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We spent the weekend up in the Lake District working with Cycle Active at Wheelbase Cycles ‘BIG Demo Weekend’. The weekend sees the biggest bike shop in the country, pulling in some of the most famous brands to showcase their bikes and have punters come and ride them! Brilliant!
So what were we doing up there? We were guiding Wheelbase Cycles clients around the 6 varied ability loops making sure they got the most from their test rides. With 3 sessions running per day over the 2 days with 16 clients per session it was go, go, go, but the beautiful weather and stunning scenery made it easy to ignore our burning quads!
A total tally of 16 puncture repairs over the weekend kept me busy as well as snapped chains, bent mechs, dented rims, buckled wheels and jammed chains!! I wasn’t sure whether to put this down to bad set up from the bike manufacturers, the Lake Districts bike battering terrain, or a lack of technique from the clients… Having found out after that none of the guides had any mechanicals, I can only assume bad technique on some of the tricky sections. It just goes to show that even the most expensive bikes won’t smooth over shady bike skills. That being said, sometimes bikes just fail!
The brand reps were keen to get us on their bikes too, so we were able to ride loads of incredible bikes including the Intense Carbine SL, Trek Fuel 9.9, Lapierre Spicy 916 and Intense Spider 29er.
Sam and I were so impressed with the organisation of the event, and more so with the quality of service and knowledge from the Wheelbase staff. There aren’t many bike shops that could pull off a weekend like this consistently each year, but Wheelbase have it dialled! Next years event runs 23-24 March 2013… We’ll be there, so don’t you miss it.
Check out the ‘BIG Demo Weekend’ gallery here.
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