bikepimp.co.uk

Earlier this morning I posted about the 15% reduction on Cube's Fritzz 'The One', and CRC have just sent a mailing announcing 15% off all Cube bikes. BikePimp spots the price reductions as soon as they appear, and it's satisfying to see the system working well.

Don't forget that you can use the Pimp's RSS feeds to keep an eye on prices for products you need. Simply perform a search on the site, and either add the page directly to your RSS reader (it should figure things out), or use the 'RSS updates for this page' link in the top right. That's how I saw the 15% reduction on the Cube Fritzz - it was in my RSS inbox first thing this morning.

RSS feeds also cover Ebay auctions too, so can save you hours waiting for Ebay pages to load... Looking for an old frame for a bikey project? Simply set up a bunch of appropriate BikePimp RSS feeds, and check them regularly. You can use the great auctionstealer.co.uk to bid on items at the last minute automatically. Just make sure to specify a maximum bid a bit bigger than you first think - you'll be disappointed if it goes for 60p more than you thought you were happy to pay...

The really good deals don't last long, as retailers are often shifting limited quantities of old stock at prices not much above trade price + VAT, so get to them first with BikePimp.

All Cube 2010 bikes here: http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/search/cube+bike+2010

RSS/subscribing info is here: http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/subscribe

I've had my eye on these for a while now, as CRC had some ridiculous
but short-lived deals on the 2009 stock a while back. The spec is
impressive, and the reviews have been great. Shame I'm skint at the
moment... I probably don't need another bike anyway, plus I'm
hardtail-happy.

http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/search/fritzz+bike

20 - 25% off super-light and racy alu Kinesis XC frames at CRC. Oli at Morvelo has been enjoying his, judging by a recent win in the Gorrick Spring Series.

Shimano Dura-Ace Double 10 speed -21% at CRC:
http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/show/sr/311425-shimano-dura-ace-chainset-double-10sp

My love for the boggy beauty of Plumstone Mountain made me fall for the well-made track which leads up to the summit, and then deposits you in among swampy spikiness. I carried my bike for at least a mile of this ride, and gave up caring about how water/poo-logged my feet were about 500m into that carry. I am often grateful for my Goretex waterproof oversocks - a man can bear a lot of things if his feet are comfortable.

But I survived the swamp, and exited into a field of bike-curious sheep to find myself with a fantastic early evening view over St. Brides Bay. 40km, and I'd be surprised if the number of vehicles I saw hit double digits. Plus it didn't rain.

My Airborne Zeppelin with Mavic Open Pro rims sturdily laced to Hope Pro3 hubs may not be the lightest roadie around, but it's comfortable off-road (as long as the tyres don't sink). Next time I head west I might take a pair of cyclocross tyres...

Route here courtesy of a Garmin Edge 305: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29220061

Some great bargains on Iron Horse bikes and frames at CRC and Rutland at the moment - up to 25% off. These are big rigs for big cash, and flash!

BikePimp is currently number one on Google for bike price comparison, and also for cycle price comparison, but strangely nowhere to be seen for bicycle price comparison.

I like to think BikePimp is a great place for bicycle price comparison - better than all those retail-sector-spanning price comparison megaliths, who wouldn't know a bottom bracket from a mech hanger. And it's damn fast too - I make sure of that. You gotta keep your game locked tight.

I've been increasingly noticing Cube bikes of late - both on the road and mountain front. CRC had a ridiculous deal on a 2008 Cube Fritzz 'The One' a while back, but before I could investigate THE GEOMETRRAAYY they'd all been snapped up. Since then I've been keeping an eye on the deals with a daily BikePimp search alert, to see if anything reappears.

Cube Bikes are a German company with a comprehensive range. They've got kids bikes, a broad women-specific lady-selection, road (including time trial and triathlon), as well as the XC and All-Mountain rigs that are getting all the enthusiastic and sparsely punctuated reviews. They also have a group of bikes named 'Tour', which they might reasonably rename 'Everything Else'.

There's an English version of Cube's excellent website which demonstrates the breadth of their range admirably. It gives as much detail as you might want on the builds, such as the aforementioned Cube Fritzz which I still hanker after (although definitely not in 'cocoa', I think).

Cube seem to be one of 'those European brands' that UK riders aren't 100% at home with yet. It's perhaps because of this that there are some rocking deals around, especially on the 2009 bikes.

If any tasty bargains appear in my daily alert I'll be sure to tweet one off, so make sure you sign up.

Cooper - as in Mini - have jumped confidently onto the fashion fixie bandwagon with a range of four steel fixed wheel / singlespeed 'street bikes' to suit various one-gear-only tastes. The bikes are smart, English, and have won a few awards from the cycling press.

The Cooper T100 Sebring and the Cooper T100 Monza are priced from £595. Both are made of Reynolds 520 steel, and come in 52cm, 57cm and 61cm.

The Cooper T200 Championship 50 is available from £849. It uses a Reynolds 531 tubeset.

Top of the current range is the Cooper T200 Reims which starts at £895. Also 531, this one looks like a fixie but sneaks in a Sturmey Archer 5-speed hub. Nice thinking.

Both the T200s are a bit more aggressive on the track bike geometry. My fixie is a 54cm, so were I to hanker after one I'd be presented with a dilemna... go big, or small? All the geometry specs are on the site to allow informed decisions.

The T100 Sebring is the weightiest, with a listed weight of 9.95kg (sounds much better than 10kg), and all the others come in at around 9.5kg. So not light... but not super-heavy either. My pal's Pompino, another off-the-shelf fixed / singlespeed 'street bike' seems to weigh a ton, and that's Reynolds 631. I'm assuming 631 is lighter than Reynolds tubesets of a lower denomination...

The Cooper Bikes website is rather splendid, and was done by Worthing's Fresh Egg, who seem to be doing rather well for themselves these days.

The whole Cooper Bikes thing looks pretty solid - I hope the bikes prove popular. But as my Step-da would say... "Where are the mudguards?"

Apparently more bikes are on the way later in the year.

(download)

Click here to download:

Cooper_Bikes_T100_T200_real_pr.zip (143 KB)

Shimano dual control levers aren't really my thing - flappy-up-down brake levers seems like a bad idea, although perhaps they're OK if you're a commuter rather than a mountain biker.

Anyway, if they are your thing, you can get them cheap at ChainReaction - £25 instead of £99.