British Cycling, the Bicycle Association, and Cycling UK have all condemned the Department for Transport's THINK cycle safety campaign which was launched earlier today.

Cycling organisations were briefed about the campaign in advance, and were told it would be "balanced". [The balance appears to be another video, which is a list of tips for drivers and isn't anywhere near as polished or as professional as the HGV video.]

Steve Garidis, operations director of the industry organisation Bicycle Association said: “Whilst it is clearly welcome that the DfT’s Think campaign is looking to produce material which helps cyclists, the approach taken in the video is inappropriate in its style, and unhelpful in giving an impression of responsibility lying solely with the cyclist."

He added: "The Bicycle Association has funded highly successful road user awareness videos highlighting the space cyclists need on the road, and guidance on how drivers can overtake cyclists safely. The BA would be very happy to support the DfT to produce more effective content in future videos.”

Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s senior road safety and legal campaigns officer said:

“Cycling UK raised its concerns with this campaign at the earliest stage and we are very disappointed this was not taken on board. Hopefully, following the understandable widespread negative reaction THINK! has received from road safety campaigners, they will rethink and re-engage to learn from their mistakes.

“The THINK! campaign should be a powerful voice for helping to change road practice, but unfortunately sometimes its messaging is wrong."

British Cycling's campaigns manager Martin Key said: "It is important that people are made aware of how to share the road safely giving each other plenty of time and space, particularly at junctions. This video places all the responsibility on the cyclist by showing a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre resulting in a collision."

He added: "The campaign also needs to tackle the cause and not just the symptom. Safer driving, safer vehicles and better road layouts would have a much greater impact than relying on scare tactics. British Cycling has raised these concerns directly with the Department for Transport following the launch of its ‘hang back’ campaign.”

The West Midlands police traffic team has also commented on the HGV video: "Let's just say we won't be using it, we might use it to show drivers not what to do though."

Question: why is the cyclist shown carrying a bag hanging from his handlebar? Odd.

HOY Vulpine’s AW16 range has now been released, with a focus on layered garments that provide flexible solutions for variable climates. 

As a collaboration between British urban cycling apparel company Vulpine and Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy, the range was tested on location at French Alpine cycling hub Col de la Bonette, a 2,715-metre climb known for its volatile conditions. The modular range is designed to be comfortable, adaptable across all seasons, and understatedly stylish. 

“After winning awards for last autumn/winter’s range, in our first year, we’ve gone up a level again,” said Nick Hussey, Vulpine founder. “Chris and I wanted to concentrate on getting the details right, for real-world riding. A lot of British riding involves dark skies and mixed conditions. So we’ve added a lot of reflectivity. But we researched perforated reflective fabric, so that it still breathed. We created a seamless merino base layer, with a high neck for really cold rides. We needed a waterproof jacket to protect it – the Signal Jacket – which is neon, reflective, tough, warm, and ventilated. It will survive hours of riding in driving sleet. We couldn’t find this kit so we made it.” 

Vulpine’s team started their ascent in the range's lightest garment, the long-sleeved Senko Jersey, pairing it with thermal bib shorts and a packable Signal Gilet to provide warmth in the early morning air. As they climbed in altitude, they swapped into the Fortress Jersey, which is constructed from a thicker weight of water-resistance fabric, and arm warmers, which could be taken on and off when necessary. As they neared the summit, the team changed into the fleeced Roubaix Jersey, finally changing into the ripstop-incorporated, reflective Beacon Jacket, which was worn on the nearly-dark descent. 

Sir Chris Hoy commented: “We all know that autumn and winter seasons in Britain can be challenging and unpredictable. Throughout my riding, I’ve always taken the approach of layering up n the colder months; having key items of kit that stay with me and are added to as the temperature drops. Nick and I share the same principles in this respect, but we knew that there were so many improvements that could be made in this area, so I’ve worked with vulpine to design a brand new modular range for autumn/winter that we’re both really proud of.” 

