Video: Koo Bikes Video

Sometime late last year Koo-bikes were approached by a couple of Film students looking to add to their portfolio of work and wanting to do a sort of 'profile' video of the up and coming online retailer Koo-bikes. Its basically an about us, what we're all about and who we are video. Koo-Bikes.com wouldn't be what it is today, either without its bricks and mortar shop Cogs-Bikes, so this was worth talking about as well, as Koo is the evolution of Cogs and a progression in retail. Anyways enough of the boring chat..
Here's the video!

Battle: Cannonade super six vs Redline CX

So I'm guessing that you are all aware that I have been riding the Redline cyclocross bike now for the past few months. This happens to be the only road/cross bike that I have ever really ridden. I have done plenty of miles of riding on this bike and however good i think it is, i cant help but feel if i had a new and up to date carbon bike, it will make a difference and i will be blown away by how far the technology has come on. i find myself forever looking at different bikes and mainly Carbon deep section wheels. I, and I'm sure many other people, always have a whole list of dream kit that they wish they had, just for the never ending struggle to be faster. I would say that number 1 on my wish list is the Zipp 303 firecest wheels. I look at them and dream of me out on my bike, just flying past people and laughing at them completely exhausting themselves, just to get near the speed I was cruising at....

Clearly I am deluded, and the marketing world has won the battle making me believe the hype with some cleaver sounding words. But even magazine, online and personal reviews rave about them. I couldn't help but think that I needed to try them out for my self. 

Cannondale super six...also super quick

One of the duDes 'Matt Newman' at my local bike shop, 'Cogs-bikes' in plymouth, happens to have a set of zipp 404 firecrest wheels. These aren't the ones I would personally have but apparently, they have very similar aero properties but a touch faster than the 303s. I thought it would be a long shot asking if I could have a go on his wheels sometime because they are soo expensive. But luckily enough for me, he agreed and said I should have a go on his bike at the same time. I thought this was very cool of him and really appreciate it! Would never have got the opportunity any other way, unless I bought them. The idea of being able to ride them got me a bit excited.. So of course, I thought up of test to see how fast they really are and do a versus battle with the Redline.

My first thought when i warmed up on the bike was the riding position, i'm used to a cyclocross position, so it felt a bit weird at first, but then i quickly noticed how easy it was to get up to speed and how it just kept going. Whilst out on the battle, i thought up many differences of the ride position and the way it rode compared to the Redline. 

Here's those thoughts......

- It was real nice and stiff and felt like the power transferred straight through the cranks,chain, wheel and to the floor with absolutely no loss. 

- It felt like it cut through the wind like a hot knife through butter.. 

- side wind hitting the wheels was a first and bit scary but i got used to it. 

- It was surprisingly quick uphills, thought it was going to be a bit sluggish but it was quite the opposite.

- Ultegra shifters felt weird. 

- The position whilst stood up felt really nicely balanced and controlled. 

- I have never gone for a ride where i felt soo fast with as much effort. 

- how is this going soo fast?

- not sure i would feel the same benefits of the wheel in CX

- why is going this fast, soo easy.

- haha lolol rofl at the cyclists i flew by..

So that's just a few things i could remember.  In conclusion, i liked it, it was fast!

Now for the geek tech stats bit..

About a month ago I did a strong ride on my redline. Setup was:

- Rolf vector 20mm deep wheels

- 46t front chain ring

- 27-12 cassette

And obviously a frame where aerodynamics were never thought of whilst designing. 

It was a 20mile loop and I pushed hard to see how fast I could do it. I can't remember the weather or traffic conditions, but I have a feeling that both were good. 

Here's the stats straight off the Garmin

- time 1.02.58

- dist.  20.17miles

- avg speed. 19.22

- max speed 37.22

Today I did the same route but on the Cannondale equipped with the 404s

I was hoping that I was going to smash the times above to justify me saving and spending lots of pennies..

Lets note that the previous results were over a month ago, and I'm probably a lot fitter than I was then. Weather today was fairly windy with a noticeable headwind but nothing drastic. Traffic on the other hand was a bit of a nightmare with bad timing at traffic lights...I probably need to find a better route to do tests. 

Setup was:

Zipp 404 carbon clincher 58mm deep section

52t front

25-11t rear

This gearing instantly means I can hit higher speeds and therefore be able to hold a higher avg. 

Stats:

- time 59.22

- dist 20.10

- avg 20.31mph

- max 38.84

I really don't think that these result show a fair result. I was 2 mins quicker on the Cannondale but I felt held up by the traffic a lot and I think that if I rode the Redline in the wind from today, it would have been a very different story. Only 1mph higher top speed which shows the gearing was not a big factor. One major thing to note is how much more energy i had left in me. I definitely felt a lot less exhausted.

