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

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

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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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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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.

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The CTC's Victoria Hazael explains on the Guardian bike blog why lazy people cycle to work.

For the most part I don't miss London, but when I lived there my daily commute on the fixie referred to by colleagues as 'the death bike' (they just didn't get it) was a high point of the day. Commuting by bike rocks - and I'm looking forward to the time when I have an enforced daily bike ride back in my life.

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Claire's just taken delivery of a Dawes Galaxy, courtesy of Ebay. It's actually the Super Galaxy model. It was a great deal - and all indications are that the seller was reluctant to sell at the winning bid... should have set a reserve price! We've got some tweaking to do to get it set up properly. It arrived configured in ultra-long-distance touring mode... with three water bottle cages and crazy moustache bars. It will tour again, but for now the distances will be relatively short.

It's a beautiful machine, and light too. Listed weight is around 30lb, presumably for the medium with rack. This one is (currently) without rack, is the small frame, and is featherweight (for a tourer). It's Reynolds 853, so it should be, although all those touring accoutrements soon add up.

We'll post a review and pics once it's done some miles.

Check Dawes Galaxy prices on BikePimp.

Matt and Sarah did their Trans-America adventure on Dawes Super Galaxies, and vouch for them sternly.

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This is a pretty tidy looking frame, and has had great reviews. I love the build they have pictured at RoadCyclingUK - it makes me want to become a mud-covered, bike-shouldering cyclocrosser. Nearly.

Only Wiggle and CRC are stocking it at the moment: Kinesis Crosslight Evo4 2010 on BikePimp.

Kinesis consistently turn out good value frames in the mid-price range. They only use aluminium or carbon at the moment - nothing steel from them unfortunately. Check more Kinesis bike kit on BikePimp.

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It's reassuring in these dark months to see the reliability of the historical seasonal trend for the search query 'Shimano' on Google Trends. There's a local peak just before Christmas, as expected, which also coincides with the previews of kit for the following year.

2004 was a spikey year... I wonder what happened there?

So retailers, however slow things seem right now, you can be pretty confident that things are going to pick up again this year, just as they did in 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006. And riders - your cycle fleet may be languishing right now, but add up your Chainreaction Cycles receipts at the end of next year and again you will be shocked at how much of your money went their way.

Or perhaps this is all down to the fishermen?

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http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/bargains/socks?page=1

The Defeet socks rock - especially the Woolie Boolies.

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We've just updated our subscribe page, to make it a bit clearer about how you can keep track of the best prices for the cycling kit you need.

In short:

1. Use BikePimp via your internet browser 
2. Sign up to the weekly Bargain Blast email
   
3. Sign up to a daily alert for a particular search
4. Subscribe to the daily bargains RSS feed: http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/bargains.rss
5. Subscribe to an RSS feed for a search result, e.g. http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/search/shimano+xtr.rss

You may not have known about all of these options.  The daily email alerts are particularly fun, and not intrusive - we'll only send if there are new or updated products.  There's an unsubscribe link in every email we send.

Subscribe now at http://www.bikepimp.co.uk/subscribe.>

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We've just added 370 products from http://www.alwaysriding.co.uk/.  Their online shop has a lovely design, and some very smart cycle clothing indeed. So BikePimp now sports more tasty cycle gear by the likes of Hincapie and Craft.

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Today's Human Race Winter Ballbuster duathlon was a great event - thanks in no small part to the crisp autumn weather. Clear blue skies and not a drop of wind meant that we had perfect conditions for an 8-mile run, a 24-mile bike and then another 8-mile run, giving competitors the opportunity to enjoy the steady gradient of Box Hill twice on foot and thrice on the bike.

Congratulations to the organisers for squeezing so many competitors and their vehicles into such a compact location with no visible hassle and good spirits all round. Thanks to the stewards for making some tight downhill corners safer through sweeping.

Thanks also to my ever-trusty Saucony ProGrid Guide shoes. These are the best shoes I've had - light, springy and super-comfortable. You really don't know you're wearing them and can take them totally for granted. I think it's nearly time for a new pair - Wiggle have the ProGrid Guide 2 at 10% off.

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