We are busy gearing up for our hardest Sportive of the year, The King of the Downs. Now in it’s 4th year, this is a classic 10 hill Sportive  to challenge even the fittest riders.

So far we have booked the drink stations, ordered 2500 bananas, 3000 bits of flapjack, 150 fruitcakes and about 25kgs of jelly beans There will also be goodies from High5 at the start along with energy drink.

I’ll try and walk you through the day, but please check here for last minute updates.

First though I would like to point out that THIS IS NOT A RACE. You will not be given a rank and all times will be displayed in a non-sortable format in rider number order. Please help us to continue running a popular friendly event by not riding in such a way to obstruct the road and upset other users. Stop at junctions and traffic lights, and obey the highway code. Do not ride at silly speeds around blind bends or on steep descents. We do not insure you for your actions so if you do hit a car or pedestrian YOU will be responsible for any damages caused by your riding.

GPX routes – I will post these up towards the end of this week – I have to do some work on them from last year and I don’t have the time until then.

Pre-event mail – This should go out to everyone who supplied their email address with their booking. If you don’t get this we will put up a link from here, but please make sure your email address on your booking/account is correct.

On the Day

Parking – We have secured about 500 spaces in a nearby commercial estate but we’ll park at the venue to begin with. So aim for our Head Office at RH10 9TZ and follow the instructions of the parking marshals. When we have filled nearest parking we will send you to the overflow so, again, follow directions from the marshals. The overflow is about a 3minute walk/1minute bike ride so it’s up to you if you wish to ride over ready to ride.

Signing in – Times are as follows:-

The Nocturne series was launched in 2007, and the folding bike race has become a crowd favorite, with a cult following and fancy dress theme that is always adhered to by its loyal supporters. This years race will be featured on Channel 4 and 40D, and is set to attract over 10,000 spectators. The event is free to attend and competitors can still enter the race online at www.londonnocturne.com.

Fast and furious from the off, suited and booted commuters charge to their steeds in a ‘Le Mans’ style start, speedily unfolding them to gain an edge over their rivals. The race will follow the same format as previous years with heats leading to a grand final around the streets of Smithfield Market, and riders will be competing for a Tern Verge Duo. 

Tern are set to be one of the popular providers for competitors, and 2010 winner Keith Henderson will be hoping to repeat the performance on one of their speedy bikes. We’re looking to build ‘Team Tern’ so if you think you would be a great member and relish the opportunity to participate, we want to hear from you! Email michelle.arthurs@evanscycles.com and we’ll announce our favorite applicant on Monday 21 May.

The Folding Bike Race is part of an action packed evening schedule including a Team Challenge race, the Shwalbe Longest Fixed Gear Skid competition, and Brooks Penny Farthing race, culminating in the floodlit Elite Criterium. The team will be on hand at the event showcasing the range, answering questions and enjoying the great atmosphere.

For a visual preview of the event, view this on-board video from last years event, for more information visit www.londonnocturne.com and view the full Tern range here.

Just like last year, it will be a casual group ride, riders of all fitness and skill levels are welcome. It is not a race and no one will get left behind. In terms of difficulty, there will be a couple of challenging climbs, namely Leith Hill and Holmbury Hill, but the descents will make all the hard work worth it. We will have 10 Garmin 800 GPS devices to be loaned to make sure that everybody finds his/her way to the finish.

The details:
The ride starts in Peaslake at Surrey Hills Fun Ride Carpark, at 10:30am on Saturday 19th May, 2012.
The nearest train station is Gomshall.
The route is 15 miles (approx. 3 hours), it will not be marked, but there will be sweepers at the back of the pack, so you can complete it at your own pace.
Mark will join us from the RideIt team, he and a number of Evans Cycles staff members who will join us will make sure that everything goes smoothly during the ride. There will also be a sweeper who will ride behind the last rider to help out any riders in trouble.
Close to the start area, there’s a nice pub called Hurtwood Inn, where we can indulge ourselves with a post ride pub lunch and a pint.
This is not an official ride, but we do ask you to let us know at the start if you are joining us for the ride (look for the RideIt! van and the person with a clip board).

