Off-road riding

At some point of owning a bike, you're going to end up with an odd creak or squeak. But if you look after your bike properly, that should be the exception rather than the rule. Here are a few things to check regularly that'll help keep your bike working as well as possible. Check chain wear regularly One of the most important checks to keep your bike is working smoothly is to monitor chain wear. A worn chain doesn't just affect shifting, it'll also cause your chainrings, cassette and jockey wheels to wear quickly, too, so making sure that your chain is in good condition is doing your whole drivetrain a favour.  A chain checker - like Park Tool's new CC-4 - is a simple way to see how worn your chain is. You just drop the tool into the chain, maintain pressure on the right hand end, and see how far the left tip drops. Park Tool have, as ever, made an excellent video showing you how to use it:

Working on your bike at home can seem like a minefield. Luckily the guys from Park Tool are here to help...

When Shimano released its 12-speed mountain bike groupsets, there were a whole host of improvements over the previous generation, and one more sprocket on the cassette. But one of the most important changes – and one that you need to know about if you want to go 12-speed – is the Microspline freehub body. A freehub body is the part of the rear wheel on which you mount the cassette, and it’s covered in splines which allow the cassette to fit on but mean when you pedal and the chain turns the cassette, the rear wheel moves as well rather than the cassette just spinning in place. But the thing is, not all cassette fit on all freehub bodies. If you’re running an 11-speed or older Shimano drivetrain, you’ll almost certainly be using an HG (Hyperglide) cassette and corresponding freehub body. That’s the standard Shimano has been using for years now, and one that’s ubiquitous across their road and MTB drivetrains. The difference between an HG and a Microspline freehub body

There are so many good products around now, but here are a few of the things we enjoyed riding/using most in 2020. 

Two ex-pro roadies - Adam Blythe and Johnny McEvoy - and Adam's mate Niall loaded up the panniers on Niall's bike and went off for a day of exploration. This is what happened. 

When you think about looking after your bike, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking that the best way to do it is to buy new stuff. Buying new kit is great, and undoubtedly fun, but in reality the number one thing when it comes to bikes is proper, consistent maintenance. You know the old cliché ‘look after X and it’ll look after you’? That applies to bikes as much as anything. With enough care and attention, there’s no reason you can’t still be riding your current bike for years to come, and any upgrades will come from choice rather than necessity. So, for Christmas, why not treat your bike to a full inspection? Take the time to check some of those things that maybe you’ve neglected for most of the year and get your ride ready to roll for 2021.

In case you didn't know, bike build videos are a thing now. Here's the premise: someone builds a high-end bike, someone else films it and the whole thing is overdubbed with soothing background music that's low enough so you can hear all the sounds of the bike being built. It's exactly as it sounds - weirdly soothing and satisfying in a sort of ASMR-y kind of way. It seems like it shouldn't work but it really does - proving once again that the best ideas genuinely are the simplest.  Earlier this year bike build video supremo Gee Milner filmed a very special Saracen Ariel LTX being built for Danny Hart, and the result was, well, watch the video below and see for yourselves. 

Have you ever wanted a shoe that provides the same feel and power transfer as a road shoe, but is a little more versatile if you want or need to get off the bike? That shoe is the RX8, Shimano’s first gravel racing shoe and, quite possibly, one shoe that can do everything. If you’re totally wedded to three-bolt cleats, then you wont be able to ride the RX8 with SPD-SL road pedals, but if you’re open to some SPD action – or just like the idea of a road ride with the possibility of getting lost and needing to walk a little – then the RX8s wont let you down on that Sunday morning club ride. Sure, they’re not quite as stiff as the road-specific S-PHyre RC902 but chances are that the majority of us wouldn’t be able to tell the difference as we, frankly, just don’t have enough watts in our legs for it to matter.

You probably know Vittoria as the makers of probably the finest road tyres on the planet, and some pretty great off-road tyres too. But they also make a whole host of helpful wheel-and-tyre-related accessories. Here's a look at some of the things they make that you may not know about...

