Panniers make it easy to carry stuff safely on your bike and you’d be surprised just how much pannier bags can hold. image source

If you’ve ever ridden your bike whilst hanging shopping bags from the handle bars you’ll know how awkward it can be ride …it’s not safe either.

A pannier setup makes your bike well balanced – you should ideally put equal amounts in each pannier bag – ensuring that you have a safe ride. If like me, you have carried shopping home in carrier bags hanging from the handlebars you’ll know how easy it is for the bags to get get caught in the spokes. Once when it happened to me, the plastic bags ripped and I spilt fruit and veg all over the road

Cyclists use panniers for all sorts of reasons and they’re not the preserve of touring cyclists. You can:

• get stacks of shopping in them
• carry sports gear in them – ride to the gym
• carry allotment grown fruit & veg – a popular use for panniers by me
• carry your clothes and laptop to work in them

You can choose from front or rear panniers, or have both of course. You can also get pannier racks for both your handle bars and for small, on-frame bags. If you don’t need to carry too much stuff on your bike then rear panniers are probably your best bet. Chainreaction have a wide range of pannier racks to choose from.



You’ll need a pannier rack and pannier bags. The pannier rack (pictured) is the metal (often alloy/aluminium for strength and lightness) which fits onto the back of your bike frame over the rear wheel and mudguard if you have one. There are lots of easy fitting solutions including seat post clamps and systems for bikes with disc brakes.

Then you need some pannier bags to put your stuff into. You’ll find a wide range of pannier bags from the ultra stylish, postman bag style, backpack style, courier, low rider, the list is long! Basil, Deuter, Agu and Ortlieb are all brand names to consider.

Satchels clip onto one side of your rack and are much more practical than pannier bags if you need to carry things around on your person during the day. Typically suited for A4 size pads and folders, satchels are popular with students and office commuters.

Again, chainreaction have a wide range of pannier bags to choose from. Also try wiggle and evans.

If like me you’ve been watching the tours and you’ve seen this writing on a the back of cycling jerseys:

you might have been wondering what it’s all about?

Well fizik (official site) is an Italian cycling company who make premium quality saddles and also some seatposts, bar tape and accessories. They makes saddles for road, MTB and triathlon for both men and women.

Fizik saddles incorporate several technological advances, one being their Wing Flex design. Fizik say that the WING FLEX™ shell flexes downward in the critical area where the inner thighs contact the saddle allowing for more efficient, full-range movement while pedalling. Coupled with an extended saddle length this allows the rider to find the most comfortable in-saddle position. The flexing the saddle adapts to the rider as opposed to the rider adapting to saddle.

Popular saddles in the fizik range include:

• Arione Kium
• Arone Wingflex
• Antares
• Gobi
• Aliante

There’s a wide choice of types for each model of saddle, typically including a carbon option for additional weight saving. The most popular model seems to be the Fizik Arione and here’s a price comparison for you of just one in that range – click the links to see other saddles in the range.

Following on from the earlier post about bicycle d locks I thought I’d post about a common alternative, namely the chain lock.

Chain locks like the Abus Diskus pictured aren’t quite a strong as d locks because they’re not made from a solid steel bar but from a steel chain (often in a sleeve to protect your bike). You lock the ends of the chain together with a key operated padlock or maybe a combination lock. Chain links are a bit weaker than d locks because in theory the links can be cut with strong bolt cutters. Having said that, a good chain lock can have a security rating of silver.

Chain locks are more convenient as you can use the flexibility of the chain to lock your bike to almost anything secure. You might find that the chain plus lock is heavy although one reviewer suggests that abus chain locks aren’t as heavy as Kryponite models.

Check the length of the chain before you buy. You need one long enough to wrap the chain around the thing you’ll be locking the bike to and at least the frame and front wheel. You can get extension chains if you want to run a chain from front to back wheel without taking the front wheel out.

For more tips on cycle security visit the Lock Your Bike site by London-based cyclist Jamie Carruthers.

Top selling brands include Kryptonite and Abus. Here’s a price comparison for the Abus Diskus that’s pictured above.

