Road cycling

.blog-post-view .post-top-view { display: none; } Freewheel Backs Alba and Smurfit Westrock in the 2025 Lloyds Tour of Britain WomenAt Freewheel, we believe in supporting the next generation of talent, championing grassroots development, and helping ambitious riders make their mark on the professional scene. That’s why we’re proud to continue our support of two dynamic squads competing in this year’s Lloyds Tour of Britain Women: Alba Development Road Team and Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team.Alba Development Road Team: A Scottish Force on Home Roads Making their second appearance at the UK’s premier women’s stage race, Alba Development Road Team are set to deliver an inspiring performance—particularly during the two Scottish stages, where they’ll race on home soil and enjoy strong local support. The 2025 roster is one to watch. Double Olympic medallist Neah Evans, who first got on a bike in Glasgow, returns to the team bringing invaluable experience. Joining her are exciting new signings: Eluned King, a former CiCLE Classic champion, and

How to Clean a Bike Chain: A Step-by-Step Guide for a Smoother RideIf your bike isn’t shifting smoothly, sounds gritty, or just feels sluggish, your chain is likely crying out for a clean. A dirty chain wears out faster, affects your drivetrain, and saps energy from every pedal stroke. Let’s walk through exactly how to clean your bike chain at home—plus we recommend some top tools and products to make the job easier and more effective. And of course, you can always pop in to your local bike store for help and advice on cleaning your bike chain. Why Cleaning Your Chain MattersYour bike chain goes through a lot. It picks up road grime, mud, dust, and debris - especially if you ride in wet or off-road conditions. Letting that build-up sit leads to: Increased wear on your drivetrain Rust or corrosion Poor shifting and power transfer Shortened chain life Cleaning your chain regularly (every 100-150 miles for road bikes or after muddy rides for MTBs) helps keep your bike running smoothly

Can You Add a Bike Basket to Any Bike? Here’s What You Need to KnowAdding a bike basket is one of the easiest ways to make your bike more practical for everyday. Whether you're picking up shopping, commuting with a backpack, or just want a place to stash your coffee and keys, a well-fitted basket can make your ride much more convenient. And although fitting bike racks is a relatively easy task, we always recommend you pop in to your local bike shop who’ll be happy to help! If your bike didn’t come with one, you might ask: Can I add a bike basket to my bike? The answer is usually yes - but there are a few things to consider first.Which Type of Bike Basket is Right for You?Front Baskets Front-mounted baskets attach to the handlebars or the fork. These are great for smaller items and are easy to access while you’re riding. Some clip on and off; others are permanently fixed. Rear Baskets These mount on a rear rack, giving more room and stability - perfect for heavier loads. If your bike

Which Size Bike Inner Tube Do I Need? body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0; padding: 20px; background: #f9f9f9; color: #333; } h1, h2, h3 { color: #2a2a2a; } img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; margin: 10px 0; } a { color: #0073e6; text-decoration: none; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } .product { background: #fff; padding: 15px; margin: 20px 0; border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 0 2px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.05); } Which Size Bike Inner Tube Do I Need? Whether you’ve got a flat or you’re simply preparing for the inevitable, choosing the right bike inner tube is essential for a smooth and safe ride. But with so many sizes and valve types, it can be a little confusing if you’re not sure what to look for. This guide will walk you through how to check your current tyre, choose the correct valve, and help you find quality options — from affordable Nutrak tubes to premium performance by Vittoria — all available at Freewheel.co.uk. Step 1: How to Find Your Tyre Size The easiest way to determine the correct size inner tube is to check the sidewall of your bicycle tyre. You’ll see a number combination such as 700x25c, 26x1.95, 27.5x2.1, or 29x2.3. These numbers tell you two things: the first is the diameter of your wheel, the second is the width of your tyre. For example, if your tyre says 26x1.95, you’ll need an inner tube made for 26-inch wheels and tyre widths

