As a company, we will be having a annual stock take on February 1st.
All of our stores (excluding harrods and norwich) will be closed from 9am untill 12pm on this day.
If you need to contact your local store, please find there numbers on our website HERE
The manager of our Maidstone store Dean Brooks was given a divine opportunity to try out the new Wilier 2010 range, and that’s not all he tried, he also road the Monte Grappa a 28km hill climb in the Italian Alps, and made it to the top.
The event was held by Wilier importers ATB-Sales. ATB took 30 of it’s dealer’s to the Italian Alps, and from Cycles Uk Dean Brooks went from our Maidstone store.
Cycles UK Chelmsford will be moving in June 2009 from our shop on Duke Street to a new store on the Riverside Retail Park.
Check out our Facebook page for a sneak preview of what the store will look like
There have already been some big changes at Cycles UK Chelmsford in the last couple of years. We now have the exclusive Marin and Trek bikes dealership for the local area and our new store will have the exclusive Cube bikes dealership for Chelmsford. We are also still stocking a great range of bikes from established brands such as GT and Mongoose and have been working hard to improve our range of parts, accessories and clothing. Coupled with the new management team that we already have in place our relocation will enable us to further improve the range of products we stock and the service we offer.
We are very keen to hear what you, our customers, would like from our new shop. At our new store in Greenwich, which opened at the start of April, we changed our opening hours and our range of locks and panniers based on feedback we received from local cyclists in the run up to the opening. We are also piloting a courtesy bike scheme for customers whose bikes are in for servicing, an idea that was suggested to us by a local Greenwich cyclist. We would love to hear what you have to say and what we can do to tailor our products and services to the needs of Chelmsford’s cyclists. You can complete our online survey, if you prefer, you can email us or drop into the store for a chat. In the run up to the move we are having a big clearance sale with many parts and accessories at up to half price and a huge range of discounted cycling clothing so why not come in and grab yourself a bargain at the same time?
We are planning on holding a preview evening before our official opening. Please let us know if you would be interested in coming along. In the meantime we look forward to welcoming you to our new store.
View Cycles UK Chelmsford Relocation map
Tour Series - Southend On Sea - 25th June 2009
This Thursday (25th) the road bike race Tour Series is coming to Southend On Sea.
In this new concept in cycle racing, never seen on television previously, the teams will aim each night to place their top 3 riders in the highest positions at the end of 1 hour of intense, fast paced and attacking racing with all the thrills and spills of any other speed sport. You can watch the Tour Series races on ITV4.
Cycles UK will be down the seafront in Southend On Sea from 12 pm till late with around 10 bikes
(Specialized, Cube, Marin, Trek) and lots of freebies!
You can bring you bike down and have it safety checked by our staff!
Check out this great footage of Will from Cycles UK in Canterbury completing a huge jump whilst on our recent visit to Chicksands in Bedfordshire.
We were there to test drive some Marin mountain bikes and learn as much as possible about them so that when we sell a Marin bike, we have the best product knowledge possible!
Arriving after a 2 hour drive riddled with traffic, myself and Carl were relieved to get out my car and stretch our legs. We were greeted by Morgan, (the Marin Rep) and other members of staff from the other stores. Fin, Turned up shortly after me in the van loaded up with a selection of bikes.
Selection of bikes
There were some:
After selecting which bike we wanted to use, we then had to setup the suspension to our own weight.
Setting up the rear shock was quite easy, providing you know how much sag you need (Sag = The amount of travel in the rear shock when you are sitting on the bike stationary.) The Mount vision needed about 13mm of sag, This is adjusted using a Shock pump.
Once we were all set up and ready to go, Fin took the lead through the woods. He set quite a fast pace, carving up the single track, weaving in and out of the trees and jumping over logs. To start with, i was finding it hard getting used to leaning the bike into the bends and throwing it around, as I am used to a BMX which is much smaller and nimble. After a small amount of time on the Mount vision I found myself completely comfortable, and knowing the level of grip, throwing it into bends become very enjoyable.
The first half of the morning was spent on the single track, which had some tight technical parts, some nice leisurely flats and some hill climbs. Personally I enjoyed the technical parts more. When it came to the hill climbs the Mount vision performed much better than I though it would. As I approached the hill I would hit the lockout on the front forks and Switch the rear shock to Pro-pedal mode. Using pro pedal stiffens the rear suspension more than usual slowing down the movement of the rear shock but still maintaining excellent grip on the rough terrain. Just incase you forget to switch the shock back, its fitted with a pressure release valve which will automatically flick the switch back to normal mode. This prevents the bike from getting damaged.
After reaching the top of the hill and having a breather, we headed down a section with some jumps and banked corners. I was very impressed with the handling capabilities of the bike in the corners and over the jumps.
During the second half of the day we switched bikes and went over to the free ride part of chick sands Bike Park. This had quite abit of north shore, a 4cross section, a dual slalom track and some nice downhill parts.
The great thing about the different sections is that they all have different difficulty levels which are clearly marked at the beginning of the track by a wooden sign.
For my second bike choice I decided to try the Wolf Ridge, a bike designed specifically more for freeride than cross country. Being a freeride bike, it was heavier and had a much shallower head tube angle which was prefect for downhill use. The center of gravity was much lower which kept it planted to the ground when flying down a very bumpy hill at speed. It was defiantly a good choice for the freeride part of the park.
We decided to call it a day after riding the 4 cross track. And what a day it was. Getting to ride the bikes and learn about how they work was very informative and enjoyable. After riding the bikes you can really see why they spend so much time putting the bikes to the test before production.
I would like to thank Morgan and Fin at ATB sales for a very enjoyable day.
Prittle Brook with the Prittle Brook Way to it's right
For this morning’s commute I tried to stay as traffic free as possible. A quiet freewheel down the hill from my house is Prittle Brook which, according to wikipedia, was the site of human settlements ten thousand years ago. It looks a little bit different today.
There is a path which runs alongside Prittle Brook from Southend out towards Belfairs woods and this is in the process of being transformed into the Prittle Brook Greenway which will “form a sustainable traffic-free corridor”. This path takes me around half way to work. Once I get to Eastwood road I have the option of going straight on along the Golf Course and through Belfairs Woods (the route the Greenway is likely to take) but this leaves me with a fairly long and busy road section at the end of my ride so instead I headed up towards the A127 which has a cycle path running along both sides of it from Progress Road to Rayleigh Weir. As any locals will know this is one of the most congested bits of road in the Southend area during rush hour so riding this way often means cruising past hundreds of stationary cars.
This mornings cummute was just under 10km with (i would estimate) around 2km on the road with other traffic. Click on the map below to see it in more detail.
Sir Chris Hoy at the launch of the 'Triple Gold' BMX
Congratulations to Olympic triple gold winning cyclist and the man behind our limited edition Raleigh ‘Triple Gold’ BMX bikes on becoming a ‘Sir’.
Sir Chris Hoy picked up his knighthood yesterday at Buckingham Palace with teammate Bradley Wiggins and coach Dave Brailsford picking up CBEs. Sir Chris visited our Harrods store back in December to promote the launch of the Chris Hoy ‘Triple Gold’ BMX at the time saying, “BMX has always been my first love and I’m very excited about this opportunity. It’s great to see kids getting out there and having fun on bikes as I did myself when I was a kid”.
The Chris Hoy ‘Triple Gold’ BMX is available from the Cycles UK website.
