Cycling industry boosts the UK Economy

There's been lots of financial doom and gloom on the news lately so it was great to hear something positive for once. According to a report by the London School of Economics cycling contributes almost £3 billion to the UK economy. The report goes on to say that increasing numbers of us are taking to a two wheeled form of transport, with nearly a quarter of the population now cycling. This is an increase of 1.3 million cyclists bring the total to 13 million.

This increase in cycling is also making us healthier, with regular cyclists taking one sick day less per year which saves the economy £128 million a year. With the Olympics just around the corner I expect we will see even more people taking up cycling either for sport or just as a great way to get from A to B. With the average tank full of petrol for the car fast approaching £100 more and more of us will be looking for ways to save a little cash.

Copenhagen Wheel - Regenerative Braking for Your Bike

I'm a bit slow off the mark with this post, I'm sure most of you will of heard of the Copenhagen Wheel by now. For those that havn't, the Copenhagen wheel was developed by MIT researchers and was debuted at the Copenhagen conference on climate change - see what they did there? Smart cookies those guys at MIT!

The idea is that this wheel turns a bike into a sort of hybrid, with the power coming from both the rider and the electric motor giving a boost when needed. And of course it wouldn;t be complete without a Bluetooth connection so you can track usage with your iphone. These wheels are set to go into production in 2010, it wil lbe interesting to see what sort of price these come out at. Initial estimates say that these wheels will cost the same as a full electric bike, if that's the case then buyers will be limited to the trendy and the 'be green at any cost' crowd.

Lets just wait until the Chinese have reverse engineered these and you will see clones appear on Ebay at a fraction of the price. Lets give those guys and girls at MIT a big cheer, anything that encourages cycling has to be good for us all. Heres a short video that explains the wheel in more detail.

This is how you ride a fixie!

Absolutely amazing, thats all I can say about this as I'm lost for words. Just check out the video below to see the amazing stunts that these two girls perform!

A Lamborghini for under £200

Really? A Lamborghini for under £200?

Yes, this is a pukka, real Lamborghini Leggenda, 700c alloy wheels, 21 gears, alloy frame and V brakes. You may have realised by now that this Lamborghini comes with two wheels rather than four.

First a little bit of history as to how Lamborghini ended up making putting their name on bicycles. When Automobili Lamborghini (they make the cars) was sold, Ferruccio Lamborghini's son Tonino retained the right to use the the Lamborghini brand, including the famous fighting bull logo. Tonino now specialises in creating lifestyle accessories, most notably watches and sunglasses, but it would seem he has put the family name to many products, including Lamborghini Cycles.

Lets get back to the bike and here is my review of the Lamborghini Leggenda. I bought mine from Amazon at a reduced  price, the normal price at the time of writing is £199 but it seems they are often available at reduced prices if you time it right. The quality seems very good considering the very low price. The paintwork on mine had a beatifull finish with the high gloss metallic Aztec Gold and the welds on the frame looked neat and tidy.

There frame is alloy with steel forks, the seat post is alloy with a quick release. Wheels are 700C alloy fitted with Kenda 40mm tyres. V brakes work well and the Shimano EF-50 E-Z-Fire Gear Shifters make gear changing easy. The saddle is rather nice and so far I've found it to be very comfy for rides of up to 25 miles.

The bike will need some basic assembly and the gears will most likely need to be adjusted to get them running smoothly. If you are unsure of how to set it up then any decent bike shop should be happy to set it up for a small charge. I've only made one change to the bike, the handle bars it came with were a bit too much 'sit up and beg' for my liking so a quick trip down to my local bike shop where I swapped £10 for a nice alloy flat bar.

I weighed the bike to be 12.8Kg which isn't too bad for a cheap hybrid. So far its performed well on rides and I've only had one visit from the puncture fairy. This bike should make a great low cost introduction to cycling or as a second winter hack. Its a great improvement over the Townsend and should serve me well over the winter. I plan to get a road bike once the winter is out of the way with the Lambo becoming my winter hack. Cycling snobs will no doubt scoff at this bike, but for me its a great value for money bike. Available now at Amazon, here's a link for you - Torino Lamborghini Leggenda from Amazon.

