Robert Thorpe Cycling Blogs

EDITOR IN CHIEFROBERT
THORPE

Words on Paper

Blogs and Reviews by Robert Thorpe

It’s always fascinating how cycling is constantly evolving, and how we as cyclists interact with the cycling industry. In truth, we’re not just one, but several linked sub-cultures. Cyclists take their riding quite seriously – even if we won’t admit it! With this in mind, I thought that it would be kind of interesting to share a few editorial thoughts, across a range of cycling related subjects. Off you go then, and have a read – and thanks! Your support for our website is really and genuinely appreciated, by all of us.

Elite Bottle Cages

There are some key areas that we all need to focus on when buying new bottle cages: Lightness & Performance, Great Grip and Access, and finally, Fitting & Aesthetic. In order to get the highest possible results in each of these areas, Elite put their considerable knowledge and expertise to good use, resulting in cages that the top riders in the world rely on.
May 15, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Tour des Combins

Take on this classic bike packing tour in the Alps. If you're after a real adventure, then this could be for you. There's some bike hike along the way, but the rewards are epic. Either a hardtail MTB or a Gravel Bike is the ideal way to travel this route at speed.
May 9, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Renew Not Replace – Bike Love

I’m going to take you down memory lane; to that time when you stood outside of the bike shop on the way to school and you looked at the shiny new bike, with your nose pressed to the window. I was reminded of this a few years ago at Velo Follies in Flanders, looking at a youngster eyeing up the new bike helmets on show. The truth is that we’re all kids at heart, and whatever the technical data or artistic sales description, the colour and look of the bike is still one of the key factors.
April 29, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Benefits of Indoor Cycling

We’re into month 4 of our Elite indoor training project and it’s the perfect time to examine the initial benefits and how it all fits in to the reasoning behind using an indoor trainer.

Let’s get this out of the way early then: indoor cycle training is not about avoiding cycling outdoors - quite the opposite. I’m happy to evidence this viewpoint for you.
April 10, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elterwater Independent Hostel

We want to help you to get back to what riding is all about -adventure. In the first of a new series of blogs, we're visiting Elterwater Independent Hostel in the English Lake District, to show you some amazing mountain bike routes from the door.
April 2, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Jet Water Bottle

Looking across the water bottle range at Elite, we previously wrote about their award winning super lite Fly water bottle. This time we’re going to be telling you all about their Jet bottle, which takes a few of the advancements from the Fly and puts it into a more robust biodegrable bottle that’s suited for tougher riding environments.
March 12, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

ALÉ Summit Jersey

ALÉ have produced a quite simple but effective springwear jersey that also has its uses on those warmer days towards the end of winter, and on those colder summer days.
March 10, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Bike TransAlp 2021

During the Covid pandemic, sales of bikes have risen exponentially, with more and more people seeking the freedom and adventure that cycling brings. Riding our bikes takes us back to days of childhood, gives us the opportunity to explore new challenges and new places. And, if you’re looking for real adventure in spectacular surroundings in the future, then there’s only 1 Trans Alp race.
March 9, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

ALÉ Bullet DWR Jersey

If you’re looking for the ideal winter jersey, that also comes in useful in late autumn and early spring, then this is definitely the jersey for you. In a short space of time, it’s become one of the jerseys that I instinctively go for as a favourite.
March 4, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Fly Water Bottles

Elite Cycling from Italy don’t just make great indoor cycle trainers. They also make the most technologically researched water bottles for cyclists. We thought that we’d take a look at this critical item of cycling kit.
February 7, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Art From Bike Parts

What do you do with old bikes and old bike parts? Keith fromthe north of England uses them to create awesome pieces of art, personalised for his growing customers. We loved his work so much, that we thought you'd love it too. Take a look at what can be achieved in an environmentally way to recycle metal.
February 6, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elastic Interface Ladies Chamois Pad