It's November, light is an issue. Make sure you dont get caught out now that the evenings close in early by kitting yourself out properly

Winter is the most demanding season on your bike. The weather brings all manner of dirt and grime with it, and the pervading wetness that characterises the UK in autumn and winter means stuff sticks to your ride until you wash it off. That means if you want to keep your bike working as well as it can during the darker months, you're going to need to put a little effort in. It's nothing major, but bad habits like throwing a wet bike straight into the garage will begin to take their toll as the weeks pass. We've put together a short guide with a few things you need to think about if you want to keep your bike working as well as it can through to spring.

Building a bike tool kit is fun. In fact, it’s a bit more than fun; it’s kind of addictive. It’s basically a constant search for tools that do what they do better than the version you currently have, even if that means buying 18 different chain tools and spending one fun afternoon exhaustive comparing and contrasting them. Just us? Oh. Anyway, to get on the never-ending carousel of tool ownership, you need to start somewhere. The easiest way to start is by buying a basic tool kit, since buying tools individually when you’re starting from scratch is both expensive and time-consuming. That way you can get all the basic tools you need – and probably a nice box to store them in too – with minimal effort. Then the fun of getting all those extra tools you need (or want but don’t really need) can begin.

We know it’s not what anyone wants to hear, but we’re in October now and those 20-degree sunny days are definitely behind us, which means it’s time to start thinking about riding in cooler (and probably wetter) weather. But don’t unpack the turbo just yet, as there are plenty of clothing options that mean you can stay riding outside when the weather drops off, and even keep regularly riding outdoors all Autumn and Winter if that takes your fancy. Here are a few things to think about (and a few choice pieces to try out) if you'd like to stay riding outside for as long as possible. 

If there’s one skill that it’s fundamental to master as a cyclist, it’s the ability to fix a puncture. That’s because, just like death and taxes, punctures are one of life’s inevitabilities when you ride bikes. You might go for months without one, maybe even years, but eventually misfortune will catch up with you and you’ll get a puncture. Just hope that when you do it’s not in terrible weather… Anyway, being able to fix a puncture is one of those skills that makes you self-sufficient when you ride, and stops your friends and relatives from not picking up the phone when you call because they think you’re asking for a life home. Again. A few years ago, explaining how to fix a puncture was a far simpler task than now because almost everybody ran tyres with inner tubes, and getting going again was a matter of either patching or replacing said tube before riding off into the sunset. But now that tubeless is a thing, there’s

When Shimano debuted their Digital Integrated Intelligence (Di2) system back in 2009 it really changed the game in terms of shifting on a bike. It also started a great debate like all new things in cycling - disc brakes on road bikes, anyone - because there’s nothing cyclists of all varieties like more than to have an argument about whether something is better than something else.  Still, over a decade later and almost all high end road bikes come equipped with some form of electronic shifting, so it’s fair to say that it caught on.  But if you’re new to Di2 - or curious as to how it works - we’ve put together a guide on a few of the things you need to know to get the most out of your Di2 groupset. 

Want somewhere new to ride? We asked some of our ambassadors about their favourite places to ride in the UK. This is what they had to say. 

As announcements go, this one has us at Freewheel pretty excited: Vittoria tyres are now available on the site. Vittoria make some of the very finest tyres in the world with huge wins to their name in races like the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana, Paris-Roubaix and Milano-Sanremo to name just a few. They’ve also hoovered up over 80 Olympic medals across multiple disciplines so it’s fair to say that they know a thing or two about making top level tyres. Based in the beautiful Bergamo region of Italy, Vittoria produces over 7 million tyres every year and since in 2015 introduced Graphane technology into their tyres, becoming the first brand to break that ground. At the top of the road range sits the Corsa, a road tyre with no equal that you can see right now on the roads of France at Le Tour and they’ve already picked up a win this year under Alexander Kristoff of UAE Emirates on the very first stage. If that’s not enough, four other teams are using

