Winter is here and with it road salt, mud, water and grit on the roads – oh joy!  This combination wears out brake blocks and rims quickly and gums up gear and brake cables.  So a bit of TLC in the form of a service would not do your bike any harm.  We’ve therefore got a special offer on which includes 2 free quality Continental tubes of your choice with every £30 standard service.  Our bike wash service is now £10, usually £15, we use a Nomad washer which gently sprays the bike of any muck without stripping grease from bearings, its then handwashed and lubricated with Muc-Off Bike Spray and chain lube.

 

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A bit of a fresh new start!

 

 

So two new posts in one day- the first, if you saw, was from a little while ago, but as you can see we’ve decided to completely change the website, and introduce our online shop.

 

Both developments are really exciting. The new site will be much easier to maintain and keep up to date with everything that’s going on, whilst we plan to get all of our great products online, and continue to add to the range whilst offering fantastic deals and discounts.

 

So, in short, watch this space!

 

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A bit of time has passed since our last blog as we seem to have been really busy both with servicing and sales, but also choosing lots of nice products that actually work in real world conditions!

 

We’ve put lots of effort into stocking stuff that is critical to make riding a bike a pleasure – namely the grippy bits and visual aids, in English tyres and lights.
Firstly to the tyres, we’ve found you can never ever go wrong with Continental’s Gatorskins. They are literally bomb proof. We have ridden them continuously over the winter down stony gritty lanes and not had one puncture. We’ve been sure to keep the pressure high in them as this adds to the protective kevlar bead’s ability to ‘ping’ sharp grit and debris away. My rear tyre has done just over 4000 miles and is just showing signs of wear – pretty impressive. For off road riding we are getting in some award winning Maxxis tyres – the Ardent and the Minion. These are fast and grippy in that order. The Minion is a great tyre for out front, very grippy and able to take a beating. The Ardent is more racy suitable out back and with a fast rolling flat centre and wide grippy blocks for great cornering. 
Lights are something to get really excited about, the different shapes, hues, textures and fixing options never cease to amaze! For the serious road rider or commuter we’ve got Lezyne Mini and Power Drives. They are beautiful aluminium engineered objects of art, the funky shapes are meant to help dissipate heat from the LED to optimise run times. There is also the Light and Motion Urban range which has a cool ‘side’ light function giving great all round safety visibility. Finally we’ve got some great Electr

on Terra lights. These are very reasonable priced, from £64.99 for a single head unit, but allow you to ride properly off road. So they are probably the best priced introductory light for real night time off road riding. 
Finally one thing I forgot to mention in the intro that will keep you riding comfortably through the winter – gloves. We’ve got some great gloves from Madison and Sixsixone. There is a great really nicely insulated Madison glove that will keep you toasty warm and waterproof. But if you ‘run hot’ then there is a windstopper version and the Sixsixone Storm glove. The 661 is ‘midweight’ but what sets it apart from the run of the mill is the very lightly padded palm, meaning all the feel and grip you need is not lost through layers of gel! Its a glove for those that don’t like a ‘lost feeling’ when wearing gloves.
The last bit of non kit related news is some of our smashing current offers. We’ve got free servicing labour for life on every bike bought from us as well as 15% off all our Adventure range of kids and adult bikes. There is also the 10% off all lights, reflectives and gloves winter offer! In case you can’t get to us during the day we have extended late night opening on Thursday’s ’till 6.30pm and we are now also open every Sunday until Xmas from 11am to 4pm

 

 

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To help keep you warm and safe during the winter months we will be offering 10% off of the following:

• all lights, including the amazing, brand new Lezyne lights
• all reflective gear, including backpack covers, vests and stickers
• all long fingered gloves

There are also some big savings to be had with our TF2 product range, so you can keep your bike running smoothly.

TF2 Aerosol spray with Teflon 150 ml (was 3.49) NOW £1.99
TF2 Aerosol spray with Teflon 400 ml (25% extra free) (was 5.49) NOW £3.49
TF2 Wet lube (was 4.49) NOW £3.49

We are currently offering 20% off standard service charges and 10% off everything bought in the shop, including new bikes! (Please note that student I.D. card will be needed as proof!)

For some quick tips check out this video made by John and Doug from Bath uni cc, sponsored by Road cc.