Did you know that women have a greater spectrum of bottom shapes and structures than men, it’s true. Elastic Interface have researched this, partnering with the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Padua, Italy. After developing their First Ladies specific pads, Elastic Interface listened to the feedback and wanted to improve things, and so looked towards the scientists in order to better understand female cyclists bottoms.
January 16, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Indoor Cycling – Not Hibernating

Indoor cycling isn't about hibernation. Instead, it's all about developing your performance to be better equipped to tackle those hills outside, bringing you more smiles when the snow and ice thaws. Elite provide the very products and apps to help you to make the most of indoor cycling.
January 14, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Suito Interactive Trainer Introduction

The Elite Suito Smart Trainer is described as an “out of the box” solution, and it really is. For all the technology and science that has clearly gone into developing this high performance indoor cycling trainer, it’s simply itself in setting up. When the parcels arrived from Italy, I was eager to get started, making room for the myriad of trainers and accessories and planning the cycle area in the bike store.
January 7, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Indoor Cycling Trainers

Indoor cycle trainers should help you to improve your enjoyment of cycling outdoors. Here's our initial thoughts on the latest indoor trainers from Italy in Italy.
January 3, 2021/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Real World Video

Wouldn't it be good to be able to bring the outdoors indoors - not like Zwift, good as it is, but to be able to ride interactively to real world video. Welcome to Elite Real World Video, where there's a great selection of routes already uploaded, plus the ability to film your own interactive rides too.
December 14, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Elastic Interface Palm Technology

You’ve got to hand it to Elastic Interface, literally - you really have to. This dynamic and forward thinking Italian technological fabric solution brand have done it again. I mean, how do you reinvent a cycling glove? After all, it’s just a glove isn’t it; with bits of fabric stitched together in the shape of a hand and then pads sewn into the fabric. Well, as the saying goes: ‘the past is another country - they do things differently there!’
December 8, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Taking a break from training

It’s lockdown again, although due to circumstances I didn’t really leave it earlier. With a wife working at the hospital, elderly parents-in-law and kids at university I had to stay safe, to semi-isolate. Thankfully I’m a solitary person, but at times it’s been demotivating. I need to refocus and the rollers are an excellent way to achieve this.
November 17, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Elite Indoor Cycle Training

I like a challenge - I’m still a competitor at heart. But the distance involved in travelling to practice and, the onset of colder weather means my training has to be adapted. Yes, I can go out into the smaller hills in my local National Park, the Dales. They’re truly beautiful, but the winter is coming. Yesterday we had snow! My wife’s parents sent a picture of it.

Yes, I’ll be back onto the rollers again I guess, spinning away and wiping away the sweat, as I try to retain my legs in readiness for spring or a crisp winter day. It won’t give me the strength though, just the stamina, which as a former distance athlete God or my parents already gave me.
October 28, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Voom Nutrition Bars

During the spring and summer of 2020 I’ve been using and testing the Voom Nutrition energy bars and their super tasty “Recovery Fudge” protein bar. Best of all, they’re more than a replacement for the Mars Bars and I’ve seen my power levels maintained on both long rides and shorter but harder rides. How can they benefit your own cycling?
September 22, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Pirelli PZero Race TLR 28

Pirelli returned to road cycling just a few ago, going back to their heritage and using their knowledge and skills developed in a formula 1 to great effect. Now sponsoring UCI World teams at both road and mtb disciplines, their latest tyre ranges take things to a whole new level, like the new 28mm TLR road tyre.
September 11, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Factor Bikes Harrogate

Factor Bikes are all about performance and technolological excellence.This young cycling brand aim high and achieve their goals, so it's no surprise that they've opened a showroom in Harrogate - the cycling centre of the UK. And, The 'Cold Bath Clubhouse' is already establishing itself as the bike place to be in town - with great coffee too!
September 2, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Voom Nutrition for Cyclists

VOOM is a young and vibrant brand from the U.K. and it’s one that has its base firmly in endurance sports, with triathlon, fell running and cycling being sports that the brands key people participate in at a high level. There’s also some good science behind what they do, with their own scientist within the brand team. All sounds good so far then.
August 10, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Jubilee Tower Lancaster Cycle Route