Thanks for reading, and hope you found it interesting.

On a side note, this bike is actually up for sale... 

£1800 for the bike with mavic Ksyriums

£1300 for the zipps which will come with brand new Decals

orr £3000 FOR THE WHOLE LOT.. (frame size is 56)

i aint got the money but it sems like a good deal. If your in the area Pop into cogs bikes shop to have a look at it or speak to the guys. alternatively, here is their facebook

Wednesday Bikes: Vol 2 - Vanilla Bicycles

This week is Vanilla Bicycles.

This company, straight out of Portland, Oregan, hand builds and crafts every frame. And this really shows in the detail. This also explains why the SpeedVagen from last edition of Wednesday bikes were made with such detail, as Vanilla cycles actually create them.

I dint realize this then..but now i do. Im getting so wise!

So ill start off with two single speed CX bikes.
1 Frame, 2 very different looks!

OLD Skool:

Sweet looking crank-set on this. Have no idea what it is though.. (update, they are Paul ENO cranks)

 NEW Skewl:

50mm deep carbons and boom!! you got yourself fast as f**k looking race bike.

If i had the choice, i honestly don't know which to go for. It's so easy to make a frame look like a classic, just slap on some square box rims, matched with a lot of silver parts. I like the idea of the simplicity of a single speed. just something you dont have to worry about, and take too much care for, which is what you will get from the classic build. But as soon as you drop some carbon wheels in, it instantly defies the point of a singlespeed. You have to check and clean the pads and rims after every ride, or else before you know it, youv torn through a set of wheels that you had to re-mortgage your house to get hold of.

Dont get me wrong, if i had the money, i would have 100 sets of carbon wheels just because they look so pimp! But, being an average, struggle to pay the bills, kind of guy, a single speed should be plain, simple, reliable, and good enough to get the job done. Everything the first first bike is, just without the tubular tyres/rims. Especially not Dugast tyres as, apparantly they need more care and attention than other tub's because of the very supple, high performing, Cotton Casing.

Here's a Geared version..

Got this image from here.. worth a look as there's loads cool pics in there

This one being one of my favourites..

That's a serious gap to clear..

Video: Central Park Cross Course

I decided to GoPro a lap of my Cross course up Central Park last night. Its a pretty long track so i edited out the boring uphill bits. Watch out for me getting attacked by the tiniest dog ever...

The only thing i can bunny hop on the course. Ideally i would have more (another thing to hop right after this one) but im having to rely on the natural things. If i put anything up, it would get taken down.

Race Report: SW CX Rd 4, Stover

Race Report: SW XC Rd 4, Stover

            Today was the 4^th round of the South West Cyclo Cross series at Stover School just outside Newton Abbot. We have had a 2 week break from the series, well the majority had but I decided to do the Hell of the West to fill the gap of racing in the series. The hell of the west was an 80Km ‘CX sportive’ across Dartmoor. I won’t go into details of this, but I will say it was probably the hardest cycling thing I have ever done. It sucked and I probably wouldn’t do it again, especially on a cross bike. The majority of people had cross country mountain bikes and oh maan I was jealous of their suspension, disk brakes and fat tyres.

           Anyway, back to today’s events. Stover school grounds created a pretty damn good venue for a cross race. The start/ finish area sat amongst the well manicured sports fields. These fields were rolled so flat there was barely a bump or lump in sight. To the best of my belief, the ground men had also rolled flat 40% of the course especially for the race. However easy this sounds, it was a totally different story due to the fairly high amount of surface water that quickly got churned up at one end of the fields. Despite that, these sections made for good flat-out racing.

       The other 60% on the other hand made use of the not so well kept part of the school. Once you had come of the sports fields, you were met by quick, steep banks and tight turns that led out to a flat out rough, un-kept downhill section. This was a good place to have a bit of a rest and a lot of fun getting loose. But as we all know, what goes down must go up, and this wasn’t the nicest of ups. It was slow going and energy sapping. Even at the top of this climb it didn’t let off. We had to get off, run up some steps then navigate the best way to tackle a couple more short steep grass banks. This would have been ‘moderately’ easy if it wasn’t for large curb sized grass ledges that u needed to hop up and lose a bit of momentum. Not long after this section it was back onto the sports fields. A lap was about 6min 30secs and ended up doing about ten of these.

           My race went pretty well for me today; I got the best finish of the season. Whether it was the extra enthusiasm from my dad coming up and me wanting to show off, or the sibling rivalry of my half brother, Nick, racing and wanting to show him how us Cyclo cross boys do it, I don’t know. But today it helped.