Homegrown Quality: Get to Know Freewheel’s Own BrandsAlongside some of the biggest names in the cycling world, we proudly design and develop our own portfolio of in-house brands. Spanning everything from powerhouse P&A labels like Aztek, Nutrak, and Truflo, to technical apparel specialists Madison Clothing and Hump, and iconic bike brands including Ridgeback and Genesis—our proprietary offering has been built over decades with one clear focus: delivering high-quality, great-value products that riders can trust.One of our most established brands is Ridgeback. With a heritage stretching back over 30 years, Ridgeback has produced bikes trusted for round-the-world adventures as well as reliable daily rides and a range of award-winning e-bikes - perfect for everything from cross-continent touring to popping to the shop for a pint of milk.Genesis Bikes was born from Ridgeback’s more adventurous DNA. Built for riders who crave versatility, Genesis bikes are engineered to perform both

Born from the Streets: Kryptonite’s Diamond Standard U-Lock - The Ultimate Bike SecurityCycling through the city offers unparalleled freedom, but it also comes with the unfortunate reality of bike theft. For years, Kryptonite has been the trusted name in bike security, providing reliable protection for cyclists worldwide. Among their legendary New York Series U-Locks, the Diamond Standard stands out as the pinnacle of security and durability. Whether you're navigating the streets of New York or any urban landscape, this lock is designed to ensure your ride remains protected. Engineered to Withstand Real-World ThreatsAs bike theft evolves, so must the tools we use to prevent it. One of the growing threats to bike security is the rise of battery-powered angle grinders. These powerful tools can quickly cut through locks, making them a prime weapon for criminals. Kryptonite’s Diamond Standard is engineered specifically to counter this menace. Through extensive testing, Kryptonite has developed

What Is Handlebar Reach and Why It Matters for Bike FitWhen it comes to dialing in your perfect road bike fit, handlebar reach is often the forgotten piece of the puzzle. You probably already know your bike's frame reach, and you're likely aware of your stem length — but do you know the reach of your handlebars? If not, you could be throwing off your entire fit without even realizing it.Handlebar Reach Varies More Than You Think  Not all road handlebars are created equal. In fact, handlebar reach can vary significantly between models and brands. Some handlebars offer as little as 65–70mm of reach, while others stretch out to 100mm. That’s a huge difference — especially when you're chasing the perfect riding position.The Impact of Handlebar Reach on Your Bike FitLet’s say you buy a new frame with the same geometry as your current bike and reuse your existing stem. All good so far. But then you treat yourself to new handlebars that have an 80mm reach instead of your usual 70mm. That

Why is your waterproof no longer shedding water like it once did?Why Your Waterproof Cycling Gear No Longer Sheds Water Like It Used To (And How to Fix It) For many cyclists, a reliable waterproof jacket or pair of rainproof trousers is an essential piece of kit. Whether you’re commuting, touring, or tackling local trails, staying dry can make all the difference between an enjoyable ride and a miserable one. But over time, you might notice that your once-waterproof gear is no longer repelling water as it once did. Instead of beading up and rolling off, rainwater begins to soak into the fabric. This phenomenon is known as wetting out—but what causes it, and how can you restore your gear’s water-shedding abilities? Read on to find out. What Is Wetting Out?Wetting out occurs when the durable water repellent (DWR) coating on your cycling gear breaks down or gets contaminated. Normally, DWR allows water to bead up and roll off the fabric’s surface, keeping the outer layer dry. However, dirt,

How to bleed Shimano Road Brakes with Park Tool.When it comes to educating people on how to fix their bikes, Park Tool are the best in the buisness. Take a look at the video below and follow their step by step guide on how to bleed your Shimano drop bar brakes.  Calvin is using the Park Tool BKM-1.2 - Hydraulic Brake Bleed Kit For Mineral Oil to carry out the procedure with genuine Shimano Mineral Oil.    