We’re very lucky in the UK as there are still loads of amazing local bike shops all over the country. These are places where you don’t just go to buy things, you go there to feel part of the cycling community as a whole. Even in a world where the internet has made buying bike parts easier than ever, local bike shops are still the heart of the cycling world and offer so much more than a online shop ever could - you can’t get your bike serviced by a website, after all (or get coffee and cake while it’s being done…) But as we all know, it’s not easy to run a bricks and mortar shop of any kind these days and COVID hasn’t made that any easier, so Local Bike Shop Day is about celebrating independent bike shops all over the country and enjoying what makes cycling so great.  This year Local Bike Shop Day is Saturday September 5th, and all you have to do to take part is head to your local bike shop. If you want to take some

We're all a bit guilty of looking in the same places every time we go shopping. We know what we like and we like what we know, which  makes a sometimes difficult process that little bit easier. But every now and then it's fun to have a look around and find something new, and here we have four really cool, offbeat brands available on Freewheel that you might be interested in. Each a little different in their own way, Urban Iki, Dynaplug, Outdoor Tech and SP Connect are all well worth a few minutes of your time. Check them out below. 

Cycle to Work day is the UK’s biggest cycle commuting event. It’s pretty well summed up by its title; one day where instead of your usual commute you do it by bike instead (or if you already do it by bike, then you carry on as normal).  It’s not a day just for super keen roadies, or hardcore mountain bikers or anything like that. It’s a day for normal people to get on a bike and ride, even if you haven’t ridden in years and feel like you wouldn’t know where to start.  So whatever journey you’re planning for August 6, 2020, plan to do it by bike. It doesn’t just have to be riding to work, either, it could be a trip to the shops, a ride after work for the fun of it or  even just your daily few minutes of exercise, basically anything that you’d usually do without a bike, just add a bike into those plans. 

Look after your bike and your bike will look after you

If you fancy a holiday that combines camping, a bit of adventure and bikes, then bikepacking might be exactly what you're looking for. It doesn't have to combine all those things, of course (although bikes are a bit of an essential) because bikepacking can take whatever shape you want it to. Either way, if you're thinking of going all in for a bikepacking hoilday, here are a few things you'll need to think about. 

Usually in cycling when something big changes it costs you a lot of money to be an early adopter. That’s just how things work. In fact it’s not just cycling. You want the latest iPhone? That’ll be cash money, please. How about the new Playstation? You better have deep pockets.  But that isn’t always the case. Relatively speaking, 12-speed is a pretty new thing but Shimano have already trickled it down all the way to their Deore groupset meaning if you want to go 12-speed we’re talking a few hundred pounds rather than over a grand and even less if you just upgrade the shifting without buying new brakes, too. 

Upgrading your bike isn't always about spending loads of money or giving it a full overhaul. There are plenty of ways to improve your bike or make the ride feel better and it can start from something as seemingly simple as a new set of bar tape or replacing worn shift cables.  While it's tempting and exciting to buy a whole new groupset or a fancy set of carbon wheels, you need to think about what parts of your bike  - if any - actually need upgrading and where your money would be best spent. There are definitely some areas that make a bigger difference than others and the law of diminishing returns comes into play pretty quickly when your talking about larger amounts of money.  This is our guide to a few things you might like to think about when it comes to upgrading your ride, and a few suggestions of where it might be best to start. 

Hydraulic brakes are excellent for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that since they're a closed system they need very little maintenance. But like everything, eventually they're going to need a tweak or two and the main bit of maintenance hydraulic brakes need is a re-bleed.  Bleeding brakes essentially means flushing the hydraulic system to try and remove any air that's trapped. Any air trapped will cause the levers to feel spongey and means that your brakes wont be as powerful and reactive as you want or need them to be. Bleeding isn't a difficult thing to do, but it can be a hard skill to master so here Park Tool's Calvin Jones shows to you how to bleed Shimano hydraulic brakes for both flat and drop bar bikes.