Tyres and Punctures

When I changed the knobbly mountain bike tyres on the Townsend I had two criteria for the new tyres:

1 - They should be slicks or semi slicks (I want to go a bit faster)

2 - They should have puncture protection (Punctures are a pain in the butt)

I bought two different tyres to experiment and see how they fare. The current MTB (MounTain Bike) tyres were 26x1.95, I decided that I would stick with fairly fat tyres to keep the ride nice and comfortable - this bike is no speed demon so it might as well be comfy :)

For the rear I bought a 26x1.95 Schwalbe City Jet which features Schwalbe's puncture protection system where an extra belt of rubber is built into the tyre to stop sharp objects penetrating the tyre. Higher end Schwalbe tyres use kevlar and other exotic materials.

For the front I bought a 26x1.75 Continental City Contact tyre which features Continental's 'Safety System' where the protective belt is made from kevlar & polyamide filaments. As this tyre is on the front I decided to go down a bit on size.

 So far I've clocked up about 200 miles on these tyres and to date no punctures, which is excellent especially as the local farmers have been cutting the hedges and there are plenty of thorns and other debris on the country lanes at the moment. Compared to the knobbly MTB they are super smooth and make for a much more pleasant ride. Grip seems to be fine, even on damp roads but I havn't pushed them the limits yet.

These tyres will probably last for about a year for the mileage I cover, but I've already got my eye on what will replace them :) Tyre technology has moved on a lot in recent years, the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres offer the ultimate punture protection, they are currently available on Amazon being sold by Wiggle (Wiggle are a well known and respected online cycle retailer). According to Schwalbe even a drawing pin will not be able to puncture the tyre, very impressive!

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Its all about the bike

I currently own two bikes, this post is about my much abused and neglected Townsend steel frame mountain bike. I bought this bike about 14 years ago and its spent much of that time sat in the back garden exposed to the elements. This was a cheap bike that many would describe as a 'BSO' (Bike Shaped Object), it cost me somewhere  around £70 and at that sort of price you only get a basic bike.  It weighs in at 15.5Kg when fitted with pump, frame bag and lights, so its no lightweight but still probably lighter than a full suspension mountain bike.

A quick service included cleaning and re-greasing the bearings, oiling the freewheel (it still sticks sometimes though), adjusting the brakes to give some toe-in to stop the noise, some oil on the chain and its ready to go. The only money spent was on some new tyres as the old ones had perished and were off road knobblies, as I'll be mostly road riding I bought some semi slick road tyres.

The point is that even though this is an old, neglected and cheap bike I still enjoy going out and riding it. So its nowhere near as fast as a better more expensive bike but I can still manage a 25 mile ride on without any problems. So Lance was right, it's not about the bike - its about being happy with you've got and most importantly - enjoying yourself!

Blogpost Number 1 - The Mission

Having decided to get back into serious cycling after an absence of around 15 years, I thought it would be useful to share my experiences, goals, ambitions, lessons learned and maybe even some humour along the way.

Here are the things I intend to do:

• Complete the 2010 London to Brighton charity bike ride
• Complete the 2010 London to Southend charity bike ride
  
• Improve my fitness level
• Lose a few pounds
• Have fun
• Make some new friends
• Explore the Essex countryside
• Be considerate to other road users
  
• Share any knowledge gained along the way
• To do all of this on a sensible budget
• To write about it on this blog
  

Here are the things I try not do:

• Become a bike snob
  
• Be judgemental of others
• Ride in the rain, at night or when icy
• Get run over and be squished by a 4x4

So feel free to pop back here every once in a while to see how I'm getting on, you are more than welcome to leave me comments on the blog, buy me a beer, or just say hello!