It felt like I got to watch the Tour start proper, as the battle for the Maillot Jaune got blown wide open by CSC Saxo Bank's pressure on Cadel Evans. He got dropped by Frank Schleck by eight seconds, whilst the stage was won by Simon Gerrans in part of an epic race long breakaway.

Awesome!

On top of a day of very changeable weather, nasty crashes (how about that double sided roundabout collapse) and a frantic Italian crowd I reckon I got my value for money.

Now its back to the live text updates from the BBC for my kicks...

Bike finance

We all love bikes here at Tredz. All the way from the highest director to the lowliest blogger; we all want to be able to ride the very best bikes out there.

Unfortunately, the lowliest blogger occasionally has trouble feeding his passion. What with the credit crunch, rent and keeping his girlfriend in the lifestyle to which she’s become accustomed (hey, McDonalds ain’t cheap), I can’t always afford what I want.

Thank the lord then for bike finance. Helping people who want to spread the cost of bikes over a longer period. We’ve teamed up with V12 finance to offer you a range of options, all of which makes that Reign or Roubaix all the more attainable.

Ride now, pay later...

Tour de France highlights

The Tour de France 2008 is proving pretty unmissable, for both good and bad reasons. No out and out front runner, but with some out and out speed, a few dopers and a faction rearing up before us there is no knowing what's coming next. It's certainly more exciting than Lance getting delivered by US Postal to Paris every year... At least we think so anyway.

Highlights so far though:

-Team Columbia's Mark Cavendish winning a couple of sprints, adding further weight to both his claim to be the fast sprinter alive and his head. Expect both to continue growing if he ends up winning stage twelve.

-The dopers getting caught. Is Beltran actually trying to cycle away from the testers? It's still lame to see them around, but we agree with David MiIllar:

Asked if he was surprised that in 2008 a rider had used EPO, Millar responded: "It makes me f***ing pissed off when people are surprised that this happens.

"We've been decades to get to this point, and if anybody's naïve and foolish enough to think that we're never going to have a positive control again then you may as well go home and not cover this race.

"The media has a responsibility to understand that this is no way going to be the last positive test we're going to have; it's going to go on for years. That's professional sport – as long as there are doping controls, there will be positives. At least this shows the controls are working. (Nicked from Cycling Weekly)

-Cadel Evans winning a stage despite not having a great team round him. It would be great to see this likable and oddly tranquil (well, usually) Ozzie go all the way.