If you haven't heard the word "ebike" yet..... 22/09/2009

Stand by for breaking news and something you never thought you'd hear from John's Bikes. Electric bikes can be good. Yes, today we went to a shindig for Trek dealers and, sure enough, we saw lots to get exited about. However what we've come back with is the experience of riding Trek's new Ride+ electric-assist bike and it's amazing. Really. Now it's not for everyone, obviously. If you enjoy pushing your heart to the max and a good shower afterwards, you'd better move on. But supposing you live up Bathwick Hill and your idea of an ideal cycling experience is to freewheel down into town, go to Waitrose and the Post Office and then pop back UP the hill fresh as a daisy for lunch, you might be interested especially once you realise that it's faster and cheaper than firing up the internal-combustion engine. John Potter is pictured here on an FX hybrid - already a best seller - but with an added 250 watt electric motor in the rear wheel and a removable battery pack on the rear rack. Two good things; it recharges itself as you ride downhill and the torque is adjustable and carefully regulated by very clever electronics so that there's no sense of a jolting kick as you smoothly accelerate with increased pedalling effort. It feels exactly like a giant hand is gently pushing you up hill. Now who wouldn't like that in Bath?

"Winter Drawers on" 19/09/2009

Sorry to do this to you (and sorry for the rubbish headline but we're only allowed to use it once a decade) but despite the Indian Summer we're enjoying at present the weekend when  we lose an hour of daylight in the evening is fast approaching - the official end of British Summer Time is Sunday 25th October. If you cycle to work and you're not prepared, this means you'll find yourself stranded on the following Monday wondering why it's gone all dark - far better to do your research now and make a pleasure out of what can be one of the nastier aspects of commuting by bike. Ian (Headmaster of Lighting) Weeks has reorganised his lighting display just inside the front door to reflect the improvements to the lighting range with popularly-priced CatEye offering several innovative additions including a £50 front light that recharges itself during the day. If you ride on the numerous lanes around here, you might want to be thinking about the new light sets from Hope (yes, THAT Hope - British made) and the Americans Light &Motion. Remember, James Martin and White Van Man are out there - don't want to give the b******s any excuse.

We Hardly Got to Know Each Other 18/09/2009

Spare a thought for Matt Carr, our man at Mule Bar (did we mention that, apart from being healthy and nutritious, Mule Bars are the first food bars that you'd actually want to eat on a bike ride, oh and they’re made in Salisbury. Anyway...) who is spending the Tour of Britain in a marquee offering samples of delicious new Summer Pudding flavour to thousands of cyclists at the start and finish areas. Being a trend-setter he had taken his shiny Trek District belt-drive fixie as basic transport and all went well until we caught up with him at the Frome start on Thursday where we saw what can only be described as a VERY bent bike. It seems that in all the car park shenanigans of the previous day, a frustrated White Van Man had reversed over the one-week-old bike. Matt had stopped sobbing by the time we saw him but only just.

Enter Now: VC Walcot Open Hill Climb 10/09/2009

Can there be a finer body of men and women than the Velo Club Walcot? Not only are they scientifically honed specimens of fitness with perfect tan lines but also some of our best customers so we call them "SIr" and "Madam" as they gather outside the store of a Saturday at eight in the morning for their weekly 25-miles-before-breakfast perambulations.  Hardier members meet at 10am on Sundays by the Guildhall for longer and faster tests of endurance and its this latter group who will be officially inaugurating the 2009 Hill Climb season on September 20th with a "sociable" ride to the Frome and District Wheelers event at the Westbury White Horse.  All of which will be fine preparation for VC Walcot's first ever Open Hill Climb promotion on Sunday October 4th starting at Claverton Village and up The Avenue to the University.  There's only one thing better than riding up a hill until you're sick and that's watching other people ride up a hill until they're sick so sadists will be more than welcome to come and shout the traditional, "Allez! Allez!"; masochists can download their entry forms here.  Just fill it out and post with a £7 cheque to Peter Giddings, 19 Hampton House, Grosvenor Bridge Road, Bath, BA1 6BE. Closing date Sept 26.

Coming Soon: Hipsta Kona 09/09/2009

Chalky & Shaggy Go Mad in Wales 09/09/2009

Official: 29" wheels ARE faster 08/09/2009

Two interesting things happened today; for starters the first 2010 Gary Fisher bike turned up (always a good thing and this one was a Paragon) and like its stablemates for the last few years, it has 29" wheels - it's a 29er - unlike the great majority of mountain bikes which you might call 26ers. Then no more than a couple of hours later an article appeared on the website of the American magazine VeloNews stating baldly and with no sitting-on-the fence, "The 26-inch wheeled hardtail mountain bike is, indeed, dead". Especially good news is that the 29er  model used by their Matt Pachoca for the scientific head-to-head against both hardtail and full-sus 26"-wheel competitors is, you guessed it, a Gary Fisher Paragon. We've been banging on about the loveliness of Gary Fisher bikes in general and the technical advantages of 29ers in particular for some time now so it's nice to feel vindicated. We don't for a second think that 26" wheels really will die and nor does Matt - there are still too many good things to say about the smaller format - but it certainly leads to some interesting questions when a customer kicks off with that best question of all, "What bike do you think I need?"

Hope News from Eurobike 03/09/2009

Shamelessly pillaged from the Bike Radar website is this utterly pornographic photo of the new Race XC disc brake from Lancastrian CNC-machining wizards and everyone's favourite hub maker Hope.  While we're dodging showers here in Bath, the cycling world is gathered in Friedrichshafen, Germany for the annual Eurobike exhibition where all kinds of lovely shiny kit gets seen for the first time.  According to lucky John Stevenson, who gets to tour the show for Bike Radar, "...here’s an interesting bit of random Hope trivia. The bearings Hope use in their bottom brackets cost them 11 quid each. Seems the way to get outboard bottom brackets to last is simply to throw money at the problem by using spendy rollers."  Click here for tons of Eurobike news and videos including the KéO Bladepedals from Look and Naked saddle from Selle Italia. And if you find yourself getting excited, there's a public day on Saturday and the weather in southern Germany is great. It's not too late to book a flight to Munich.

Lance with Our Jeremy 1993 02/09/2009

Pride and joy of John's Bikes road specialist Jeremy Barker is the framed photograph of himself hanging by the counter in the showroom. But it's the other 21-year-old in the picture from 1993 that catches the imagination because a Hollywood scriptwiter couldn't have bettered the story about a talented triathlete from Texas who takes on the eurocentric world of professional cycling and his ensuing ups and downs.  The Independent doesn't record the meeting with our Jezza but remembers that Lance Armstrong did finish 5th at the Leeds Classic in the middle of  August that year and it was a hint of things to come because only a week later he was beating Miguel Iindurain for the World Championship jersey in Oslo.  Interesting, no,  to contrast the flinty Armstrong features of today with 1993's smooth and almost chubby cheeks and the smile that seems to say, "What could possibly go wrong?"

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STOP PRESS 30 mile option for Wessex 01/09/2009

The traditional Wessex 100 to be held this year on Sunday 13th September has always had a loyal following of hard-core riders, as befits a tough course that's er.....100 miles long and this year looks like being no exception.  However, good news for those nearer to the beginning of their cycling endeavours is the addition of 50 and 30 mile options which will be a lot more achievable while still offering all the pleasures of cycling through some of England's most beautiful countryside. Start and finish is from Ralph Allen School on the outskirts of Bath at Combe Down. Entry is £16 and you can raise money for the Anthony Nolan Trust dedicated to beating Leukaemia. There are marshals, route signs and mechanics from John's Bikes. See you there?