We will be opening our normal trading hours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and will be open on Bank Holiday Monday the 7th of May from 10am to 4pm, our Sunday opening hours.

Fingers crossed it will be dry so we can all go out on the bikes! Fancy coming for a road ride?

Also. We are delighted to formalise an offer to Barnes Cycling Club a discount at The London Cycle Workshop, awarded for their current and continued shop loyalty. Thanks guys and girls! We really should all go out for a ride together soon.

Here at The London Cycle Workshop it has been business as usual, even though there have been some pretty miserable rainy days of late. The workshop and the shop are both busy as people gear up for spring cycling. The workshop has seen a few updates recently as we have been gearing up for busier times. There have been a few excuses, (not that we need any really), to purchase some of the latest tools to keep up to date with this years advances, the biggest of which so far is probably Shimano’s Di2 electronic gear shifting, (and Campag’s EPS for that matter). We have seen a number of bikes already that have come equipped and had a chance to supply and install the groupset last week. See the picture below, there are more in the updated gallery page along with a few other bike builds we have done recently.

Dave's TCR Advanced with 'Ui2'

With the changing seasons also comes changing stock on the shop floor. We are constantly adding to the products available both in stock and by special order. We have updated the stock page to make it easier to browse our list of suppliers. In the shop today there is an expanded range of saddles, including many demo options both for men and women, an expanded and growing range of spring and summer clothing, spring gloves, new helmets, a wider range of pannier bags, lots of new bar tape colours, and a really good selection of nutrition. The expansion of stock never ends!

Also, by popular demand, we will very soon be stocking a range of cycling shoes, watch this space for delivery in store, we are probably looking at the second week of May. Very exciting, all will be revealed in good time!

A wider range of Jerseys

More and more wheels from Mavic, including Road, Mountain Bike and TrackMore of the road range

More luggage options

Gatorade and Zipvit join Nuun, SIS, Cliff, Powerbar and others

This week we have also taken delivery of another Polaris bike box taking our hire fleet up to six. Bike box hire has been really busy this year. More information can be found on the bike box hire page, including pictures and prices. To reserve a box either phone or e-mail. The main condition of hire is to send a postcard from your destination! The postcard collection is really coming along now!

Postcard collection on the back wall!

As mentioned above, the workshop is as busy as ever. Our focus here at The London Cycle Workshop is still service and repairs. We do not run a diary or booking system and welcome the work as and when it comes into the shop. We will look at your bike with you and agree what needs to be done including providing a quotation. Work can be done on the spot, same or next day depending on when the bike can be collected and the availability of parts as needed. More information can be found on the workshop page including a full price list. The price list will soon be updated to offer a better description of the services we offer, (not updated to enact a price hike!).

As always here at the London Cycle Workshop, along with having a clear and transparent price list for service and repair work, we would like to remind all of our customers that we fit all accessories purchased from The London Cycle Workshop for free, including new tyres and wheel sets. Bought from us = no fitting charge. It may cost a couple of quid more to buy in a shop rather that on-line, but the internet cannot fit your three quarter length mudguards or new cycle computer. You get the idea, enough said.

Right, that’ll be all for now, check back soon for further details and updates. If you would like to keep a closer tab on the going ons of The London Cycle Workshop you can follow us on Twitter, I am pretty sure there is even a Facebook page, (Nick is in charge of that one)! A big Thank You as always to all of our customers for their on-going support and loyalty, we are well in to our third year and have met some great people. Cheers. We have also updated all of the other pages so feel free to have a good browse.

We will be open:

Friday the 6th as usual, 0700 to 1900.

Saturday the 7th as usual, 1000 to 1800

Sunday the 8th and Monday the 9th closed to go riding.

Tuesday the 10th open as usual from 0700.

Hope you all have a nice Easter break, check back next week to see the latest web update.

Actually, something does spring to mind. Our telephone. Now, don’t get me started or I will be moaning and winging for hours and hours, but last month we took the decision to move our phone line and internet back to BT. We did this in the hope of better customer service and a slight monthly saving. The engineer came out and completed the physical line swap on Wednesday the 8th and since then BT has messed up the order and we have been unable to receive incoming phonecalls. We can make calls, but not receive them. You can ring us, and it will sound like it is ringing as normal, but this end nothing is happening. It has been a whole week now.

We are, of course, extremely sorry to all of our customers who have tried to phone us to no avail. What can we say apart from blame BT. I am livid and am still waiting for an apology. In the meantime, keep in mind that we are open as usual and still able to receive e-mail. I will update the website when this situation changes.