We would love to meet you all and say thanks for your support this year – so do come along and say hello. To give us a feel for numbers, please let us know if you intend to ride in the comments section below or join the ride on our facebook page.

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After what seems like weeks of wet weather we finally got a dry spell for this weekend’s Cotswolds Ride It event and our first from the new Didmarton venue. Unfortunately the good weather wasn’t enough to dry up all the mud on the mountain bike course and lots riders commented on their return just how tough they had found the ride.

The good weather continued into Sunday with some clear skies for the start of the road ride. It seemed like a perfect day for getting out on the road bike and a few of the staff were certainly wishing they were out riding rather than working. With plenty of hills and winds that seemed to get stronger as the day went it certainly wasn’t a float day but generally good conditions for a challenging ride around the Cotswolds. Unfortunately it seemed we had a couple of course arrows removed towards the end of the route and although we quickly fixed this is seems some riders ended up adding a few extra miles which hopefully didn’t spoil their enjoyment too much.

You can download rider times using the links below -

MTB Rider Times

Road Sportive Rider Times

Photos

I nipped out and took some pics on Sunday, just a few and I was on the compact not SLR so they are a bit random!!

Follow this link Bristol 12 to low res. pics. If you want higher res copies mail me on dean.stacey@evanscycles.com and I’ll send them via email. They are big files so you might get a few mails back if you want more than one.

Ta

Dean

Shock News!!

Dry patch of road found in the UK!

Along with some blue sky….

and the sun….

I’m not going to say where I found this little piece of paradise in case we start a rush from all over the country, and I’m also not going to guarantee that it’ll be there on Sunday

Actually, this mornings ride to put some of the road course out was a really nice jaunt through the Cotswolds. Due to some van warning lights coming on at 10pm last night, I ended up leaving home at 5.30am in order to get my section signed up before Keith and Tony arrived about 10am. in the dodgy Ride it wagon. Leaving Didmarton at 7.30am in shorts and a T-shirt I was soon into the countryside on small, winding lanes. There’s lots of Rapeseed out there, so with the Cotswold stone walls ,the bright yellow and green fields and little traffic, it was a really nice morning. One tip……it’s flat out there so if it’s windy you are going to be cycling into a head wind at some point! Make the most of a following gust. Here’s my Garmin data from the ride Garmin Connect but please don’t use this to download as it’s part of 3 different routes.

The MTB route will be going out tomorrow so i can’t really tell you about it other than half of the route is from our previous venue and the other half is new to us. Sneaking a look as I drove/cycled past bridleways today, all I can say is it’s going to be muddy

GPX files

A pre-event mail will be going out shortly to all those riders who pre-entered ( and supplied an e-mail ( if you didn’t get the mail, try your junk folder)) and in it is a link to the GPX files. If you are entering on the day then the GPX files can be downloaded from our computers at registration.

Parking

There is a nice big field at the village hall. It’s now a nice big WET field! I’m hoping it’s going to be fine this weekend but we’ll just have to see on the day. If we are trashing the field then there is a lane by the field that you can park on the side of ( Please pull off the tarmac) There will be marshals ( me) to tell you where to go.

Helmets

Please bring your helmet to sign on – no helmet, no ride.

THIS IS NOT A RACE

These rides are not races. Please follow the highway/countryside code. Give way to other road/trail users and be polite. Roadies, do not ride two abreast where it is not safe to do so and keep your speed down and bike under control into blind corners. MTB riders, there are a lot of HORSE RIDERS in the area. Please slow down and STOP when you meet a horse, follow the instructions of the rider. Remember, you have complete (ish) control of your bike, they won’t have control of a spooked tonne of  horse which can injure you/them/the horse. Think of it this way, you pass the horse once, they get passed 400 times. YOU are responsible for your actions and their consequences, if you cause an accident then you are liable for the costs.