The range at a glance: 

AUTUMN

• Long Sleeve Senko Jersey

• Signal Packable Gilet

• Men’s Thermal Bib Shorts / Women’s 3/4 Length Bib Shorts

• Storm Cap

• Portixol Waterproof Jacket

LATE AUTUMN/EARLY WINTER

• Fortress Jersey & Arm Warmers

• Long Sleeve Roubaix Jersey

• Softshell Gloves

DEEP WINTER

• Randa Softshell Jacket

• Beacon Jacket

• Seamless Baselayer

• Roubaix Bib Tights 

For more information, visit here. 

Road cycling exhibition Rouleur Classic has announced its initial lineup of guests, with Olympic gold medallists Laura Trott, Jason Kenny, and Joanna Rowsell Shand now confirmed as attending. 

Returning for a second year on November 3rd-5th at Victoria House, London, the Rouleur Classic offers attendees the opportunity to enjoy interaction with brands and athletes in a relaxed environment. Team pursuit gold medallist Joanna Rowsell Shand is scheduled to attend the show with Watt Bike on the opening evening for a live Q&A session in the Rouleur Classic Theatre, and the evening will also celebrate the Tour de France with Christian Prudhomme previewing the 2017 route. Laura Trott and Jason Kenny will also attend the final day of the show, promoting their official autobiography and discussing their success and future aspirations.  

A number of exhibitions will be on display, including a behind-the-scenes look at the history of Team Sky through the work of photographers Scott Mitchell and Michael Blann, and an exclusive showcase of racing memorabilia belonging to cycling legend Sean Kelly. 

40 premium cycling brands will showcase the best of their collections featuring a combination of bespoke finishes, new products, classic bikes, and the very latest in bike design and tech. 

Tickets are available for purchase here.

British Cycling, the Bicycle Association, and Cycling UK have all condemned the Department for Transport's THINK cycle safety campaign which was launched earlier today.

Cycling organisations were briefed about the campaign in advance, and were told it would be "balanced". [The balance appears to be another video, which is a list of tips for drivers and isn't anywhere near as polished or as professional as the HGV video.]

Steve Garidis, operations director of the industry organisation Bicycle Association said: “Whilst it is clearly welcome that the DfT’s Think campaign is looking to produce material which helps cyclists, the approach taken in the video is inappropriate in its style, and unhelpful in giving an impression of responsibility lying solely with the cyclist."

He added: "The Bicycle Association has funded highly successful road user awareness videos highlighting the space cyclists need on the road, and guidance on how drivers can overtake cyclists safely. The BA would be very happy to support the DfT to produce more effective content in future videos.”

Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s senior road safety and legal campaigns officer said:

“Cycling UK raised its concerns with this campaign at the earliest stage and we are very disappointed this was not taken on board. Hopefully, following the understandable widespread negative reaction THINK! has received from road safety campaigners, they will rethink and re-engage to learn from their mistakes.

“The THINK! campaign should be a powerful voice for helping to change road practice, but unfortunately sometimes its messaging is wrong."

British Cycling's campaigns manager Martin Key said: "It is important that people are made aware of how to share the road safely giving each other plenty of time and space, particularly at junctions. This video places all the responsibility on the cyclist by showing a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre resulting in a collision."

He added: "The campaign also needs to tackle the cause and not just the symptom. Safer driving, safer vehicles and better road layouts would have a much greater impact than relying on scare tactics. British Cycling has raised these concerns directly with the Department for Transport following the launch of its ‘hang back’ campaign.”

The West Midlands police traffic team has also commented on the HGV video: "Let's just say we won't be using it, we might use it to show drivers not what to do though."

Question: why is the cyclist shown carrying a bag hanging from his handlebar? Odd.