PRO Empowers Women Racers Through Comfort and Performance with the New PRO Sirin SaddlesAs the primary point of contact between the rider and the bike, the saddle is of utmost importance. It can be a source of discomfort and hinder performance or enable a better all-round cycling experience. For female riders saddle choice has long been limited, especially for those who like to push their limits, race all-out, and chase podium places.  The new PRO Sirin Team and Performance saddles addresses this need by providing a women’s specific saddle platform which enables women to be their very best on the bike.The PRO Sirin Saddles are intended to aid women in holding a more aggressive, aerodynamic position on the bike, and to remain comfortable while doing so. The PRO Design team, which is informed by bike fit data from thousands of bike fitments, initiated the saddle design process before it was refined and perfected in collaboration with a pelvic floor specialist as well as a dedicated group

The Truth About Washing Waterproof Garments: Myths vs. RealityA lot of people believe that washing a waterproof garment ruins its ability to keep water out. But that’s not true! The key isn’t avoiding washing altogether—it’s knowing when and how to do it properly. Step 1: Do You Really Need to Wash It?Before tossing your waterproof jacket into the machine, ask yourself: Does it actually need a full wash? If it’s just a bit muddy or has trail spray on it, a simple wipe-down with a damp cloth and warm water might be enough. Frequent washing can wear out your garment faster, so only wash when necessary. Step 2: Use the Right SoapIf a wash is needed, using the correct detergent is crucial. Regular biological detergents can damage the waterproof membrane, making your jacket less effective at keeping you dry. That’s why we recommend STORM Eco Wash—it cleans thoroughly without harming the waterproof layer. Step 3: Wash & Dry CorrectlyTemperature: 30°CCycle: Synthetic washDrying: Leave indoors

Learn how to look after your bike, Park Tool style

The reason Quad Lock is so popular is because it's one of those things that just works. You install it, it's simple, reliable and looks after your phone. Perfect. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that Quad Lock is so close to perfect that there's no point in messing with it, and that's a point we'd sympathise with.  However, the team behind the brand have indeed been looking for ways to make the best even better, and after much deliberation, creationing and prototyping, they think they've cracked it with the brand new Quad Lock MAG. What is MAG, you ask? Well it's basically a Quad Lock case with a magnetic back, meaning it snaps into various mounts, chargers and holders seamlessly. Not only that but it'll also attach to other magnetic surfaces, like workstands, car doors or the underside of aircraft (please dont try that last one, we haven't thought it through). So instead of using the quarter-turn system to attach your phone to stuff, it just sticks on and off.  Aside from

As a bike rider or commuter in winter, there are a few things that just make your heart sink. One is rain, because nothing makes the cold less pleasant quite like getting wet. Another is punctures, because getting cold and wet is one thing but then having to change a tube really is insult on top of injury. The third is getting ready for your ride home only to find that your lights dont have enough charge, thus begins the classic game of 'front light chicken' where they may or may not have enough juice left, so it becomes your legs versus the light battery to see which fails first.  What we're trying to say is that a quality front light is an absolutely essential piece of kit for anyone who intends to ride in poor light conditions, whether that be early morning/late evening rides during Spring and Summer, or basically any time of day in the UK in Autumn or Winter.  Coming in 600, 900 or 1300-lumen varieties, the real beauty of the Blinder Pro is the battery technology which gives you a

As a sponsor of multiple World Tour road cycling teams, Finish Line knows a thing or two about bike cleaning and lubrication. The company has been at the cutting edge of lubcrication innovation for nearly 40 years, and their first product was the groundbreaking Finish Line Dry Bike Lube with Teflon that changed the game when it came to drivetrain lubcrication. Fast forward nearly 40 years and Finish Line is still at the top of the game, as shown by their latest and greatest product: Halo.  The Halo range has three products: a wax lubricant for improved cleanliness, a wet lubricant for durability and water-resistance and a hot wax melt for ultimate chain lubrication in all conditions. All three are powered by elite-grade ingredients including patented Spherical Tungsten. That Spherical Tungsten is what gives the lube its magic, reducing vibrational friction caused by high-torque pedalling. You wont be suprised to learn that those micron-sized particles are spherical in shape (amazing, right?)