A classic Lancashire road cycling route that works you into the hills and up to Jubilee Tower, before descending for tea and cake

London Fixed Gear

I’d better open up by saying that I wasn’t on a drug crazed trip in our capital city. No, I’d simply gone down to London to spend time with our son, a photographic artist who lives in the south of the city. Yes, a man after my own heart, whose apartment is filled with bikes and bike parts, all fixed gear machines, including a folding one! He has other bikes... numerous at the family home, but London is for riding real - and that means fixed gear.
August 1, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Bowland Badass Cycling Route

The Bowland Badass, whilst starting in the quiet village of Garstang, is an epic 167 mile road cycling route in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with a series of epic and tough climbs. It was run as a sportive, and we've included the route here, so that you can ride it yourself at any time, either in a one day adventure, or as a cycle tour over a weekend.
July 1, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

London to Telegraph Hill

Telegraph Hill in London is a secret viewpoint with one of the very best views over the city. Take a cycle ride from Central London, along the Southbank to this amazing small park.
June 23, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Morning Ride

It’s time to ride. The air outside is cool and a slight dampness hangs as the sun is still warming the earth. Fixing the bottles into the cages, I clip the pedals and place the gloved palms of my hands onto the bars.
June 21, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Ditchling Beacon

It is possible to find country lane road cycling routes in Sussex and London. The classic Ditchling Beacon road cycling climb is an example, cycling from Balcombe to Brighton.
June 19, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

3T Super Ergo Team Comfort Handlebars

3T make excellent cycles and finishing kit; oh, and great wheels too. For the past year we’ve been testing their Superergo Team bars on our bike build series road bike here at Pedalnorth and they’ve been spot on in all aspects.
June 5, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Post Covid Cycling

Where will cycling be at the end of the current covid crises? It’s an interesting question, based on people wanting to be healthier in their lives
May 23, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Alé Nordik Winter Bibtights

Alé Nordik Winter Bib Tights Ooze quality. They’re one of the best cycling bib tights that you can buy. Time to find out why then...
February 15, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Hardtail Heaven

Yes, trails and hills are beginning to look like a retro wonderland as the good old hardtail is back in fashion. You can now drink alongside Homer Simpson with pride as you discuss the merits of a loose and bouncy backend
February 13, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Alé Colour block winter jersey

Simplicity can be stylish and beautiful. Alé from the Italian city of Verona understand this; it’s in their dna and their new winter Colour Block thermal jersey is testament to their dedication
February 11, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Trek Pirelli MTB Team

Pirelli is all geared up to backing Marco Trentin’s prestigious mountain bike team once again, with the announcement of an even greater commitment.
January 8, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Build Your Road Bike 5

Time to finish off the perfect bike build and get ready to ride the Bianchi. Setting up the bike and taping the bars
January 2, 2020/by Pedalnorth Website

Build Your Road Bike 4

Fitting hydraulic brake systems is no easy task. We guide you through the process on our build
December 27, 2019/by Pedalnorth Website

26 mtb wheel

Let’s take a look at wheel sizes and try to convince you to let common sense and your riding style take over, by simply choosing the wheel that suits you and not the one that marketing wants you to ride. 
December 24, 2019/by Pedalnorth Website
Larisa Chinces riding Bianchi at Brimham Rock Road

Cycling Nidderdale

Ssh…don’t tell anyone about this place. It’s a real gem and a secret cycling centre of excellence – Nidderdale. With the long and winding ascent – or descent – of Greenhow Hill, coupled with Lofthouse Bank, it has climbs to match anywhere
December 13, 2019/by Pedalnorth Website

Bike Box Alan

They keep things plain and simple in Yorkshire; nowt is wasted, including unnecessary words or titles. It’s a bike box and guess what ... it’s made by Alan.
December 7, 2019/by Pedalnorth Website

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