At the most basic level, cycling is a highly accessible sport: all you need is a bike and the willpower to get out of the door and get pedalling.  The problem comes when your addiction and love of cycling pushes you into racing, time trials or triathlons. It is at this point when you begin to look at your trusty steed and ask yourself if it might be worth upgrading to a thoroughbred road bike or a precision ...

Jaspa Cycles is a new bike company producing a small range of 1930's inspired retro roadsters. Owners JASon and PAul (get it?) were in town and they suggested that we meet up, so that I could have a quick look at their 'Café Racer' bike. First glance and you immediately think, Pashley Guv'nor, and that is something that the Jaspa boys are happy to admit was a big inspiration for this bike.  The aim was to f ...

The Fondriest name has adorned bike frames since 1993, the same year that company founder Maurizio Fondriest was riding a Colnago Carbitubo for the Lampre team. For the first few years the frames were made by artisan Italian manufacturers, Viner and Billato. The cycle company began to really take off properly when Fondriest retired in 1998 after a very successful pro-racing career that included wins on the  ...

My Italian love affair began in 1996 whilst watching a strange two-wheeled sporting event that was beamed into our front room on Channel 4 every night. The event in question was, of course, the Tour De France and that year it was won by Danish rider Bjaren Riis on a Pinarello Paris. I became instantly addicted to watching Team Telekom riders Riis, Ulrich and Zabel climbing and sprinting their way to victory ...

The relationship with your bike is a balancing act. Treat it well, and you’ll be rewarded with years of painless, stress-free riding. Neglect the bike, and you’ll have nothing but arguments, expense, frustration and heartache. My bike is a 2009 Scott Addict R4. We’ve been through a lot together, covering over 20,000kms through wind and rain, over cobbles and potholes, and the ups and downs of Alpine cols – ...

Last week, we had a look into the wonderfully eccentric and cyclo-centric world of Ritte Racing. Ritte’s brand new full stainless steel (SS) production frame is a sight to behold - without question, one of the most beautifully crafted and elegantly designed frames on the market. I’m going to be comparing this stainless steel Snob to Ritte’s top of the line carbon racer, the Bosberg. The SS frame uses a very ...

The Ultimate Commuter. Not some slightly off-the-wall superhero, but the bike you dream of when struggling to work on a rusty old hack with a squeaky chain and a flat tyre. A quick survey on Facebook and Twitter revealed an imaginative list of specifications for that perfect bike, most of them from the realms of science fiction and many of them designed to inflict pain on inconsiderate motorists. How about ...

After riding the Kuota Kharma for a few weeks now, I'm happy to give it a big thumbs up with one proviso - your local roads are in pretty good condition and devoid of a tapestry of cheap repairs and utility company scars. That's what my ride out of Brighton is like and it's nearly towel throwing time as the super stiff full carbon fibre monocoque refuses to soak up any of the surface imperfections. The shoc ...

Day one & first ride I thought that Kuota was a Japanese brand. To my ear, Kuota (pronounced the same as 'quota') sounds like a bicycle company that could be named after a fishing village close to Nagasaki. I was wrong & not even close, not even the same continent. Kuota are based in Albiate, about 15 miles north of Milan, in Northern Italy and their speciality is carbon fibre road and time trial bi ...

Let's make this Schindelhauer Siegfried review very simple. I love this bike! I first met Jörg Schindelhauer and his team at a party in one of the exhibition halls at Eurobike in 2010 where his lovely bikes shared a stand with other German stalwarts, Nicolai and Grace. What I saw was a range of bikes with a unique and orginal character. The clean designs were all executed with attention paid to every detail ...