"Buy local," urges Pushys the Australian online bike store. That a webstore on the other side of the world has to promote the fact it "is 100% Aussie" tells you that it's fighting a foreign foe. And that foe is now very much singular. Where before Wiggle and Chain Reaction were two, they are now one – but either as a "they" or an "it", ChainWiggle ships its goods all around the world, and threatens not just bricks-and-mortar stores in the UK but globally.

Pushys is now, er, pushing back. "We think that we're taking market share from Wiggle and Chain Reaction," Pushy's co-founded Peter Van Orveren told Australian trade magazine Bicycling Trade.

"I think [Wiggle and Chain Reaction] still ship into Australia more than what we sell," added Van Orveren, "but we're growing at a very healthy rate of over 50 percent per year."

Pushys has annual sales of about £18m. It was founded in 2011, and has 110 staff. It can ship product to Australian consumers quicker than its international competitors. The online store is complemented with a bricks-and-mortar store in Canberra, and this too is thriving, also growing at 50 percent year on year.

"We have a pump [online] for $24.95 and [the physical store sells it] for $49.95. We compete against each other, yet we're growing that business very healthily," said  Van Orveren. "A lot of shops say they can't sell accesories any more because of the internet, but since Pushys Online has been here and all those other guys from overseas, we've grown a very successful shop down.

"I think there's a bright future for brick and mortar stores," concluded Van Orveren. "The good ones will survive, but I think there will be consolidation ahead."

There are plenty of strong claims being made for the use of graphene in the bike industry but, to date, only Vittoria, Catlike and Dassi have graphene-linked products on the market.

Catlike uses graphene in its high-end Mixino helmet. Vittoria’s 2017 tyre range is again majoring on the inclusion of graphene in its list of ingredients. Vittoria claims that adding a one-atom-thick layer of graphene allows its tyres to remain hard on the straights but soften during braking or cornering. The Graphene+ tyres are also longer-lasting and more puncture resistant, says the Italian company, and they dissipate heat more efficiently. Other companies are not so convinced: the head development at Continental, Christian Wurmbäck, told Cycling Weekly that a Carbon Black is better than graphene in tyre manufacturing. And plenty of trade folks scoffed when Dassi of the UK said it was making a composite frame with graphene. Not the whole thing, of course, just one percent, but it’s an important one percent, believes Dassi.

Launched at Dassi’s HQ in Hartley Wintney in Hampshire, the graphene-enriched frame weighs 750g, but Dassi claims that this could be nearly halved by increased use of the wonder material. (The frame has an outside layer of carbon fibre, and six layers of graphene composite within.)

Dassi CEO and founder Stuart Abbot (a former Rolls Royce aerospace design engineer) said that a frame made with graphene could be reduced by a further 200 grams. He also plans to make graphene-enriched stems, seatposts, and seatclamps. Likewise, Vittoria adds graphene to the carbon fibre in its wheel rims.

It’s not very well known that graphene was first isolated at Manchester University, and the city of Manchester aims to capitalise on its connection with the National Graphene Institute which is based in a futuristic new building just off Oxford Road, one of Manchester’s key thoroughfares, and which is currently being dug up for the installation of protected cycleways.

The material was isolated – using Sellotape ... really, really – by two Manchester University physicists, Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov: winning them the 2010 Nobel prize for physics (and knighthoods). “Usually when you make materials thinner and thinner, their properties deteriorate,” said Sir Andre. “But with graphene we found things only got better.”

Graphene been hailed as the strongest and most conductive material in the world, with a huge range of electronic and medical appplications.

The university’s National Graphene Institute was opened last year, and it researches how the super-thin substance, popularly isolated from a smudge of pencil lead, can be commercialised. The building was funded by the UK Government with £38m, and received £23m from the European Union's European Regional Development Fund (don’t mention Brexit to a graphene scientist in Manchester; the university gets £1m from the EU for its graphene research). The institute operates on the 'hub and spoke' model, working with other UK institutions involved in graphene research.

