Life In The Saddle

Last year, I wrote a post on Cross Country Ride: 'My Every Ride Carry' ; featuring all the kit that comes with me on a weekend trail outing. In this post, I turn to the tarmac, and what I would take with me on a weekend endurance road ride, or middle-distance event. Wearable kit: Kask Infinity Helmet POC Do Blade AVIP Sunglasses GripGrab Cycling Cap GripGrab Windster Gloves GripGrab HiVis HeadGlove GripGrab HiVis Thermo Overshoes These products have fast become my favourite kit accessories for autumn/springtime rides. The Kask Infinity helmet does a fantastic job of providing an enhanced shield from the cold. The POC Do Blade AVIP sunglasses, are perfect for giving added wind protection for your eyes, whilst their lenses are suitable for bright sunshine and dull days (Review of the POC Do Blade AVIP Glasses ). Then, the GripGrab Windster Gloves, Hammerhead Overshoes , HiVis HeadGlove and GripGrab Cycling Cap , are ideal for shielding your vulnerable extremit...

Last week, I posted my Fifteen Festive Stocking Fillers for Cyclists - 2015 ; it contains some great little products that I thought any rider would be delighted to receive. In this blog post, I've picked out ten more products from the past year of testing; they all retail for less than £50, some less than £10, but they are all great gifts. Hopefully they will provide some further gift ideas for the keen bike rider in your life. Pocpac Any-Road iPac 3X Phone Case I use a waterproof phone wallet almost every day of the week, and the ones from pOcpac are some of the best that I've trialled. This new 'Any-Road' case is an artistic extension to their great range of cases, which I reviewed on the blog a while back. It features a lovely design on the reverse of the case, as well as the standard pOcpac strong zip, well placed camera window and internal divider for cash/cards. The 3X version fits an iPhone 6 or a Samsung Galaxy. View the pOcpac range (Link) Se...

Tyres are a very personal choice. Some find certain brands work, whilst others wouldn't touch them with a long-handled pedal wrench. I've been using the Vittoria Open Pavé for almost six months now, and for me, it is one of the best tyres on the market for UK weather and road conditions, all year round. The Pavé was designed (as the name suggests) for the cobbles of Northern France and Belgium. Made to be grippier, more robust and more supple than other tyres; it was formed with the capability to deal with the onslaught of the Koppenberg and Roubaix. The Pavé fast became a favourite with Classics specialists, and its distinctive green sidewalls (it is now available in full black, too) shod many professionals' wheels again at the start of this year. So, why would a tyre designed for the cobbled sectors of The Classics, be any use on UK roads? The first reason I believe, is the surfaces we experience here. The roads of the UK, and perhaps more so the country lane...

2014 is fast fading into our memories, one thing that I will remember from it though, is the hours of fun on a bike - 815 hours (20,040 km) , in absolute terms. Of those hours, around half of them were on my commuting bike: a battered and beaten, but strangely beautiful (to me at least) steel Peugeot - equipped with a vintage 7 speed drivetrain and pannier rack. With so much time spent on that bike, I find myself constantly thinking about what the 'Ultimate Commuter Bike' would look like. Of course, you can commute on practically anything, from a single speed road bike to a fat bike (there are frequently both of these in the Wiggle bike shed); all you really need is two wheels to get you from A to B. Yet, there are always things that could be more comfortable, more practical and more 'fun'. I've tried most bikes for commuting: at university, I spent a year commuting 15 miles a day on a single speed steel mountain bike, a real old beater. When I had knackered t...

Sometimes you just find a piece of kit that works; it feels good, it feels great, it just feels right. On Sunday morning I spent an age trying to fit a set of 28c tyres into my SKS Chromoplastic mudguards on my steel touring/commuting bike. I've previously run 25c and 23c tyres on this bike, but I fancied a change... Why? Because it's spring, and with that comes the Spring Classics; cobbles, gravel and rough roads. Look at most of the bikes the Pro's use in the Spring Classics, and you'll spot 27c, 28c and even 30c tubular tyres are the norm; these help to give grip, comfort and keep things rubber side down on the cobbles of Northern France and Flanders. I'm not going cobble hunting, but I did fancy seeing what the difference was in terms of feel, grip and performance. My tyre of choice was the Vittoria Rubino Pro Tech 28C; I've reviewed the Vittoria Rubino on the blog ( Link ), and the Pro Tech version is the latest incarnation, which features a foldi...

BMC Racing, Team Blanco, FDJ, Omega Pharma, Orica-Greenedge, Argos Shimano, Sky: just some of the teams that were running 25mm tyres this year. 700c x 23mm is no longer the norm, pro teams are switching up to bigger profile rubber all over the peloton, with research showing that it can provide significant gains both in terms of aero-dynamics, grip and comfort. I’ve long been running 25mm tyres on my winter/touring bike as it helps to cushion the load better, provides a bit more grip, and is less susceptible to pinch flats when the bike is heavily burdened. However, for racing I have always used Conti GP4000S tyres with 23mm profiles, or at the most extreme I tried a 21mm Vittoria for a time trial once. That might no longer be the case... The thinking was that the smaller profile tyre has a lower surface area, so lower rolling resistance and also less weight (rotating weight as well, so even more significant). 25mm tyres were only to be used on particularly rough terrain an...

Wiggle Bike Shop: £10.99 When you come to replace a tyre, it is probably the best time to gauge whether it has been a "good tyre" or a "bad tyre". As you lever it off the rim, you are probably either thinking about how many miles the tyre has racked up or how few punctures it has had (a good tyre) OR you are thinking how on earth has that side-wall exploded like that? or why are so many nasty little flints getting through this expensive puncture protection strip (a bad tyre). Luckily, when I came to take the Vittoria Rubino Tyre off the rim of my winter/touring bike it was the former thoughts that were occupying my mind. This tyre, which comes in at an incredibly reasonable £10.99 has frankly been outstanding. I put the tyre on the bike back in August of 2011, before I set off on our fully loaded touring trip through France and Spain [ Tag Link ]; as you can see from the picture of my bike to the left, it wasn't exactly a light load to be borne by a 25...