Ta

Dean

Coming Soon

Hi All.

This will be the place to find all the info about this coming weekends Bristol Ride It.

The Venue

Due to us changing our venue, I want to confirm that this is the correct address:-

Didmarton Village Hall
The Street
Didmarton
Glos
GL9 1DT

(NOT Kingswood)

Let’s hope for dryer weather!!

Ta

Dean

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You can browse the full range of XENON clothing on the main Evans Cycles site using the links below -

• XENON 2.0 AS Jacket
• XENON 2.0 Jersey
• XENON 2.0 SO Jacket
• XENON 2.0 AS Vest
• XENON S 2.0 BIB TIGHT short
• XENON GT AS Jacket short

Do visit the GORE BIKE WEAR® stand this weekend and demo a wide range of mtb and road garments during your chosen ride!

I bought these pedals to replace those fitted to my Plug Grinder. They have proved an excellent choice.
The quality is obvious from the moment they are unwrapped, solid as though made from a single piece of high quality alloy. The anodising- a deep and gorgeous red on mine- feels as though it goes right through the metal rather than being simply a thin skin. Generally I avoid anodised products on the grounds that after a few months wear they look tatty, but I very much doubt that will happen with these.

The bearings were slightly tight at first and a little “gritty”. I had expected this from the experiece of other reviewers but, from the outset they turned smoothly.After a few miles the grittiness has disappeared and now they are just smooth and solid. Altogether the improvenment from the standard pedals on the Grinder has been huge.
If you are not used to track pedals these may not be confortable in thin soled shoes. I don’t have a problem but riders wearing baseball shoes doing high mileages might. These are after all track-pedals based on (and dare I say it as good as)the classic Campagnolo Pistas. I wouldn’t use them to cross continents.
A big plus point is the fact that they can be fitted using an allen key or a pedal spanner.

From my point of view a negaitve is that they dont seem to come in a plain rather than anodised finish but that said the anodising is great quality and the colour rich and deep rather than flashy. They are not particularly light but if you are into featherweight components they wouldn’t be anywhere near your shopping list.
These pedals are the best of high end Japanese manufacturing. Solid, beautiful to look at and completely functional. They are certainly not expensive for what they are. If you are building up a classicly styled fixed-wheel bike these are as good as it gets.

Have you bought something recently at Evans Cycles? Write a review on our website and you could win £250, too. Check out here how our Ride it, Rate it program works.

Frankly I don’t envy the riders lining up for the start of the Giro d’Italia this year. With the UK and its near neighbours awash with torrential rain the race makes its debut in the most northerly venue ever used by a Grand Tour, Denmark of all places. So spare a thought for Michele Scarponi and the lads this coming weekend.

Herning, north of the capital city and hometown of Bjarne Riis will host the 8.7km prologue and while the weather seems set fair for Saturday what’s the betting that the following two days will be plagued with lashing rain and whipping sea winds to test the mettle of the more sunshine loving riders in the bunch? Mind you Mark Cavendish seems to go rather well in Denmark and the are certainly more opportunities so the greyhounds his year. After 3 days the whole kit and caboodle packs up and hops a mere 1200km back to the boot of Italy and takes a very early rest day.

Sometimes I wonder whether these far flung trips abroad are really worth it but as soon as the race starts the bizarre twists of fate that marks out professional cycling as the most complicated and fascinating sport in the world answers he question with a resounding ‘yes’. Remember when he Giro began in she Netherlands a few years ago? Dominico Pozzavivo, a man who is tailor made for the high mountains as we saw displayed in front of our eyes on Eurosport last month when he destroyed he opposition in Giro del Trentino, rode and looked like a schoolboy on his first winter club run, battered from pillar to post by thunderous winds all along the Dutch coastline. It provided great TV but for Pozzavivo his race was effectively over before he ever set foot back in the homeland after total collapse.

Never fear the mountain goats will still determine he outcome of the race come the big mountains that arrive thick after week two but if this year’s route appears far more balanced it’s because it is.