The building houses state-of-the-art cleanrooms, plus laser, optical, metrology and chemical labs and equipment.

Sporting goods companies were among the first to make graphene-enhanced products – aside from bike frames and tyres, there are graphene-enriched tennis rackets from Head.

Graphene has a tensile strength of 130 gigapascals (Gpa), and, on a molecular level, is claimed to be the strongest known material in the world, 2000 percent stronger the toughest carbon fibre (Toray T1000 has a tensile strength of 6.3 GPa) and nearly percent stronger than diamond.

While we’ll never see a full frame made from graphene, it’s likely we’ll see more wheels and wheel brake tracks using the material, specifically because of its heat-dissipation properties.

Graphene is also a superlative electrical conductor and could be used to in electronic drivetrains, power meters, computers, and lights.

The Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute has used 3D printing to produce straight graphene oxide nanowires and woven structures, Shinshu University in Japan and Penn State in the USA have developed a way to produce a graphene oxide yarns.

Vittoria has been working with graphene for nearly six years, in association with Directa Plus, a graphene factory. Directa Plus supplies graphene to Vittoria as three-to-seven-atoms thick “nano-platelets”.

A Qurano wheel made with graphene, says Vittoria, has 50 percent more lateral stiffness, 10 percent better heat dissipation, 18 percent more impact strength and yet is 15 percent lighter. Vittoria is an investor in Directa Plu, which was founded in 2005 and is based in Italy.

“Graphene can improve the mechanical properties of a composite, as it can share the strain when added to the epoxy resin matrix and make it stiffer,” said Paul Wiper, a National Graphene Institute research associate. “But you have to get the balance right. A lot of graphene, say 10 or 20 percent of the matrix, would make it really stiff but it would also be brittle.”

China has invested £3m in the National Graphene Institute via a five-year research partnership with the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical Materials. When President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China visited the UK last year he made sure to visit the National Graphene Institute.

For 2017 Vittoria is expanding its line of G+ graphene-enriched products, including a new triathlon tire and the new Pista series of track tyres. A new all-round Rubino Pro tubular version will also be available, and Vittoria is also producing a graphene-enhanced tyre for e-bikes.

Vittoria claims its new Triathlon Speed with has 10.9 percent improved improved rolling resistance over the previous version. Available in 23-28” sizes, retailing for €94.95. The new Pista Speed track tyre with G+ Isotech has 20.7 percent less rolling resistance than the Pista Evo CL, claims Vittoria.

The new Adventure Tech, Trail Tech, Randonneur Tech and Revolution Tech e-bike tyres all feature G+ Isotech compounds as well as ]puncture protection technology, and offer regulatory compliance for use with e-bikes. They retail for €29.95.

Vittoria is also introducing two new products in its Downhill product range. The Martello and Mota feature an a dual-ply reinforced casing with a rigid tubeless-ready bead and APF (Anti Pinch-Flat) insert. Both feature 4C and Graphene technology. Available in 26×2.5 and 27.5×2.5, with RTNT G+ technology, from 1380g, and with a retail of €59.95. The Gato G+ MTB tyre has been redesigned for MY 2017. Gato G+ is now a fast-rolling wet conditions XC race tyre. The G+ Isotech compound and the round profile are said to ensure even cornering transitions.

“The introduction of graphene allows for natural material barriers of rubber to be removed,” claims Vittoria, “which means that there is no longer the need for compromises between speed, grip, durability and puncture resistance.”

K-EDGE has announced the release of the brand new Garmin Sport Mount.

K-EDGE has announced that the updated mount will retail at a new low price of £29.99, made possible by increased efficiency in both the design and manufacturing processes.

The device is made of K-EDGE’s CNC-machined aluminium, offering pro-positioning for computers both out-front and flush with the top of the handlebar. The brand has also managed to keep the weight low, at 42g per 31.8mm diameter unit.

