A very Happy Christmas to all our readers.  Hope Santa brought you something bike related and you get a chance to get out and shred over the holidays.  Remember “Ride like you stole it!“

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Conscious that more and more riders are using touch screen cell phones for music while riding and also touch screen GPS units such as the Garmin Edge 800, Specialized have developed a line of their Body Geometry gloves which will work with them.

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The Bicycle Academy is a new enterprise providing people with the skills and facilities to design and make their own bikes whilst simultaneously building a bike for charity.

The Bicycle Academy - Crowd Funding from The Bicycle Academy on Vimeo.
Frame building will be taught by the legendary Brian Curtis as evening classes or short weekday courses. [...]

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With product becoming available earlier and earlier every year we can bring you a first test of the Fox F-29 2012 fork. While this is a 29er specific fork there is very little difference between the F-29 and the standard 26 inch fork.

Having spent the previous six months on the 2011 F-29 we were [...]

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A bit of teasing by Team WORC ahead of this weekends National Champs.  The big question on every ones lips is what is the Tombstone?
Kilruddery Preview 1 from StuArt galloway on Vimeo.

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The Single Speed World Championships are coming to Ireland.  Check out the madness from last year in New Zealand!

SSWC10 - the Aussie view… from Graeme Simpson on Vimeo.

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Havign become used to associating billions with bank debt and other such depressing things it is nice to think of it in another way.  Garmin’s excellent online repository for users of all their exercise data, Garmin Connect, has just supassed a billion miles logged.

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Alberto Contador leads the Giro d’Italia after ten stages with yesterday’s stage going to Mark Cavendish who outclassed Allessandro Pettachi to take his first stage of the Giro and sixth overall.

But it has been Contador, still on appeal for a doping ban arrising from last years Tour de France, who leads in the pink jersey [...]

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The Off-road commission have confirmed a change  of venue for the Irish National XC Championships to the Kilruddery estate in Bray.
The site has a long association with Irish National championships (last used in 2008) with a well known track that is a favourite among many riders.  An extremely successful K-Capital Cup round was also held [...]

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German rider Andreas Kloden took the overall at a tense Vuelta al País Vasco, eleven years after winning his first.  Not merely content ot win the race, team mate and 2010 champion Chris Horner took second with Robert Gesink (Rabobank) rounding out the podium.

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Leopard-Trek rider jens Voight has issued an open letter (through CycleSportMag.com) on the UCI’s plans to ban radios in the peloton.  It is a bit over the top in places but gets across the riders viewpoint.  Doubtless the argument has some way to go yet but already the prospect of rider protests has been raised [...]

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Venues and organisers have been announced for the 2011 XC and Marathon National Champs.  Both events were a big success in 2010, especially the XC Nationals which raised the bar considerably.  The Marathon champs returns to Ballyhoura and the XC Nationals will take place in an exciting new venue - Annamoe, Co.Wicklow.

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Pro-Continental road squad Pegasus Sports have run into financial problems this week after one of the teams main financial backers pulled out.  The failure of the Pegasus Cycling Team to secure a Pro-Tour license for 2011 was listed as one of the main reasons and leaves the team in limbo.  Velonation is claiming that the [...]

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Work has commenced on the building of a new café bar restaurant at the base of the Nevis Range mountain gondola, near Fort William, which will help operators cater better for the diverse demands of its growing customer base - sightseers, skiers and snowboarders, and mountain bikers.
Located at the foot of Aonach Mor the restaurant [...]

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We here at Spoke are big fans of Columbia sportswear, a company that is reinventing itself as a major player in the outdoors market.  They have loads of new technologies (check out Omni-Dry and Omni-Heat in particular)and this is an invaluable opportunity to learn a bit about some new product at an info evening with [...]

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3 years in the making here is a trailer for one of the most beautifully shot MTB movies ever made…

Life Cycles OFFICIAL Trailer from Life Cycles on Vimeo.
You can pre-order a copy here.

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An information evening concerning the proposed mountain bike trail system in Coillte Ticknock and Ballyedmonduff forests.  Plans have been in motion on this for a while and it is great to see the proposed trails becoming a reality.
Details of the routes and plans for the area will be on show and managers will be available [...]

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We held off on talking about this as we have often heard similar rumours which have proved unfounded and we are wary of libel but this story has been gaining momentum all day and is a headline sports story on all the major news cycles.

Disgraced rider Floyd Landis who was stripped of the 2006 Tour [...]

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Confidence in the corners, great straight line speed and good mud clearance are all features of this tyre from Specialized.

A good sticky rubber compound keeps things glued to the trail, this is a great tyre for muddy trail conditions and is ideal for the early racing season. We recommend the tubeless 2.0 version but [...]

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Not cycling related but this put a smile on our faces.  Anyone fancy swimming with whales?

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Drury street car park now includes an indoor bike park for 192 bikes in the heart of Dublin, steps from Grafton Street.

Opened in October it hasn’t exactly been widely publicised

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This is a great time of year to set your goals for the season. The recession seems to have brought out the outdoors in lots of people and looking ahead there are lots of great events coming up, including a lot based around the challenge idea and away from simply a pure race.  That’s [...]

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Rachel, Gee and Dan Atherton have just signed a 2 year deal to keep them riding Commencal frames. The deal sees Team Animal Commencal renamed Team Commencal.  Between them the family has two senior World Championship jerseys from 2008 but they suffered a difficlt season in 2009 with Rachel out injured for the entire season.

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A very Happy Christmas to all our readers. We hope Santa brought you something bike related!
We are taking a break for the festive period but will be back shortly.  Its not a total break though as we are taking the opportunity for some intensive testing of some new test gear which we will be bringing [...]

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No sooner had we posted on the Icebreaker Merino yesterday than an email dropped into our inbox from Ritchey on their new Merino L’Eroica jersey.

The L’Eroica is an annual retro cyclotouristic rally

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Want a real Pro bike?  Here is your chance.  Team Garmin-Slipstream are selling of their fleet of ‘08 and ‘09 bikes including some of their top riders machines.

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Cycle Inn rider and former downhiller, Janos Kohler, placed 2nd at the second Red Bull Road Rage in Switzerland last week.  Riding his spare road bike (he managed to break a titanium one) he posted the fastest individual time in qualifying too against some serious pro opposition.

We asked him some questions after the race…

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The Off Road Commission wing of Cycling Ireland which runs the sport in Ireland will hold it’s Annual General Meeting this Saturday the 10th of October in Cavan town.  The Commission is responsible for approving venues for the NPS series to name but one function and is hoping to build on a great 2009 season [...]

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Over the weekend of the 19th/20th of September 150 riders lined up for a 24 hour race in Mayo.  Some competed in teams of up to 5 while some brave souls ventured out for 24 hours of non-stop riding.  Come 2pm Sunday and an exhausted set of competitors fell across the finish line at the [...]

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With all the problems that our sport faces with regard to doping, it is sometimes refreshing to hear of some of the major players within the industry speaking out against the use of performance enhancing drugs.  Shimano have just released a statement on their anti-drugs policy with regard to sponsorship and we thought you might [...]

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