New in this Spring!

Spring is my favourite season, I love the lighter evenings, warmer weather and the sense of hope before the disappointment of the British summer. Its also my favourite season for cycling. I firstly started cycling in London in spring and have lasting memories of cycling over the Albert bridge and looking over the Thames on a crisp, clear spring morning.
We always like to get some new exciting products up for spring, these are a few on my favourites...
We are always on the hunt for bags that are not cycling specific but work wonderfully on the bike so was delighted when I came across Kate Sheridan's collection at London fashion week last year. the barrel bag, goes across the shoulder - messenger bag style but is far more attractive and feminine than most messenger bags. And the vintage style rucksack is completely adorable and so comfortable to wear. Both are canvas with super-cute black cloud print and have real leather straps and trims.
We also have the rather smart handbag carrier. This is perfect you those of you who just like to leave the house, jump on your bike and go and not have to worry about too much paraphernalia. Its is really easy to attach to the handlebar stem and then you simply pull back the metal hinged frame and it locks your handbag in nice and securely. It positions your handbag between you and the handlebars so no one pinch it while your riding. I think Gucci and Mulberry would approve!

Flowery bike loveliness

I got a rather fun offer last year to style a Raleigh 20 for the company, Small wheel Good. The flowered-up Raleigh Twenty bicycle, pictured in the photos is a Cyclechic one off, created with loving care by Small Wheels Good. I chose an intricate, vintage style floral fabric and suggested the accessories and Simon Carter (the retro-velo-phile behind Small Wheels Good) brought the idea to life. With a couple of yards of daintily flowered cotton and lashings of secret-formula glue.

We decided to take the bike to the canal and take some snaps with our equally pretty model Coco. I really like these pics. There have great feeling of feminine spring time loveliness.


Small Wheels Good revive, renovate, and re-imagine small-wheeled bicycles from the 60s and 70s. If you want to order a bicycle like the one in the photo, or find out more about Small Wheels Good contact Simon at simoncarter134@googlemail.com

Sawako Furuno's new spring range

The perfect spring time helmet! Sawako's new range has something for everyone. Go all out girly and pretty with the Hanabi or Ribbon or the more urban femininity of the Ran or Chandelier.
See the full range on our helmets page, scroll down to the bottom. Let geeky helmets be a thing of the past....

A bike fit for a Gentleman

The lovely people at Velorbis gave one of their devilishly handsome Churchill Balloon bikes to test-ride. Although I could appreciate its rugged charm from a far, we needed a fella to saddle up and give us the low down, so over our Cyclechic chap Matt Smith...

I’ve been riding the Velorbis Gentlemens’ Churchill Balloon, on and off for four months now. It’s on loan from Velorbis, and every so often it has to go off somewhere to be put on show, and I have to go back to my bog-standard hybrid bike, a perfectly good bike, functional, practical, cheap, but absolutely nothing special. Riding it gets you from A to B and I wouldn’t be able to think of a single other thing to say about it, other than it’s grey.

The Churchill Balloon by contrast, is about as far away from bog-standard as you can get. Riding it actually makes you feel different, somehow improved, enhanced, actually pretty cool. In real life I’m not a cool person at all: I have zero fashion sense, no individual style, I’m not flash by nature and to be honest I usually avoid doing anything that will make me stand out in the crowd. But when I ride around London Town on my Velorbis I get looked at, pointed at, talked to, admired, even revered. That is a pretty remarkable effect when you think about it, for what is after all only a bike (I’m not vain or stupid enough to think it has anything to do with me by the way). And it’s the main reason I love it and recommend it to all the people who stop me and ask me about it.

There are other, more concrete reasons why this bike is great. It feels smooth, solid, expensive. It’s got luxurious Brooks leather handles for instance, and a matching Brooks seat. The built in dynamo lights stay on for a while after you stop pedalling. It’s got a hook at the back you can hang your shopping on. It makes a lovely efficient whirring sound as it goes along, and although it’s heavy, it’s stable and easy to ride. It’s also strangely relaxing, the stresses and strains of busy city life just don’t seem to matter as much and you get a sort of detached-yet-incredibly-smug feeling as you cycle past all those mugs crammed miserably into yet another bendy bus at rush hour. And finally there are those big, thick, awesome Fat Frank tires which deserve pride of place in some design gallery.

Downsides? Well, it’s a bulky and frankly a bit of a pain in the arse to park and lock up, and lock it up you must or it’ll surely get nicked. And you really never want to be in a hurry on it, it just doesn’t do fast (I see this as a positive actually, but if you’re one of those people who’s always running late you’re in trouble).

Other than that, it’s splendid and whilst it’s not exactly cheap, it is remarkably good value for money. Highly highly recommended.

A Bicycle prize to get excited about...

Bicycle orientated prizes don't come much better than this. Radley (yes the company that make the cute bags with the scotty dog tags) have designed a limited edition beautiful leather pannier and, wait for it... are giving them away strapped to the back of a Pashley Sonnet along with divine recycle wool picnic blanket.

Radley fell in love with the Pashley bikes while using them for there SS 10 campaign and were inspired to join forces with them for this beautifully British prize.
To be in with a chance of winning one of these babies, all people need to do is head in to one of Radley stores or log on to www.radley.co.uk throughout March and April to enter the prize draw.

As a self-confessed Pashley lover myself I have just arranged for a Blue Pashley Poppy to be ready for my arrival in San Francisco in April to launch Cyclechic US. The perfect set of wheels for an English girl abroad...


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