The new Garmin Sport Mount is compatible with a range of Garmin computers including the Edge 820, 520, 510, 500, 25 and 20.

In addition to these features, it has a replaceable Garmin insert with K-EDGE’s 'Definitive Click' locking system. It is also Carbon bar safe, so riders needn’t worry that the unit will damage their bike.

John Harris, K-EDGE brand manager at Madison, said: “We are really excited about the new K-EDGE Garmin Sport Mount. Everyone knows that K-EDGE mounts are the best on the market but lots of consumers can be tempted by cheaper, inferior products. At £29.99 this new mount is very affordable, but isn’t any less reliable – and you need a reliable piece of kit when it’s holding your £300 plus Garmin.”

Madison will begin distributing the K-EDGE Garmin Sport Mount immediately. If you have a stocking enquiry, please get in touch with your local sales agent or visit www.madisonb2b.co.uk.

Mel Berry, founder of Very Berry, has been appointed as chairman of the triathlon Industry Association (TIA) board.

Berry will swap roles with Nick Rusling (CEO of Human Race), who becomes deputy chair of the ten-person board, after two years at the helm.

Commenting on her appointment, Berry said: “As someone who cares passionately about the sport of triathlon, and wishes to see its commercial future flourish, I am very proud to represent the industry as chair of TIA.

"Mine and the new board’s vision for the association over the next twelve months is to strengthen key partnerships with industry leaders and the governing body British Triathlon, as well as growth into new areas.

"This will involve consultation with and continued growth of the membership and a focus on monetising the success of the Rio games for TIA members. We have seen year-on-year growth of 15 per cent over the last year, and our core purpose is to see this continue.”

The new TIA board will see the introduction of a new approach to the association’s quarterly meetings, which provide the key platform for its 100 members to collaborate to develop, grow and protect the sport.

Meetings will now welcome external speakers in order for TIA members to learn best practice both from other sports and industries.

For further information, visit: www.triathlonindustryassociation.org

Silverfish UK has hired Richard Schofield as marketing manager.

The distributor, which deals in such brands as Mondraker, Yeti, Evil, Race Face, Easton, Evoc, Onza, SDG and Knog, has reportedly selected Schofield based on his long-term involvement in the cycling industry and his wealth of experience in various marketing roles. Most recently, Schofield worked at the BIKE Channel, following on from a role as publishing director at Immediate Media. He worked as a member of the team that built the portfolio from a UK-focused magazine group into a global player in cycling media, 

Most recently, Schofield worked at the BIKE Channel, following on from a role as publishing director at Immediate Media. He worked as a member of the team that took the portfolio from a UK-focused magazine group and developed it a global player in cycling media, having launched BikeRadar and acquired Cyclingnews. In addition to this, Schofield was responsible for major print titles such as MBUK, Cycling Plus, Procycling, and 220 Triathlon. 

“Richard joining is a real coup for us," commented Matthew Osborne, general manager at Silverfish. "His appointment completes a series of senior appointments across the business which will extend our continued growth and deliver an even better service to our brands and retail partners in the UK and Europe.”

“Based alongside us in Cornwall, Richard will enhance our strategic thinking and planning across all our marketing channels and support our soon to be launched new B2B website. We have enjoyed a record-breaking year, both here in the UK and in Germany. Our plans, alongside the continued strength of our brands and our excellent dealer network, look to build on this success for the future; upskilling our marketing effort is a key part of building further momentum."

Schofield commented “I’m really excited to be joining the team. I have been aware of Silverfish’s reputation for some time and I am relishing the chance to work with the innovative and premium brands they represent. Having spent over a decade in cycling media I’m excited to work in a new area of the industry and hope my marketing and digital experience will help further develop the great brands and support for our dealers.”

The Netherlands has opened the world’s first bike path made from recycled toilet paper.

According to Holland Trade and Invest the bike path has the runs from Leeuwarden to Stiens. 