On a lighter note…

We have been working hard as usual on all of the bikes we have to service and repair. At the same time we are also trying to finish off some of the shop improvements. New for this month are the bike hoops we have added to the shop floor making it easier than ever to come into the shop with your bike. They are such a practical addition we should have added them a long time ago. We have had really good feedback from customers so far, let us know what you think.

Probably the only time this Pinarello gets lent up against bike hoops!!!

Brooks saddles. One of our favorite items in the shop. Handmade in a British factory, by British workers, using British leather. Since 1866. We all have Brooks saddles. They are like an old friend. And they are pretty, really pretty. We have decided to keep in stock more of the Brooks range in a push to become a dealer of excellence. This means we now have a greater selection on display along with more Brooks accessories.Check out their website here.

Brooks in the cabinet

Sprinter Limited Edition, (1057 or 1925)!

To all the customers who ask which sportives we will be riding this year… Nick and Simon have signed up to the New Forest Spring Sportive to kick start the year, well as it is on Sunday the 15th of April it is kick starting Spring really! If any of you would like to join us there is still loads of time to sign up, check out the info on the UKcyclingevents website by clicking here. Right, now we better get some training in!!!

Ignore the Wiggle logo!!!

Well, that is probably all for now, apart from to mention that we have updated the gallery page with a load of new custom bike builds and staff bike pictures, the workshop page has a new wheel building feature, and the links page has had an update too. Any questions, comments or general feedback please feel free to get in touch. And as usual, a big thank you to all of our customers for their on-going support, without you we couldn’t keep getting better and better!!!

Over the Christmas period we were shut between Christmas and New Years to give the shop a smart new re-fit. We have pulled down the old suspended ceiling to take it back up to it’s original full height.  This meant installing new lighting which gives the shop a warm and welcoming feel, (not that it wasn’t warm and welcoming before mind!). We have done away with a counter and have replaced it with a simple workbench at the back of the shop which adds to the new sense of space, and have build a series of glass display cabinets to display stock. A series of small changes really have made a huge difference. See the pics below…

Shop from the front door

Shop from the workshop

Work counter and display cabinets

It was a good few days of hard work from The London Cycle Workshop team, including family members and flat mates! A big thank you for all of your efforts, we couldn’t have done it without the team effort! And a thank you also to St. John’s Hill lighting for supplying the lighting fixtures and giving us advice, (website here).

Updating and upgrading the shop is a never ending process as we strive to make The London Cycle Workshop the best independent local bike repair shop it possibly can be. It’s getting there! And as with the shop we are constantly adding to the array of parts and accessories that can be found in the shop. Check in to see what’s new including the rotating displays in the display cabinets. As always, we value the feedback and comments of our customers to make sure we are in touch with their needs.

Shop fitting aside, it has been business as usual so far in 2012 with the workshop staying steadily busy every day. The workshop procedure and prices are all the same for 2012 and more details can be found on the workshop page of this website. We have also been doing more and more custom bike builds of all shapes and sizes, check out the gallery page for some pictures of the most recent builds.

With January has come a shop milestone, as of the 2nd of January we had been open and trading for a whole two years. It may be young in bike shop terms but it means a great deal to all of us that work here and strive to continually make it better and better as a shop. And of course, that means a big thank you to all of our customers for their continued support, after all without you we couldn’t have got this far.

Well that’s all for now, back to work. More to follow soon. And do drop by to see the new look shop, we are very proud!

All we want for Christmas...

Just a quick note to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

We here at The London Cycle Workshop will be closing today, Friday the 23rd of December for our Christmas break. We will be around in the shop on the 28th, 29th, and 30th of December although we will be completing some shop repairs so the place will be a bit of a mess! We will be officially re-opening on the 3rd of January.

Mash frameset side view

Mash front view

Nick is offering it for sale as a Frame, Fork, Columbus headset, Easton EC70 seatpost and a Powerplay stem. Asking price £550. Further details including geometry information can be found on Cinelli’s officail website, or by popping in for a chat!

Firstly we should point out that this post is not the only thing that is new here at The London Cycle Workshop website. We have been through all of the pages and given everything a good update including the workshop page, the about us page, the gallery, (many new pictures of custom builds), and we have added a new links page which will expand over time. We are also working on a stock page as we have opened many new supplier accounts giving us access to many more excellent cycling brands, (more below).

It has been a very busy summer season here at The London Cycle Workshop, we have serviced and repaired literally thousands of bikes, it’s been crazy! At the same time we have been making constant repairs and upgrades to the shop, including a good sort out in the workshop to create more space, a new design counter to create more space in the shop, and more display wall space on the shop floor so we can continue to add new stock to the shop.