How to Install Shimano SPD-SL CleatsStep for installing cleatsInstalling cleats can be a bit fiddly, but it's empowering to know how to do it yourself! Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you out. Step 1: Locate the Attachment PointsOn the bottom of your SPD-SL cleat-compatible cycling shoes, you’ll find three holes about one-third of the way down. This is where you will attach the cleats. Step 2: Position the CleatsPlace the cleat on the sole of the shoe, aligning the cleat holes with the three holes in the shoe. Note that the cleats are identical for both the left and right shoes.  Step 3: Insert Washers and BoltsPosition a cleat washer over each hole, and insert a cleat bolt through each washer into the hole. Use a 4 mm hex wrench to lightly tighten the bolts. Step 4: Adjust the Cleat PositionTo find your optimal cleat position, get on your bike and pedal a few strokes. Adjust the cleat forward, backward, left, or right until your knees are in line with your toes and there is

Let's take a look at the Shimano-sponsored teams, the equipment they will be riding, and the Neutral Service each WorldTour team can count on—not just those riding Shimano—every mile of the way.  Learn more here - https://road.shimano.com/stories/shimanos-24-road-cycling-season     SHIMANO 105 MECHANICALOur only premium mechanical groupset represents an ode to the hardware. Scale any mountain. Find YOUR Fast and enjoy the road ahead. Learn More here - https://road.shimano.com/105/ #SUPERCYCLINGSUNDAYCycling, camaraderie, classics—make YOUR next Sunday, a #SuperCyclingSunday! Share your favorite cycling story for a chance to win an all-inclusive trip to the Tour de France!Join now here - https://road.shimano.com/supercyclingsunday/ 

Five top tips for making sure you’re ready for your next big ride If you fail to prepare, then you should prepare to fail. Okay, that might be a bit extreme in the context of bike riding but the principle does ring true. If you have a big ride or event coming up then the best thing you can do to have a fun and stress-free experience is make sure you have everything you need. There will always be things that happen that are out of your control but if you follow our five tips below, you’ll have the best chance of navigating any mishaps on the day.   Tip One: Dress for the occasion You never know what the weather will throw at you on a long ride so consider a gilet or packable water-resistant jacket. Arm and knee warmers are also a great way to stay warm but easily packable should things heat up. https://www.freewheel.co.uk/brands/madisonTip Two: Fuel your ride Make sure you go in with a nutrition plan to avoid the dreaded ‘bonk’. Depending on the length of your ride make sure you have

With the weather finally starting to look up and cyclists everywhere casting furtive glances at their summer bikes, Madison Clothing is back and ready for SS24. This new range puts the focus back on drop-bar riding with the Flux and Roam lines containing pieces for performance and adventure cyclists no matter what their budget.   Heading up the SS24 lineup is the Flux short sleeve road jersey. Focused on performance and made from lightweight material, it’s a smart jersey at a killer price point (£39.99) that pairs up with last season’s Flux EIT bib shorts to make a top performing, wallet-friendly combination. In tandem with that goes the Flux Ultra Packable Waterproof Gilet which is a perfect pocket stuffer for those days when the weather could change at any moment. But don’t worry, the MTB riders out there haven’t been forgotten as there’s a new summer-ready Flux jersey and DWR shorts on the way too. Next up comes Roam, which is kit for the adventurous rider that wants to go anywhere

Correctly tightening different parts of the bike is very important for two sort of corresponding reasons. Firstly, you want to make sure things are tight enough so that they dont work loose while you're riding. The flip side of that is that you also don't want to tighten parts of the bike up too much and end up damaging anything. Basically, there's a fine balance between not tight enough and too tight, and that's where torque wrenches come in.  Torque is a twisting force (technically a measure of the force causing something to rotate round an axis), and it's what you measure when you're tightening any bolts on your bike. You will (or should) have noticed that every bolt on a bike has a torque rating that the manufacturer recommends and it's important to make sure that those bolts are tightened to within that range. For example, Shimano Hollowtech II cranksets have two fixing bolts on the non-drive side, and those are meant to be between 12-14Nm (that's Newton metres).  In fact, Shimano

