I’ve been wanting my employer to sign up to a cycle to work scheme since I started in Feb ’09, but when I asked again 3 weeks ago little did I know that a launch was imminent. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one pestering HR about it, a case of strength in numbers without realising it.
The cycle to work scheme is being ran through cyclesolutions.co.uk, a sister company of Wheelies Direct based in Swansea. Although they didn’t have the exact bike I wanted, the Revolution Country Explorer which I’ve been drooling over for the past couple of months, they did have a few suitable alternatives. The limit for the scheme is the typical £1000, so to leave room for accessories I was sticking to roughly £750 for the bike.
Here were my options:
- Ridgeback Century 2010 – £800
In the end this just seemed a little too expensive, and as it didn’t come with a rack it was going to leave even less for other accessories. I think you were paying for a aluminium/carbon frame and carbon fork. No thanks.
- Ridgeback Horizon 2010 – £700
This is a nice bike. I’d seen one in the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-Operative store in Manchester. However, the aluminium and carbon frame and lack of rear pannier rack were a bit off putting.
- Dawes Horizon 2010 – £750
Having ridden my partners Dawes Karakum it was always going to be hard to turn down a Dawes. A Reynolds 520 chromoly frame, drop bars, rear pannier rack, SKS mudguards, and a roll call of other good quality bits and pieces.
Dawes Horizon 2010 - Please hurry and be delivered!
It’s been a manic few weeks, so apologies for the relative silence. We’re still here, and we’re hoping to do a couple of S24O’s over the next couple of weeks, in preparation for a 300 mile cycle trip from North Wales to Torquay along national cycle route 5 before the end of the year.
A few weeks ago I wrote about our search for a child trailer, and in the end we settled on a Burley Bee. I managed to pick it up second hand on eBay and so far so good. Bearing in mind I’ve been using my Revolution Courier Race (An 8 speed) to pull it around I’ve not been doing too badly.
Becki posing with the Burley Bee in Snowdonia - June 2010
Continue reading this post » Getting our bicycle touring gear together
Be careful what you say on twitter
You may or may not have noticed in the news recently, but there is a growing trend of home burglaries taking place as a result of people announcing their travel plans on social media websites. Thieves are actively scouring the big sites like twitter and Facebook, and it really isn’t too difficult for them to find details of peoples travel plans and more.
Continue reading this post » How social media and travel can lead to burglary
A tandem bicycle pulling a child trailer
I thought my search for a children’s bike trailer would take a few weeks at most yet here we are several months later with the beautiful spring sunshine upon us and I am still without a bicycle trailer for my child.
The real problem of course is that I don’t really want to spend hundreds of pounds, with top models costing just that. The bike I’ll be using to pull the child trailer was itself an eBay bargain, an almost brand new revolution courier race for £160. Thats around half RRP, and I want the same deal on a child trailer!
Continue reading this post » The search for a bicycle child trailer