New and improved services we have been offering in the shop over the last few months include bike box hire for taking your bike on an aeroplane, (see the bike box hire page), and investing in an unbelievably good parts washer. This means we can now offer what we think is the very best drivechain de-greasing service in the whole of London, (bold claim, we know), and a really good ‘commuting service’ which includes a general service and a drivechain de-grease, (see the workshop page and price list for more details).

Our stock levels have continued to grow this year as we have added some new brands to our portfolio. These include: Abus locks, Cateye lights and cycle computers, Tortec pannier racks, Altura pannier bags and clothing in addition to Endura, BikeParka which are the best bike covers we have seen, (see the link from the links page for more information), Smile and Pass it on greetings cards and mugs, (just for fun), and Mavic wheels parts and accessories, (a really exciting new addition for us for their excellent wheels, now in stock). Over the summer we also became a Fi’zi:k and Selle Italia saddle test centre. This means you can borrow saddles from us for no charge to test which one is best for you. Pop in for a chat or more information.

Fi'zi:k and Selle Italia test saddles

Mavic wheels including the Ksyrium Elite

Lastly, we have purchased a shop Garmin so that we can plan some road rides. We opted for the Edge 800, all singing all dancing model with the excellent colour touch screen. It is an impressive piece of kit, everytime we use it we find some new features! The idea has always been to plan a ride and invite you, our customers, to come and join us so watch the website for a ‘rides’ page in the future. For now, when we are going out we will probably tweet to invite you along! Also, if any of you have any rides you would like to share then please e-mail us over the Garmin Connect link.

Right that’s it for this update. Please check back for future updates and news on The London Cycle Workshop webpage, we will be making a more concerted effort to keep it up to date including new pages for stock and rides as mentioned. Thank you as always to our customers for their continued support of this shop, we have only been able to grow it and improve it with your help and feedback.

Picture courtesy of dark cycle clothing!

Stop press!

One last piece of news. The London Cycle Workshop is now happy to offer all members of local cycling club Clapham Chasers 10% discount on parts, repairs and servicing. As cyclists as well as mechanics we are always happy to support local clubs and teams. We already offer an array of services from bike box hire, to drivechain de-greasing, general repairs and full services, parts and accessories, and all available seven days a week with workshop jobs turned around same day depending on parts.

We are very proud to say that The London Cycle Workshop has survived the all important first year! It’s been a long year full of ups and downs, (mainly ups we’re pleased to say) and with the support of the local community and fellow cyclists along with a growing following of loyal customers, The London Cycle Workshop has become a permanent fixture of St. John’s Hill.

Those of you who were with us from the start, or have been following these updates, will have seen quite a transformation over the months. When we first started we had no money left for stock so the shop looked a bit thin. As the year has gone by and we have met and talked to our customers, we have been adding more and more stock to the shelves week after week. In fact we are already running out of room!

Probably the biggest addition to the shop was the recruitment of Nick as a second full time bike mechanic. This also meant re-designing the workshop to make space for a second workstand and set of tools, (to which we also add to week after week – a guilty pleasure of ours!). This has enabled us to keep up with the growing demand for bike servicing and repairs.

The vat increase and its impact on prices.

We, like all others have been affected by the recent increase in vat. Throughout January we froze our prices on both stock and labour rates. We have decided that the stock we had in hand as of the vat increase will stay at the marked price. New stock will be priced at the new recommended retail price, which has crept up a bit. The prices for labour will stay as they are, (a full menu of which can be found on the Workshop page), and we will review them later in the year. We really want to keep the labour rates as they are more or less, as we think we have got them about right, reflecting the time it takes and the complexity of each job. And, to be frank, we have seen the high prices some shops charge for jobs and it seems unfair.

The shop and stock.

The first priority for us when we opened was just making it through year one. Now we can tick that off, year two will be about improving the shop space we have including the workshop, and increasing the range of products we have on the shop floor. This will mean opening new supplier accounts and creating more display space in the shop. So far, almost all of the accessories and clothing we have in the shop are there because we have listened to what our customers would like to see in their local shop. In a shop our size it would be impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but we try our best to try and find a good balance. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

In order to use the shop space we have more efficiently we will be carrying out some shop alterations including building a new shop counter and installing an additional work bench in the workshop. Please bare with us if the next time you visit the shop looks a bit messy during these improvements!

The workshop.