As mentioned in our “Grand re-opening,” we’ve been getting some new items in stock- these include:
Electron lights (Mili, Backupz, Micro and Pica)
Respro Hump backpack covers
Elite bottle cages
WTB moto X clamp on grips
9 Bars
and, of course, the start of our Lapierre collection

In our Blog we also mentioned that the Adventure range of bikes are now on offer- all are 15% off!

So the Adult’s bikes are now £219, whilst the children’s are as follows 24″ £179.99, 20″ 159.99, 16″ 109.99,

Labelled bike diagrams
A couple of diagrams to help you identify the different parts of your bike.

 

The Christmas season is now here, lights have been switched on and things are getting more festive. So to kick the season off for us we’ve had some early parcels to unwrap in the shape of the Lapierre road bike range that we are stocking. The bikes are pretty stunning and if you’re after a bike that isn’t as ubiquitous and rides as well if not better than some of the big brands then these are for you! The Lapierre road bike is called the Audacio, a take on audacious, as its got some neat tricks up its sleeve. For a start the finishing is superb, the smoothest of welds and a tough sparkly paintcoat. Its the tube shaping that gives the bike its real head turning and comfort flattering appeal. The seatstays are skinny and gently curved to give a degree of comfort to the ride. The top and down tube are also gently flattened and curved again giving the bike a rough road taming geometry. The downtube flattens and broadens towards the bottom bracket giving stiffness where it is required, the chainstays are similarly stiff and solid transmitting power directly to where it is needed. The subtly shaped carbon fork is also excellent at smoothing the roughest of roads. Anyway you needn’t take our word for it, the people at Cycling Plus have tested a couple of models recently and they gave them an extremely favourable write up. You can read the review of the Audacio 400 here http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-lapierre-audacio-400-db-11-43525 and the Audacio 700 herehttp://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-lapierre-audacio-700-12-45533.

At the moment we have two medium sized Audacio’s in, one is the Audacio 200 and the other is the Audacio 400. The Audacio 200 is a triple Sora 8 speed, whilst the Audacio 400 is triple Tiagra 10 speed retailing respectively at £659 and £929. Both have carbon forks but the frame on the 400 is finished to a much higher level, have a look at the close up pictures below. (for whole album check here:https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.295055430516047.73107.183099578378300&type=1)

Opening times
We will be open every Sunday from 11am to 4pm in the run up to Christmas, as well as being open for late night shopping on Thursdays until 18.30.

Well its taken a little longer to get settled in to the newly refurbished shop than we thought, tweaking layouts and deciding where to hang products up has extended the process.  We are now pretty happy with how things are in the limited space that we have, we think that we have squeezed in about as much as we can without making it too cramped.

Talking of which the new 2012 Lapierre bike stock is coming in gradually, filling up the shop nicely and giving customers choice over which type and size of bike suits them.  We’ve currently got 2 different models of the Shaper which is the fast commuter bike which can be fitted with full length ‘guards and a rack, and 2 of the Audacio road bike which has been praised in a recent reveiw.  You can read more about it here:  http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-lapierre-audacio-400-db-11-43525.

We also have a ladies Zesty that belongs to Becci, and its usually in the shop so if you want a peek pop in.  The Zesty looks lovely but rides even better, Becci only had it for a couple of days and decided to do a bit of immediate colour coordination on it.  Lapierre do a range of special ‘coloured bits’ so she added some nice red cable guides, a lovely red seatpost clamp, some crud catchers, WTB Moto X grips with red anodised lock ons and some acid red DMR V8 pedals!  You can have a look at it on our Facebook page for immediate gratification!
Oh I forgot to mention if you don’t know about the Zesty its a full suspension super bike with rave reviews, have a look here http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain/product/review-lapierre-zesty-314-l11-41164

The other big news is that we have joined the popular Cyclescheme err scheme which allows you to buy a bike at greatly reduced cost through your employers payroll system.  If it gets more people on bikes we’re big fans!

Special offers
We have a great deal on our great value Adventure bike range at the moment – all have 15% off, to make your Christmas that bit cheerier!  The adult bikes are £219, the kids are as follows 24″ £179.99, 20″ 159.99, 16″ 109.99, pictures and details are all on our website and ‘real life’ pictures on our Facebook page.

Just remember that at the moment we still have our ongoing student discount of 10% off everthing including bikes, and 20% off servicing.

For everyone else we have 10% off lights, reflectives and gloves to lighten and warm you through the winter!