Rugby Stars choose their new bikes from Cycles UK Greenwich

England rugby Star Tom Rees and his Wasps teammate Joe Simpson visited our new store in Greenwich on Thursday 14^th May.

Wasps Rugby club are using a number of measures, including the Cycle to Work scheme, to promote cycling among their team and staff. They have recognised that cycling is not only a great way to keep fit but also a great way to reduce the clubs carbon footprint.

Both Tom and Joe chose Marin Urban bikes which are specifically designed to withstand the stresses and strains of city commuting. Tom Rees said that “living close to the training ground is a great incentive for me to leave the car at home and get on my bike every day’’. He added that “Training and playing rugby at Premiership and International level can take its toll on the body. Being able to warm up and cool down on my bike before and after each training session will be a great way to help me stay fit and mentally focussed’’

Wasps and England 7s Scrum-Half Joe Simpson shares his team mate’s thoughts and is also looking forward to introducing cycling into his daily routine.‘’Fighting through the traffic in my car everyday to get to training does become a little tiring to be honest’’ he said ‘’Being able to hop on my bike and to arrive at training refreshed and ready to go is a huge bonus for me. It’s a lot greener too’’

As with any piece of sporting equipment, fitting is of paramount importance when choosing a bike. We put both Tom and Joe through the Specialized Body Geometry Fitting process examining their physiology and measuring how they sit on the bike so that we could help them choose the correct cycle and then adjust it so that it fits perfectly.

The Marin bikes were personally fitted to each of the two players by the Cycles UK Greenwich shop manager, Brent Smith.‘’Making sure that the bike fits perfectly is an important part of ensuring trouble free ownership and a pleasant riding experience’’ says Brent ‘’As professional sportsmen, Tom and Joe are looking to ensure they stay as healthy and as injury free as possible. Making sure their bike fits them correctly is an essential part of this and we strongly recommend it to all our customers’’.

Bike Belles Review our Shop

We are very pleased to have received a positive review from the Bike Belles website for our new store in Greenwich.

As a company we have recognised that there are increasing numbers of female cyclists and would be cyclists but that male dominated bike shops are not always very female friendly. In an attempt to try and overcome this in our stores we have consulted female cyclists and non-cyclists about what they would like to see. One of the measures we have introduced at our new Greenwich shop, along with our stores at Norwich and Basildon, is a large dedicated women's cycling area with ladies bikes, clothing, and accessories all grouped to together.

Bike Belles has been set up by Sustrans who are responsbile for the award-winning National Cycle Network, and for community based projects working with kids, schools, people at home and at work, and with entire streets helping regular people like you to walk, cycle and use public transport more.

Their aim with Bike Belles is to overcome so fairly stark statistics. That men are three times as likely to cycle as women. And three quarters of women never ride a bike at all. Their mission is to change this by “making it easier for women to get in the saddle or get back into the bike habit so we too can enjoy all the benefits that travelling actively brings”.

LCC Discount

The opening weekend went very well and we are looking forward to a very busy bank holiday weekend. Bikemagic and RoadCyclingUK readers in the area should have received a discount voucher on email and there is a discount voucher in the new edition of the Meridian Magazine.

We are going to be offering a 12.5% discount to LCC cardholders for the first year*. We will be advertising this in the next LCC magazine but the offer is valid now so feel free to use it.

*not valid on items which are already discounted or in conjunction with any other offers

Opening Offers

We are officially opening for business at 9am tomorrow (Saturday 4th April) and we are going to have a range of special offers over the weekend.

These include

A selection of 2008 Specialized and Marin bikes at Half Price

Up To 40% OFF Selected Mongoose BMX Bikes

Specialized Centrum Sport £349.99 - only £249.99 - save £100

GT Avalanche 1.0 Disc £499 - £399.99 - Save £100

10% OFF all other bikes

20% OFF ALL Accessories & Clothing

These offers are valid for the weekend of 4th-5th April 2009 only.

Open Evening

The shop is now pretty much ready and we had our open evening last night ahead of our official opening on Saturday. We had a pretty good turnout with local cycling groups from Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark among those in attendance.

The feedback on the store was generally very positive with our dedicated women's cycling area receiving particular praise from a number of female cyclists. Several people asked for more road bikes and less mountain bikes which is something we are going to be looking at over the next week or two.

Below are some images taken at the preview evening last night by our newly appointed in house photographer Jack.

Opening Hours

The votes we have received on the blog, and the surveys completed at the store, were showing a split between early and late opening hours with the late option (10am to 7pm) leading by a majority of around 5-10%. A late surge though has seen the 10am to 7pm option establish a clear majority with nearly 50% of the combined online and offline votes.

As there was still a substantial vote for the early opening hours we are going to open from 9am to 7pm for the first couple of weeks. If we get the demand we will try and add a couple of early mornings/extra late evening opening days as well.

For the opening weekend the hours will be 9am to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 4pm on Sunday.

Tacx Trainer Installed

The guys from Fisher Outdoor were down earlier in the week to install our Tacx trainer setup.

This is a very cool piece of technology which allows you to link your bike up to your PC and virtually ride classic race stages from around the world, or race your friends on the other side of the world without leaving your front room.

When we can drag our staff off it we will be using the setup both to demonstrate the Tacx technology and to help less experienced cyclists get to grips with their gears and SPD pedals and the like before we let them loose on the road.

As well as the Tacx trainers, and their usual range of Sram, Avid and Rockshox products, Fishers are supplying their colourful new range of Basil bags (picture above) as well as a small selection from their new bspoke range. This is a collaboration with Transport for London to design a range of clothing and accessories for urban commuters. We already have their light range in stock as well as a few sample pieces of clothing. We will bring in more of the range later in the spring as we get feedback from customers on what they do and don't like.