The one thing you don’t want to happen to your prized two-wheeled possession is to have it stolen. Unsecure bikes make easy pickings for bike thieves so it’s a must that you get yourself a decent cycle lock. A cheap lock might deter the odd opportunist but you should really invest in a strong bike lock …it’ll last for years and it’ll protect your bike from the more determined thief.

One of the most popular style of bicycle locks is called a D lock (so called because it’s shape looks like a capital D. The plus points of D locks are:

• constructed from solid hardened steel bar
• very hard to cut
• easy to carry on board a bike using a bike frame mount
• can offer gold rated security
• available in different lengths

The main disadvantage with D-locks is due to their shape and lack of flexibility. It’s design makes it more difficult to lock your bike to street furniture like lamp-posts, fences and uprights because the steel bar doesn’t bend. If you need a bike lock that offers more flexibility but less security then consider a chain or cable lock (both could be cut by a thief using bolt cutters).

One of the most popular D locks on the market is the Abus Granit X-Plus 54. The parabolic 13mm square section shackle is massively resistant to cropping and twisting. It is securely held in place by the Powercell double locking mechanism with the ease of use of the X-Plus locking system (with illuminated key provided). The Granit X-Plus is a gold rated bike lock. Here are some suppliers and prices:

I’ve had this Dave Lloyd frame for a long time. Since about 1992 I think. I got it due to the fact that I landed on the bonnet of a BMW on the A540. Not my fault at all …some women who was following her husband in his pick-up decided she couldn’t wait to turn right out of side road and she didn’t give me enough time to stop for her! The bike I was riding at the time, another Dave Lloyd bike, became unroadworthy (though I still it use on the turbo trainers) and I claimed on the drivers insurance for loss of said frame.

I rode this frame for a year or more, then I put it back in for a free respray (long story). I haven’t ridden it since. Think I should do something about that!

As you can see, despite it needing a bit of a clean, it’s a lovely frame finished in yellow – no, not the kind of colour that you’d normally choose I know. The big feature of this frame at the time was the wishbone rear stay. Probably a gimmick though I seem to recall that Lloydy reckoned a wishbone rear stay was lighter and wasted less power. The frame is lugless too …something I was a little nervous about because it wasn’t entirely convinced it’d be strong enough for a 6ft 3 chap like me.

I’ll do a separate post about Dave Lloyd in due course, but if you want to find out more about his cycling heritage take a look at his coaching services site.

Here’s some more photos of the frame for you; click for larger:

I happened to stumble upon the official Cinelli website yesterday. You’re greeted with the above picture of a stunning 80′s, low-profile track bike, the Cinelli Laser – what a beautiful looking machine! The frame angles look really steep …the bike must make for a really aggressive ride.

The disc wheels feature art by Keith Haring and you can read more about this famous artist here.

And I now know that the Italian for In Bike We Trust is Crediamo In Te, Bici.

Cinelli are producing beautiful bikes today; like this new Cinelli Mash Green:

The award winning Taga Bike is also a baby buggy!

Morphing from one mode of transport to the other like a 3 wheeled Transformer, this serious piece of Dutch kit is certainly no toy ride-on.

Extend the Taga and you have an adult trike with a baby seat. You’ll have a bike to enable you to ride around town with. Fold the Taga Bike up and you’ll have a stroller buggy to push along.

As a bike you get a frame made of advanced aluminum alloy, 16 inch wheels, top of the range Shimano internal gears, disk brakes on the front wheels and Shimano roller brakes on the rear enabling full riding and stop control.

As a baby stroller you get a seat with a 5-point harness that reclines to 2 positions in stroller mode and 1 position in bicycle mode.

Apparently, you can switch between modes whilst your offspring is safely strapped into the seat. But if you’ve seen a Taga Bike in action please leave a comment and let me know how well they operate.

For more information and to order online visit mothercare.com

This is my (muddy) Marin Rift Zone mountain bike. It’s a full suspension mountain bike and when I bought it back in 2000 this model sat below the Mount Vision in the pecking order.

More soon…