SRAM Red Groupset 2013

In the endless technological war that is cycling, meet SRAM's latest protagonist courtesy of www.bikeradar.com.

This is the SRAM Red Groupset 2013 http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/sram-red-groupset-2013-details-leaked-32565.  The video looks pretty evil.

Eurobike 2011

I recently attended the Eurobike 2011 trade show in Germany and was astounded by the number of bicycles and bicycle products on show.

As this was my fist experience of Eurobike it brought home just how big the bicycle industry is and how many products there are to see.

BikeRadar have a lot of stories from Eurobike 2011  but they still do not show more than a tenth of what is available.  You can also find a few Eurobike2011 videos here.  If you are a huge cycle fan I am sure that you will enjoy it.

Best Road Bikes Under £1000

As I said I am fairly new to this cycling lark but I am quickly finding out that it's not as inexpensive as people think.  BikeRadar lists the Best Road Bikes for Under £1000 in this article (http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/best-road-bikes-under-1000-29719) but reading it I can't help thinking that these bikes don't even have suspension.

What makes a bike worth £1000 my motorcycle only cost £1200?

4 wheels bad two wheels better

I have to admit that I don't drive a car, but as a keen motorcyclist and new mountain biker I tend to think that most car drivers don't look at anything on two wheels positively.   They tend to pull out at the last minute because bikes are small and easy to stop.  The truth is on something with a contact patch barely any bigger than two postage stamps stopping is much more difficult.

BikeRadar has written a fairly responsible article here http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/do-dangerous-cyclists-put-us-all-at-risk-29610 and I welcome the debate.   However in my eyes 4 wheels and especially 4x4's will always be the enemy.

London 2012 Olympic Cycling Tickets

So it's official the tickets for the 2012 Olympic Games went on sale this morning and you can pick your tickets up here.  I am quite interested in attending some of the cycling events and would love to go to the velodrome, pictured below and see Sir Chris Hoy in action.

I was however more than a little shocked when I read this article on www.bikeradar.com and found out exactly how expensive tickets for the track events are going to be.

I thought the London 2012 Olympics were supposed to be for everyone and were supposed to give the common man access to one of the greatest sporting spectacles in the world.

Do you think that Mr and Mrs Average are being priced out of sporting events or do you believe that the high price of tickets for the London 2012 Olympics are the price we have to pay for hosting the games?

Is cycling more sophisticated than football?

I watched what was a highly entertaining but massively depressing game of football last night.  Why am I so depressed when my team won and progressed to the quarter finals of the Scottish cup.  Because of this little incident;

The video quality is a little poor but it shows all that is wrong with Scottish football with the manger of Celtic (Neil Lennon) and manager in waiting of Rangers (Ally McCoist) engaged in a teenage bigoted shoving match.  The player are young and stupid but those two should set a better example.

It got me thinking though is cycling a more civilised sport and should I finally lay down my life long obsession with Celtic.  I had almost given up on football forever when I found this;

It turns out that not all cyclists are peace loving beatnik types, I guess I should stick to watching rugby.

If you want to see a nice bike video though there is one here, it's like bike porn, without the naked ladies.

We Hate Chippenham Motorcycles...plus the Mountain Bike Search Continues

Since last I blogged several things gave happened in my life most of them good and one very very bad.  The good stuff doesn't stick in my memory so much as the shoddy treatment I had at the hands of Chippenham Motorcycles (for those of you searching for info in this company read on).

I have a small motorcycle which I use to commute to work and play on the roads at the weekend, it's a Honda CBR 125r 2006 plate.

Recently some nice visitor to the quaint little village I live in knocked it over and picked it up without telling me result a broken brake lever and bent bar weight.  In essence  £100 worth of damage.

During those repairs Chippenham Motorcycles told me that to keep my bike roadworthy it would need a further £270 of repairs.  Luckily I have a friend from Fast Bikes Magazine who took a look at it and told me the real bill would be closer to £65 for a new chain and sprocket kit.  Shame on you Chippenham Motorcycles for taking advantage of a newbie motorcyclist.

