Upgrade Your Bike Archive
Pinarello holds a strange place in British consumer’s hearts, it’s one of the best-known classic Italian manufacturers with an exotic name producing exclusive, innovative bikes that stand out from every other brand on account of their Asymmetric tube construction. Pinarello back up their curved tubes with various scientific research findings, but when you’re sponsoring a cycling team who’ve won two out of the last three …
PONIES are expensive, which is why I’m secretly jumping for joy that my nine-year-old daughter is taking an interest in cycling. You can buy a child’s mountain bike for the same price as a pair of leather riding boots, and bikes don’t need stables, feeding or vets. A squirt of GT-85 lube, a puncture repair kit and an annual service is your lot.
For beginners and pros alike, the most important decision to make is what bike to buy. Although there are “hybrid” bikes that claim to be able to handle limited off-road use as well as remaining comfortable on tarmac roads, a genuine mountain bike is required for anyone who is serious about doing more than occasionally riding on the verge.
The last time I bought a bicycle it cost £30. It was sold to me by a fellow student, and I ended up getting a boyfriend into the bargain. They both turned out to be a liability: unreliable, high maintenance and hard to handle. I upgraded to a better one shortly afterwards – boyfriend, that is. Now it’s time to get a better bicycle.
Cyclists lie to one another. They say they haven’t been training when they have. And if they can be forced to admit to a bit of riding, it’s never more than a few miles and, by the way, it hurt so much they had to stop to catch their breath. Practically chucked, in fact. And so it is with “les Ecrins”, the name given to …
