Beyond Premium This is an exciting one. SWI – as the name and the branding imply – are a Swiss enterprise. Swiss, but also Italian. All very good things in this particular instance and the brand is formed at an interesting intersection, both geographically and technologically. SWI is an ultra-premium cycling brand creating unique and remarkably beautiful bespoke, high performance custom carbon road bikes. Each SWI frame is engineered in Switzerland and fabricated in Italy…
Premium in a sea of premium In this job it is often easy to become numb to the marvels of high-end road bikes – being as I am, immersed in it daily. This ‘bike blindness’ has been difficult to shake in recent years with much of what I have been exposed to and ridden being all a bit same same.So you’re a snob Dave. Fussy. Absolutely!I’d have it no other way. I have no desire to…
So, it finally happened. It was bound to eventually. Only as a result of necessity mind. I had a New Bike Day.I have been riding a rim brake bike with mechanical gearing in an old race position, largely unchanged save for some tiny tweaks, for over 15 years. In that time three key things have happened. I have gotten older. I have gotten less fit. I have stopped racing.I did well I think. Up until…
There are many, many bike cleaning products on the market. Some have pretty colours, some smell good. They are, by and large, much of a muchness. Few do a really good job. At 700 we have been serially unimpressed with the level of product, range (either too small or WAY too big) of product and sad to say, quite often the lack of support from brands, on the bike cleaning front. There are some notable…
I did not set out to be a retailer. I consider myself a lapsed Biologist. I studied it at Uni and was particularly fond of the macro: animal behaviour and ecology, so what follows is meaningful personally. My trajectory changed shortly after leaving university. I was pondering my future in science while working a weekday 9-5, supplemented by weekend bike shop work. If it hadn’t been for a crate of beer and a drunken discussion…
Hello people of the wheel.Firstly let me wish you all a very Happy New Year. Let us hope that 2023 brings plenty of positives to us all. I for one hope to renew my love affair with the bike after a distracted few years. It will be a slow (literally) but rewarding process, of that I have no doubt. I’m penning this partly as a catharsis but primarily to relay some thoughts and feelings and…
One of the most important elements any cyclist will consider along their cycling journey is shoes. If you want to enjoy cycling it is essential that all contact points are well addressed. Uncomfortable feet are ride killers, sense of humour slayers and have the potential to end your cycling career in favour of something stupid. Like running. (I started running, we’re cool!) So which should you buy? There’s a simple answer to that – the…
We like Silca.Their range of products grows at a sensible rate with each addition carefully considered and engineered to offer the best possible benefits to its users : us! As we approach the darker, colder, wetter and muckier months, we can expect to have to spend a little extra time and effort on cleaning our bikes. Those of us that don’t like big maintenance bills down the line at least. Most of us like to…
In 2021, ENVE debuted their Custom Road frame project (something currently only available in the US) and promised that the in-house fabricated, full-custom road bike was not a one-hit wonder, rather the beginning of a new chapter for ENVE as a frame and complete bicycle manufacturer. Enter the Melee. Mind prepped, body ready, equipment on point. The rest is out of your hands. When the gun goes off, a melee ensues.Enve Enve’s involvement in frame…
45 Years dedicated to perfecting your ride For 45 Years, Basso have been hand crafting bikes in Italy. To celebrate this impressive milestone, they have created an extremely limited run of their flagship bike : The Diamanté SV 45o Anniversario The release to dealers was typically Italian: a relatively well translated and effusive narrative surrounding time, love and other similarly evocative language, designed to stir the emotions and paint a picture of the dedication and…