Along with last year’s Tour de France and of course Cav’s Copenhagen gallop, the 2010 Giro was one of he greatest commentating privilages I’ve had in my career. The organisers we rightly praised for finding the balance between spectacle and reality but as on so many occasions in life, they just pushed it a little bit too far in a effort to outdo themselves for 2011.

Frankly after he tragedy of Wouter Waylandt’s death early in the race the morale in the commentary box and on the race as a whole ebbed away and more importantly the confidence of the riders in the organisers abilities slipped away with it. The problem with launching he most demanding and savage Giro in living memory is that if your race takes a wrong turn, there is now way to turn back and so it was with last years race.

It wasn’t just the death of Waylandt that brought he black dog of despair on he race though. Once Alberto Contador gave a kicking to everyone on the slopes of Mount Etna, the rest of the favourites were left fighting like whipped dogs over the scraps from the table. The race was over, the rest was a battle to survive over nearly two more vicious weeks.

And what was the outcome of all his brutality and suffering? In the event Contador was stripped of his win and leather-faced Michele Scarponi, no stranger to the odd ban himself, stepped up to the podium and defends the title this year as frankly just best of the rest. All in all I’d rather forget most of last years edition of the race.

So, Michele Acquarone, you’re the new race director on the block, show us what you’ve got. If youve created a race that is balanced yet gripping, blends just the right amount of beauty with brutality and rewards the tactically daring as much as the astute then you’ve got my vote.

Ride safe

British Eurosport is the Home of Cycling with more coverage than any other channel including all three Grand Tours, major Spring Classics and the road and track World Championships, available on Sky (410/411) and Virgin Media (521/525) or online/on mobile via eurosportplayer.co.uk

Tracy Moseley at the Kaprun round of the UCI World Cup.

Her career spans over an impressive, 15 year long period and during that time she has managed to win everything that there was to be won. She walked us through all the key stages of her career: the early years, when she was lucky enough to be signed by the then-new Volvo-Cannondale team, then joining Kona and finally, winning the World Champion title with Trek World racing. While she claimed that she dreaded the thought of speaking in front of the audience, she was an engaging and interesting speaker, she managed to tell us a story of her career instead of just reciting race results.

One lesson aspiring racers should heed to was that it’s not enough to get a contract – a big contract come with great responsibilities. This was the case when she joined her first team, Volvo Cannondale and even more so when she joined Trek World Racing in 2009. While she enjoyed the convenience of a large team, expectations were very high and at first she found it difficult to live up to the expectations. That being said, one had to put things into perspective: for Tracy, finishing 2nd overall in the World Cup in 2009 was a disappointment, while most riders would give their right arm for such a result.

Tracy Moseley's timed practice run on the 2010 World Championships course at Mount-Saint Anne

After winning the Worlds in 2010, a long time goal and the World Cup overall in 2011, Tracy admitted that she had wanted to do something else, something that still has got cycling at the centre. With the emergence of the gravity enduro events in the UK and around the world recently, it seemed logical to set up her new team, T-MO Racing with focus on that discipline. This is where Osprey Packs comes in, they are one of the key sponsors of the Tracy.

After an interesting journey through her career it was time for questions and it was good to see that the audience was engaged and they kept her busy for almost an hour with various questions about training, favourite races, gear and other aspects of racing. At the beginning of the event, everyone got a raffle ticket and after the Q&A session Tracy picked a winner who was presented with the prize on the spot: an Osprey bag.

Tracy stayed for a while after her presentation and spent some time chatting to people and also signed a few posters, too. Once everyone left, a smaller group of Evans Cycles staff headed towards Oxford Circus and Tracy joined us and we casually chatted about random things until we got down to the tube station and we all wished her good luck to her future endeavours.

Evans Cycles and Osprey now offer you the chance to ride with Tracy Moseley! Enter our competition, one lucky winner and friend will win a trip to ride with Tracy Moseley and Osprey Packs in the South Downs. Enter the competition here >>>

Check out TMO-Racing’s website >>>
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