Follwoing on from the post about winter we have a review of a Tacx indoor training from a customer who bought one last season to train. I purchased the Tacx Satori smart trainer last winter as a way to get some kilometres in during the cold wet winter months. As a first time buyer I wanted to keep the price at a reasonable level. The Satori Smart arrived, hassle free and quick as usual from Michael, I had it unboxed and set up within 10 minutes with the bike attached. I downloaded the app to my smartphone to calibrate the...

Winter is here and for many (often myself) this means that the cycling season is over. I feel I have a little bit of an excuse as where I live there is snow on the ground for most of the winter, but really, it is no excuse. There are many thing you can get to make sure that winter cycling is doable, safe and even enjoyable. So, first thing you can do, and my prefered option, is to get an indoor trainer set up for the winter. This often requires both a reasonable investment in a trainer and space to...

Cameras and biking are become something that goes well together. People love taking photos of their bikes, of themselves or friends with their bikes or just the scenery seen from their bikes. This can be seen on Instagram with the over 19 million photos tagged as #cycling https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/cycling/ As well as the tradition photos takes with camera there is an increasing number of action sports cameras to record the many cool activities you can do on your bike (or for the more normal of us, record the little adventure we have that seemed cool to us but boring to...

Helmets! There are so many different opinions about helmets and just to be clear, this is just my own. This last year I saw many threads relating to helmets and their requirement. This was mostly fueled by friends back in Australia where the helmet is a requirement, and mostly by those who wish to see that requirement abolished. There were a lot of research papers and also a lot of people holding up just how well some northern European countries do with their cycle friendly cities and no helmets. Myself (and my family) we have many helmets for cycling. I...

As part of our Scandinavian trip we went to Denmark as well, more specifically we went to the island of Langeland. For those that have read the Sweden post I wont bore you too much with the details again about the bike trailers and cycling with kids, I would recommend that you instead look in the archives and read about our cycling in Sweden also. The cycling in Denmark is very varied. In the cities there are a lot of dedicated cycling infrastructure, large bike parks, separate bike lanes and paths and well marks trails and routes to follow. Out...

This year for our family holiday we decided to take the bikes and head up to sweden to go relaxing time in the countryside and do some cycling while we were there. With two young children (2 years old and 6 months old) we use two bike trailers, one for each child. While both trailers can hold two children, our youngest can not yet sit up and so she needs her own that she can have her car seat in it. Thankfully the Nordic Cab Explorer allows us to put her maxi cosi into it and so she...

This year I decided I would push myself and step up from the half Ironman distance and go the the full ironman (why do I do this to myself) Training started a full 6 months before the race. I got myself a training plan to follow that I felt I understood and could follow and got the wife to sign off on training so much. This was the hardest part as we had a 1 year old and our second was due during the training plan. http://www.220triathlon.com/downloads/6monthIronmanTrainingPlan.pdf At the start it was all go. Get my session in, do...

St-Cergue is a great little town in the Jura above Nyon and is perfectly located for many outdoor activities during the winter and the summer. With winter now over it is time to start cycling again and there are many trails and great roads to cycle on in the Jura around St-Cergue. One trail which I do enjoy to ride is the Old Roman Road down from St-Cergue to Nyon. View Larger Map This trail follows the Old Roman road and crosses the main road at a few places. There are still many...

Recently I had the pleasure of purchasing a Tacx i-Vortex to keep me going through the cold winters here in Switzerland. Below are a few observations and comments on the trainer. Firstly, it is a very simple kit to set up. We have 2 bikes of different sizes that are easily interchangeable. You just snap one bike out and set the new one in place. The control panel is also easy to move from one bike to the other with the multi width straps allowing it to fit any bike handlebar. TTS4 - The software is came with. To get...