        It was a good turn-out with nearly 60 riders in the main event. I was glad to be near the front at the start. I got off to a pretty good start from the 2^nd row on the grid. At the first hedge line there was a big ol’ puddle, with two small lines around it. I figured people were going to slow up to take these lines. So I made the most of this hopped the big puddle. This put me right at the front with 5 others. Throughout the first lap I worked my way to 2^nd and put up a big gap behind to 3^rd. 1^st position had also started to make a gap. I was able to keep this position for the next 2 laps but 3^rd was catching up. I dropped back to 5 over the next few laps. I held this position for a while. I took on an energy gel about 35-40 mins in to give me the boost to try and not lose 5^th, 6^th was slowly but surely catching me up.

The thick consistency of this made it very difficult
to swallow under race conditions.

I used a Zip Fit Energy gel today, different than the usual Torq gels. It didn’t go down very well. The Zipfit, banana flavour, was way too thick to consume when you’re at your limit and really doesn’t go down very well. The Torq gels are a lot thinner in consistency. For this reason alone, I will be using Torq for the rest of the season.

I would definitely recommend these energy gels. Thin, tasty,
easily swallowed and good energy supply.

With 2 laps to go, 6^th was right on my tail. But 4^th was in my sights; maybe 30secs ahead. The energy started to kick in along with fear of losing position. I stepped my game up and started to leave him on the downhill section. At the turn I kicked hard up the hill to drop him, which I did. I kept this momentum going and caught 4^th not long after the bell for last lap. As I passed him he jumped onto my wheel and could see he wasn’t going down without a fight. Again, I used the momentum gained from the downhill and just stood up and sprinted up the long, lung busting hill. 

He couldn’t match my effort and I rolled home safely in 4^th position, 10 secs clear of 5^th. I was still 3mins back from the winner; he put in a good ride.  I have some more work to do to start challenging for the lead but I’m sure it will come. It’s Just a matter of time.

Thanks for reading again. It’s you guys that comment on my work that keeps me going out there, just so I have something decent to write about.

Wednesday Bikes: Vol 1

Welcome to the very first volume of Wednesday Bikes. Such a momentous occasion and will mark it with something very cool!

So Wednesday bikes, what's it all about. It's pretty simple really, every Wednesday I will try my very best to post a different, exciting, weird, wonderful, cross bikes from all over the world. Whatever CX bike I post I will try and put up as single speed version of it from the same manufacturer.

This week is something that I only came across today and I thought 'WOW that shit is Hot!.
Here's the link to their website
Speedvagen
This contains other bikes in their very small range of top end bikes.



Check it out and see what you think..…

Very neat dropouts

Really useful looking cable guides, allowing for longer lengths of covered cable to keep the dirt and grit out
to keep shifts smooth and consistent. Note where the rear brake cable comes from.

Another angle for the rear brake cable routing. This keeps it looking so tidy. No need for ugly,
external seat tube adapter jobbies. Well you wouldnt be able to use a seat tube guide as this is the first intergrated seatpost that i have seen on a cross bike.

Some more internal routing for the front brake. This really does create a very clean look throughout. I cant help but think how tricky it would be to route them, especially the rear.

Images courtesy of BikeRumour

And now for you Singlespeed fans.

Super Pimp. Super clean. And can only imagine how fast this sucker is!

Got this image from Vanilla Workshops Flickr

Click on the link for many more awesome pics from this brand..

thanks for looking

and stay tuned because i have some weights and comparisons with a couple of very shiny carbony parts to come very shortly!

Race Report: CX RD 3, Barnstaple

 UPDATE: 26/09/12 - i have just found out that i came 6th overall at this race which is pretty sweet!  

 Yesterday, 23^rd September, was round 3 of the south west Cyclo cross in Barnstaple.

I knew that the weather wasn’t supposed to be very good at all for this race but all week it had been pretty dry and I couldn’t help but think, it really can’t be that bad?! I woke up Sunday morning looked out of the window to be greeted by dark grey clouds and loud a spattering of rain on the window. Ughh.. It had started to get really cold this week. I just knew by looking outside, I didn’t want to ride in this dreary weather.

On the brighter side of things, I feel that I’m pretty handy on a bike, skill wise, and I also know, that most of the people riding are rodies. They don’t tend to be very good at cornering, let alone cornering on slick, greasy, muddy corners. I was feeling confident.

           I rocked up to the joint with no problems this week; I probably have to owe that to the latest iphone update, ‘IOS6’. Before on the iphone, you had to rely on Google maps directing you, which is always a bit of a struggle, but included in the new update is, in its simplest term, is a TomTom gps system. This was the first time I used it and the new GPS routing system is very good. It worked without fault. The screen stays lit up so u can always see where you are and how far away the next turning is. There is also a little man in my phone that shouts out which way to go so you don’t even have to look..