Ask any artist and they'll tell you that while creating something great is very hard, following it up is arguably more difficult. There's an entire cultural wasteland of poor second albums and disappointing film sequels that failed to live up to the shadow cast by their predecessors. In a similar vein, Lazer knew that following up its iconic Z1 helmet was going to be a difficult task as the original was so popular among pro and amatuer road riders. But the revamped version - the Z1 Kineticore - honestly not only lives up to the expectation but manages to exceed it, both visually and functionally.  The headline feature of this new Z1 is, as the name suggests, Kineticore. If you're not familiar with Kineticore, it's Lazer's own anti-rotational impact technology, designed to protect your brain from damaging forces during a crash. That's the main benefit - and it's an important one - but the even better thing about Kineticore is that it comes with other benefits that make a helmet better,

Sitting here in January with the temperature hovering around freezing, it's definitely the hardest part of the year to muster up the motivation to get out and ride your bike. So while we're all waiting for Spring, we've posted a couple of great videos from Shimano's YouTube channel below that just make us want to get out and ride our bikes. You can even watch them while you're on the indoor trainer if you want.  The first video is about riding in and around Beijing on bikes made right there in the Chinese capital. . We'd never really thought of Beijing as a two-wheeled destination before, but after watching the below Made In: Beijing video we're now extremely jealous of the hugely varied terrain that's on offer. So now we're going to have to book a riding holiday there, which will be expensive. Wonderful. The second video comes from America's Pacific Northwest region, where the Trans Cascadia race takes place. Trans Cascadia is one of the best-known multi-day Enduro events in the world

One of the most interesting (read: frustrating) things about being a cyclist is the stuff you get given for Christmas. There are very few other hobbies where people fixate on giving you things that are not directly related to said hobby but have pictures of the hobby on them. Like socks with bikes on. Or t-shirts with bikes on. Or mugs with bikes on. Basically lots of things that depict cycling but 99% of which are not actually usable in the performance of cycling.  So to cut to the chase, if you want to get the cyclist in your life something nice (really very nice) that will actually aid in the cycling that person does you should absolutely consider the Knog Oi bell. There are multiple reasons for this: first, it's a bell and you be surprised how many people don't have one on their bike. Second, even if they do there is no way it's nicer than this one unless, in fact, they have an Oi already, in which case we're totally out of ideas. Sorry.  There are two types of Knog Oi bell: the Oi

Riding indoors is a world away from what it used to be. Turbo trainers have changed hugely from what they were just a decade ago, and the advent of things like Zwift means that you can virtually ride with other people in groups, compete in races or simply have something more interactive than just staring at a garage wall or your TV screen for hours on end.  The flip side, of course, is that while things have become significantly smarter and more interesting the price of indoor training has increased proportionally so that if you really want the most comprehensive setup you can then it's going to cost you. What we have here are three potential indoor training setups at various price points and different levels of interest. So whether you just want to keep the pedals turning in the dry or commit fully to indoor training there's something here for you. This is absolutely not someone's home setup. But you see what we're getting at. Setup 1 - the minimalist If you want to get riding indoors

Riding outside all winter is the dream. No matter how good indoor riding gets it just can't compare to the fun you have riding in the real world. That's especially true for off-road riding where  95% of the fun doesn't come from the actual pedalling, but from navigating the terrain.  But to stay outside for as much of Autumn and Winter as possible, you're going to need kit that'll keep you warm and dry. Warm is the easier of the two as that can be achieved through layering but dry require quality kit that actually keeps the water out properly, not stuff that 'keeps water out as long as it's not raining that much and doesn't keep up for more than about 20mins'.  Madison Clothing's DTE collection (which you wont be surprised to find out after reading the headline stands for Defy the Elements) aims to help keep you riding outside for as long as you want. The main pieces - bib trousers, pants and 3-layer waterproof jacket - are serious, heavy duty items of clothing made for the British