Archive for February, 2010

Our first delivery of “BikeBoxAlan” boxes arrived today. Exciting to have 5 new boxes turn up which will be available to rent out from Henley and Shiplake (soon to spread across the country I imagine!).

We chose BikeBoxAlan since they have a fantastic reputation for really good build quality which will hopefully pay off in the long run. Customers want the most effective way of protecting their precious cargo and these seem to be the best around. Importantly for a lot of people bikes with integrated seat posts will fit in the boxes too (most time trial bikes and high end road bikes have these nowadays). Also nice to be supporting a leading British company developing great products.

First test is four of the boxes off to Lanzarote for their first trip then some to South Africa to start their worldwide adventures!

Visit www.bikeboxrental.co.uk for our rental services page and www.bikeboxalan.co.uk for details of the boxes.

We built our own Ceepo Katana custom bike which was on display this year at the Triathlon Cycling Running Show at Sandown Park. Alongside the black Ceepo Katana were a white Ceepo Katana and a white Ceepo Mamba which we were also asked to build for the show to put on display. A few photos shown below.

A customer recently came to us main requirements were:

• Just getting into road cycling after a period of time off competing in other sports and work commitments
• Budget of around £1500 for complete bike and setup
• Looking to use for training and racing with aim to do long distance sportives, triathlon/time trial use and road racing

Our first step was to size the customer up and look at suitable frame geometries and build options. Filipe spent some time sizing up and assessing flexibility to determine an optimal bike setup position given current flexibility and lack of time on the bike as just coming into the sport. This determined a correct size frame (in this case a 58cm top tube was ideal) and ideal stem length and saddle and bar heights for optimal position in due course plus a more comfortable position to start training over the winter.

Having gone through many different options including building custom building bikes from frames (deals online) and from various manufacturers the Felt F5 was identified as ideal given:
£1500 budget would allow a nice carbon frame, decent 105 groupset and decent Mavic CXP22-based wheels ideal for training. This option gives a great frame and one of the best value groupsets around as well as a decent pair of training wheels for the winter which then could be upgraded once into racing seriously. Also unlike many manufacturers this bike build came with a standard chainset (not compact) which is more suitable for stronger riders as well as more of a race geometry which in this case was suitable for a fit and flexible athlete.

The Felt F5 was ordered, arrived two days later and setup and built properly by Filipe. This included greasing and adjusting the wheels (and truing slightly), greasing and fitting bottom bracket, greasing cables and headset properly and adjusting. The standard stem was also changed for a 13cm (from an 11cm) to adjust to the optimal position. To begin with we flipped the stem to allow a higher handelbar height for winter riding which can then be flipped for summer racing once used to the position (and for clip on time trial bars for time trial and triathlon racing). The package was then rounded off with a complete set of Lezyne accessories (saddlebag, tube, patch kit, tyre levers, multi tool and pump) as well as matching bottle cages and even a matching Kask K10 helmet!

All in all a very happy customer especially since from first visit to pick up of bike was less than a week and has a great all round package for many happy hours of cycling ahead!

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