As mentioned above, the workshop, as with the shop, is growing and improving every week. We are constantly adding new tools and expanding the amount of parts we can keep in stock for repairs. It is hard to express just how many different parts there are for bikes, and it would be almost impossible to have everything at hand all of the time, try as we might. We aim to complete each repair job within a day, depending on parts. No work will be carried out without either it being agreed upon when the bike is dropped off, or after a telephone call to explain. Every bike service and most repairs are completed with a full hand written workshop receipt detailing the work undertaken and a full breakdown of costs.

As many of you will know, we don’t run a diary or appointment system here at The London Cycle Workshop. You can bring your bike in for servicing or repair at your convenience, we will have a look at the bike with you and then agree on the work that needs to be carried out and the deadline for collection. We are flexible when it comes to storage BUT we are also a small shop with limited storage so we are always grateful when a bike is collected on the day that been agreed. We really don’t want to ever turn any customer away because we don’t have the room to store their bike so please help us by collecting yours on time!

We also carry out many repairs, including puncture repairs, while you wait. There is seating for waiting customers and normally a selection of reading material on the counter!

On a personal note…
Both Nick and Simon are building up new road bikes for 2011 as we both want to get out and do more longer distance cycling. Well, what is actually happening is a lot of procrastination regarding groupsets and so on, (Campag vs Sram vs Shimano etc) but by the end of March if not sooner they should be together and ready to go! We are both cyclists for the love of cycling and don’t take it too seriously, but at the same time we are both serious about getting out on the bikes more.

Ambitiously perhaps, what we want to do is form a bit of a shop cycling club so we can go out cycling with some of our customers. We plan to get some jerseys made up and would like to go out once a fortnight if not once a week. I start this paragraph with ‘ambitiously’ not because we lack the dedication to make it happen, more because the shop keeps us pretty busy and time seems to be flying by already! What we will do is put up a sign up list in the shop so if you would like to come cycling with us, leave us your e-mail address and we can keep you updated.

In fact, it will be our London Cycle Workshop shop team cycle route organiser extraordinaire, Jim ‘Every Gram Counts’ Dutton, who is in charge of planning! Well done Jim.

Right, that’s all folks… drop back for future updates of which there will be more this year!

The first thing to say is well done to all of you that have battled on cycling through the unseasonably cold weather of late. With ice and snow on the ground it can be pretty hairy cycling, so please be careful out there. Make sure you wrap up warm and make yourself as visible as possible when cycling this time of year. With the dark mornings and early evenings, making sure you are visible to other road users is essential. Reflective wear and a good set of lights are a must, and keep an eye out for black ice on the roads.

Since the drop in temperature we have noticed a predictable down turn in trade, as many shops will have this time of year.  We have been stocking the shop ready for winter, with lots of lights, reflectives, winter tyres, (please ask for advice), and winter clothing. Our clothing company, Endura, is based in Scotland and they have been struggling to keep up with deliveries the last couple of weeks due to the weather. Sorry to all of you who have come in to find the item you are looking for is out of stock.

January the Second marks a years trading for us, and to say thank you we will be having a first Birthday party at GJ’s in Wandsworth on Saturday the 15th. There will be live music, a band and dj’s, a hog roast in the garden, (don’t forget your gloves!), and a complimentary drink on arrival for all of our customers! Please ask in the shop for an invite, all are welcome, the more the merrier!

It’s been an amazing first year for us here at The London Cycle Workshop, far exceeding our expectations. We are so grateful for the support we have received from the local residents and cyclists, without you none of this would have been possible. We started with almost nothing in the shop, and have been able to stock it according to feedback and requests from the customers we have met, meaning it has been the customers who have shaped the shop, (with our guidance!).

During Christmas and New Years we will be trying to catch up with a few diy jobs in the shop, finishing off a bit of work in the workshop and the storeroom. If the shop looks a bit messy during this time, please bear with us. And speaking of the Christmas and New Year period, here are our opening hours:

December 24th Christmas Eve, Open 0900 to 1300.

December 25th Christmas Day, Closed.

December 26th Boxing Day, Closed.

December 27th Bank Holiday Monday, Closed.

December 28th Bank Holiday Tuesday, Closed.

December 29th, Open 0900 – 1730.

December 30th, Open 0900 – 1730.

December 31st New Years Eve, Open 0900 – 1300.

January 1st New Years Day, Closed.

January 2nd, (Our official 1st Anniversary) Open as usual.

We will still be available throughout via e-mail, info@TheLondonCycleWorkshop.co.uk.

Well, that’s it for now, more to come in a few weeks. Keep Warm!