Cycling

Traitor Cycles has been quietly working on a relaunch, with the $600 frame and fork Crusade Disc being particularly of interest. A fully butted chromoly tubset featuring rocker style dropouts to allow either single speed or geared drivetrains. The post mount brake on the fork is a sign of the changing times, and the internal top tube routing shows off the shouldering roots. It’s definitely more of a race bike than commuter, with but a single bottle mount and no provisions for racks or fenders. Available mid to late summer, see more at www.traitorcycles.com

The lightweight, super thin Tybyn glove from Royal Racing has a 0.8mm Reba palm and a light, airy meshed backing that’s great for warmer days on the hill.The fit is okay, but the main issue we’ve had with the Tybyn is the palm bunching when you grip the bar. Because the palm is so thin the bunching doesn’t feel quite as obstructive as it could be, but it’s still not great and really detracts from what we think could be a very strong glove.The snot wipe on the thumb is useful and the lens wipe on the finger is handy too. This article was originally published in Mountain Biking UK magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.

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Route changed due to weather

Price: £16.99 Gallery Image Reference: Cateye Omni 5 rear light Cateye make some great value lights that perform well, and the Omni 5 (or TD-L155-R, to give it its catchier name) is one of them. There's a lot to like about this rear blinky. It's not the most powerful or the sleekest, but it's a great all-rounder. Road.cc rating: 8 Weight: 20g Contact: www.zyro.co.uk read more

A thread of UK cycling subculture – the cycle jumble – is being unpicked by online auctions, escalating travel costs and declining numbers of bargain hunters, claims a regular seller. Despite the popularity of reconditioning vintage bikes, cycle jumbles – the bike equivalent of the table-top sale, where a dedicated kit hunter can pick up rare equipment at bargain prices and follow it up with a slice of cake made by the local WI – appear to be declining. “People who are interested in them are dying off,” said Mike Clark, who attends between 20 and 30 each year to buy and sell merchandise. “It’s just one of those things that the people interested in having the old and interesting stuff tend to be the older generation.” Some of the biggest cycle jumbles in the country is held in Ripley, Surrey, which hosts three events a year. But even attendance at that stronghold – once an essential rendezvous for the London courier crowd, with upwards of 400 buyers per jumble – is showing signs of decline, said Clark, who lives in Kent. “It’s not as rampant as it was five years ago. Anywhere between five and eight years ago it might have been attended by 50 or 60 couriers, and now you might be lucky to find half a dozen,” he said. Online salesIt’s not just couriers – generally, buyer numbers are down. Clark blames auctioning sites such as eBay, as well as spiralling petrol prices: “People are thinking, ‘It might cost me £50 [in fuel] to get to this jumble and I might not get what I want, therefore I’ll source it on eBay.’ Ebay, even if it’s going to cost more than you hope to pay, at least you know you’re going to get it.” Clark, who said he hates computers and refused to follow the trend online, said he believes the volume of business in vintage parts is as big as ever but has moved out of village halls and onto the internet. Nigel Scott, who runs a website in Dorset selling vintage Campagnolo equipment and organises an annual calendar of jumble events, said his experience of a popular jumble in Kidderminster, the West Midlands, was similar. A decade ago, a queue used to wind around the corner to get in, he explained. Fast forward a few years and a friend told him he had been first in line when the doors opened. Pockets of successCalling the demise of cycle jumbles might be premature, however. Clark said he has no intention of packing his boxes of merchandise into the attic and turning his back on the culture: “It’s a social event as much as a business opportunity.”And Scott, through his network of contacts, has heard reports that certain jumbles are doing a rip-roaring trade – one, in Muswell Hill, London, is doing good business from well-heeled locals doing up vintage bikes, he said. “Another organiser – at an event in Chalfont St Peter [Buckinghamshire] – said he had an exceptional attendance and people had told him it was better than Ripley,” Scott added.It means the jumbles, usually as famous for the WI cakes as the rare gems waiting to be uncovered, should soldier on for some time yet at least.

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More than 100,000 stolen bikes were reported in the UK in 2012, and police have warned cyclists that expensive bikes are targets because they represent a lucrative market for criminals. BikeRadar spoke to policeman Tom Llewellyn and John Moss, founder of Stolen Bristol Bikes, about what you can do to keep your bike safe and secure. “It’s a case of being as savvy as you can and being aware that expensive bikes are a big target,” said PC Llewellyn, who is investigating a stolen goods conspiracy involving high value bikes. “They’re the easiest thing for people to take.”1. Create a logbookWhen you buy your bike, note down serial numbers for your bike and take photos. As it gets used, log paint chips, scratches and new components as they replace old ones. “Put a folder together of all the information that makes your bike personal,” said Llewellyn. “We do recover a lot of bikes, but a lot of the time they don’t get identified because the information we get from people who report crimes is often not good enough to identify them.” He said many police authorities offer free postcode marking services such as SmartWater. In the event of the stolen bike being recovered, these forensic tools can help reunite it with the owner. 2. Store the bike behind a locked door The majority of bike thefts are opportunistic raids on sheds, so deter criminals by making sure your bicycle is kept behind a lockable door, in a garage or the house. A padlocked, wooden garden shed won’t do, said Llewellyn: “A padlock can be bolt-cropped in five seconds.” If your shed is up to the job, securing the bike a second time behind the locked door is worthwhile. Fixings sunk into concrete floors are a good option, as is installing CCTV cameras and security lighting in the garden. “Thieves will look for the easiest opportunity for theft,” said Llewellyn. “They won’t go, ‘I want to get into that address.’ They might try five or six addresses before they get one that’s easy access or it’s got something inside that they want. If you have something really precious and you haven’t got those security measures, I would put my bike in the house until I’ve got them in place.”John Moss suggested using an alarmed padlock in addition to standard bike locks: “In addition to your usual bike locks it can be a useful tool when stopping bike thieves from plucking bikes out of your shed or garage. When it goes off it’s unlikely thieves will hang around to see if anyone has heard it.”Read more on how to make your shed more secure.3. Be savvy with ride sharingSome police forces have linked ride sharing platforms such as Strava, MapMyRide and Endomondo to bike thefts. Moss said: “If you use Strava or other ride logging applications, set up exclusion zones around areas you regularly store your bike. They don’t typically affect your ride statistics, but turn off the mapping features when you’re within the boundaries of one.” If you’re planning on leaving your bike unattended, make sure it’s secured with a good quality lock. We recently reported on thieves tailing riders to a café and stealing an expensive mountain bike off the roof rack. Watch the BikeRadar video guide on how to secure your bike properly. 4. Contact the police and do some DIY trackingIn the event of a theft, Llewellyn said your first move should be to contact the police and pass over the logbook details. However, he said victims should visit websites to find the bike – or parts of it – themselves. Telltale signs that a for-sale bike might be stolen are short auctions (to move the goods quickly), a bike that deviates wildly from build specifications, or a seller with a short or non-existent history. “If it was my bike I would trail auction websites such as eBay,” said Llewellyn. “A