           I got out of my toasty hot car and it wasn’t very pleasant outside. I signed on and started putting layers of clothes on. My kit consisted of Bib shorts, low cut socks, an Endura BaaBaa merino base layer, race jersey, arm warmers, windstopper jacket thingy and a one of those sweet cycle caps that go under the helmet. I obviously didn’t wear all of this for the race; this was just to do some warming up in.  The cap and jacket came off just before the start.

               I ran into an instant problem with tyre pressure as soon as I started my first practice lap. The course was very soft and muddy which I decided needed a very low tyre pressure. I set the front & rear tyre to 25psi. I went to bunny hop up a curb and I thought I was going to die! Literally I have never felt so unsafe and out of control on a bike in my life. As soon as I put any pressure on the front end, the tyre rolled over twisting the wheel to the side and nearly throwing me over into the curb. Luckily I got away with it. The rear tyre was absolutely fine and felt very good. 

        I should probably mention that I’m running different tyres front and rear; A Kenda small block 8, 700x32c in the rear, and a vredstrein 700x30c front. I have recently started to not like this vredestrein tyre much and this recent problem has strengthened my view on it. I really need to change it. I find this tyre to tall for its skinny profile and the sidewalls can’t cope with any side loads at pressures below 40psi. It just really isn’t stable at all. Anyway I sorted this by putting the front up to 30psi and coped with the slight rolling.

         The race got underway and I found myself in the top 10 pretty quickly. The course was also pretty lame. It was basically a playing field with lots of corners in it, with one section that went off the field with some stairs to run up back up onto the field..There wasn’t as many people competing this week, maybe 30 plus people. Results still aren’t up as I write, so can’t be sure.

         We got into the first of the tight chicanes and some guy left the door open so I nipped into the gap on the inside. As I did this, I must have caught this guy by surprise because he jack-knifed and fell to the floor creating a gap between the front group and the chasing group.  I was luckily in the leading group. I was following them around for a couple laps and it felt like I was cruising pretty easily so I pushed forward, over took some people and tried to pick the pace up.  

          As time went on, the course started to get very sloppy, especially on the uphill, headwind section of the course. I started to struggle for speed on this section and found two guys closing me down. They both overtook me and I just sat in behind them. As they passed by I noticed they were team mates working together. I found the pace they were going at was pretty good and being sat behind them, really helped on the head wind section. The front runner off this 3 man group started to get away and I found the other guy was defending the inside line on every corner making it pretty difficult to overtake. This didn’t frustrate me as I knew that if I needed to catch up, I wouldn’t have a problem. I decided to bide my time and use this guy in front to keep me feeling fresh. The ‘2laps to go’ sign came out and I figured this would be the lap to bridge the gap that had been created. I followed this guy for about half of the lap, until it came to a straight, fast section where I decided to jump this guy and sprint up to the next. This wasn’t actually very hard and I was right with him in no time.

          Again I sat in behind the next rider for most of the last lap waiting for the moment to make an attack. I followed him around for about half the lap until we got to the uphill, headwind section, where he slowed right up. At first I wasn’t sure if he was out of energy, or trying to slow us both up to let his team mate catch up. Whatever it was I wasn’t sure, so I took the lead, constantly checking over my shoulder, watching both of their movements to make sure they weren’t planning an attack. 

        All of a sudden one of them attacked out of nowhere. I was very quick to react and matched his attack with plenty left for the inevitable final sprint. He got in front of me and started to pick the pace back up. This time, I knew it was just between him and me. We went through the tight chicanes mentioned earlier. Coming out of this section is where I made my attack, knowing there was only 1 slow and 2 very fast turns to the finish. I grabbed hold of the drop bars, shifted through the gears and got my head down. I passed him just before the 1^st fast corner. Whilst cornering, I had to overtake a couple of lappers the long way around making sure I was ahead before the slow corner. Nailed it. But so had he... checking over my shoulder just before the exit, I could see he had closed the gap but this was fine with me. With one fast corner and a slight uphill headwind finish ahead of me, I knew I had to make sure I didn’t fall on the final corner, which would have been easily done under pressure. I checked my speed coming in, not caring if he was right behind me let the brakes go and flew though the corner, foot out, not quite flat out, whilst pedalling one footed. I stomped the other foot back into the pedal, grabbed the drops tightly and hammered it home. I turned around just as I crossed the finish line to realise the other competitor had cut his losses and must have given up not long after the corner. I was well clear.

         This has definitely been my best race so far. I raced and fought to the very end beating a couple of guys who had finished in the top 8 the week previously.  I have improved quicker than I thought from week to week. And, it would be really awesome to keep this momentum going to hopefully challenge for a win by the end of the season.

I have also just noticed how much I have written and I realise this is supposed to be a report, so I apologize for the ‘race essay’... but what you guan do.

Cheers