I still love my bike but I am also continuing my search for a MTB and have now found out that there are some for under £500 that might do the job rather than the £1000 that other people suggested.  I am Scottish and tight so I will try a few of these Best Mountain Bikes Under £500 and let you all know.

Just to help for an SEO perspective;

Chippenham Motorcycles Review
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Chippenham Motorcycles Website

Ice Bike brought back some painful memories.

I went to my second show in the cycle industry this week in sunny Milton Keynes.  It's is called IceBike which as a name is only half true as there was no ice to be seen but there were a shed load of bikes.  The Guys from BikeRadar have put a ton of pictures up here.

Whilst I was touring the show floor I met the guys from Kryptonite who make the worlds toughest bicycle locks, so tough in fact that on some they offer a £1000 guarantee that it wont be broken.  When my beloved DMR Drone was stripped to the frame at Hook train station, it was secured to the bike rack with one of their locks.  I left it there all night in the hope they would come back get the frame and then I could claim £1000 back.  The next morning I returned to see the frame still locked in place with a slightly singed Kryptonite lock they had gone at it with a hammer and chisel and a blowtorch for a whole night and still had no joy.

I guess the moral of the story is that someone needs to invent a lock that attaches to every single removable component on your bike.

I have to say thanks to Madison for giving me a shiny new bike too

Should they just legalise cheating?

"The Cheat" has certainly become a factor in most modern professional sports.  All the way from the histrionics of most players on the football field below is my favourite dive;

 To ball tampering in Cricket matches;

(*insert obvious testicle related pun here)

The most controversial cheats however are the athletes who take performance enhancing drugs.  (This does not include the professional Scottish cricketer who tested positive for ecstacy click here if you don't believe.)  It does however include Athletes like Dwayne Campbell and Ben Johnson. Do they ruin it for everyone else?

Finally there are those athletes who have turned cheating into an art form, they are the undoubted masters of the lame excuse (you can see the best here).  Doping accusations are so common place in modern professional cycling that they may as well just legalise it and be done.  I for one would pay good money to see a Steve Austin style bionic cyclist whizz by at 100mph.

Do you agree?

Do Unboxing Videos work in every market

I have always been interested in how different media techniques work across different market sectors.  Most of my experience is in the Games and Technology markets where the unboxing video is king.  As I now work in the cycle sector I decided to challenge one of the team to shoot a credible unboxing video on a camera phone and get it up on you  tube.  He chose the product O'Neal Airtech Full Face Helmet, the location and wrote the script.  The results can be seen below;

I have to say that for someone with little video experience he did a very good job although it's not quite ready to post on BikeRadar just yet.  What do you think though do unboxing videos work in every market?

What are the best MountainBikes for under 1000?

I am a bit of a flabby internet geek.  Having spent the last 7 years of my carreer in the video games media business (yes that is a real job) I have decided to try my hand at something new.  I am now a publisher of not one but two cycling websites.

Small issue though is that the last bike I owned looked like this:

I am now 34 years old and have been reliably informed (by many friends) that I am a little to old for the new wave punk, skater boy look that I hold dear.  Also that the music I think of as new wave; PennyWise, The Offspring, Terrorvision, Blink 182 and early Green Day is decidedly old wave and considered by some to be retro.

This means that I need to move on and buy a new bike and apparently I can't have this one either;

So how much should a grown man of a certain age now spend on a mountain bike?  According to my colleagues and friends the answer is up to £2,000!!!  I have since done a little independent research and found a few mountian bikes for both gents and ladies that are under £1,000.  Some of the best can be found here Best Mountain Bikes under £1000

That only begs the question now of where to buy my shining new steed.  I am as yet undecided to I go for price (buy online) or service my local bike dealership.  I will be sure to let you know as I continue my apprenticeship in cycling.

"Seriously though who spends £2000 on a push bike?"