A ton of asphalt requires three kilos of fibre, and a consortium of contractors decided to recover the cellulose from "waste water" and add it to a mix of aggregates and bitumenous concrete. "This unique process is a step towards making road construction more sustainable," said representive from the consortium.

Contractors have warned cyclists not to ride fast on the path because stopping suddenly might result in skid-marks. 

It's common for cellulose to be added to asphalt – the M6 toll motorway used pulped fiction, or more specificially thousands of Mills and Boon novels. 45,000 books were needed per mile, reported the BBC in 2003.

+++

Crap? Sorry. It's a reference to the Warrington Cycle Campaign's "Cycle Facility of the Month" feature, online since 2001 and published in book form as "Crap Cycle Lanes". Oh, and the skid-marks joke is courtesy of Ian "I used to work for Pashley you know" Hall.

Fifty-four women's cycling advocates from around the world will join Trek at the company's global headquarters in Waterloo, Wisconsin, this week for the inaugural Global Women's Summit.

The three-day summit – which comes on the heels of Trek's first week-long, women's-only, scholarship-funded Certified Service class – serves as the kick-off event for Trek's larger ongoing campaign to make cycling more accessible to women around the world. In Waterloo, advocates will attend seminars with Trek's marketing, engineering, design, retail, manufacturing, product development, and sales departments to learn tools that will help strengthen the relationship between women riders and retailers in their home towns.

The advocates will hear an address by Trek president John Burke on the importance of advocacy in the company's history. They will also visit with Gary Fisher and attend group road and mountain bike rides led by Trek Travel.

"We have big goals for this program," said Amanda Schulze, Trek's womens' business manager. "This formula puts talented, enthusiastic, approachable women cyclists in the field where they can make the biggest impact, and gives them the tools they need to lead the initiative in their communities to get more women on bikes."

The advocates were chosen from an applicant pool of more than 250, including bike shop staff, an adventure therapist, a retired police sergeant, a student in mechanical engineering, a retired chief medical officer from the Betty Ford Clinic, a pianist, and a mathematics professor.

Following the conclusion of the summit, the advocates will return to partner retailers in their respective communities to lead outreach efforts, group rides, clinics, and events over the course of the next year.

"Our goal with the summit," said Schulze, "is to help grow community and create a more inclusive industry and environment. It's a grassroots effort. This is going to be a really fun week, and these women are going to do extraordinary things. In the end, what they do in their communities this year is going to make cycling better for women."

Nine Cube test bikes were taken before the start of the 2016 Cycle Show.

The bikes were intended to be ridden by attendees on the Cycle Show demo track, where bikes from brands such as Batribike, Lapierre and e-bike specialist Bosch were made available for testing.

Cube confirmed that other models were introduced for the public to try out at the event and that the incident didn’t particularly affect activities.

The bicycles were taken without battery keys, and in several cases the batteries were not in the frame rendering the bikes incomplete.

In order to use the bicycles, the help of a dealer would be probably be needed. Therefore, Cube has requested that all cycle shops keep an eye out for the exclusive models in the coming weeks.

The test models that are missing include the 2016 Cube Stereo Hybrid 160 HPA Race 500 and two 2017 models – Access WLS Hybrid Race 500 and Cube Stereo 140 HPA Pro 400. 

The largest annual cycling industry gathering in North America once again descended on the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Innovation was the central theme this year, with product releases from the likes of Polar, Lizard Skins and Muc-Off.

Team BikeBiz was once again in the middle of the action, you can find a larger Facebook gallery here and a full report from the show will feature in our November edition. 

Prospective participants have until 5pm BST today to pre-register for the first ever Vélo Birmingham – a 100 mile fully closed road sportive taking place on Sunday, September 24th 2017.

Entries will go on sale exclusively to those who have pre-registered at 8am on Thursday, September 29th, and will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis. With tens of thousands of pre-registrations and just 15,000 entries up for grabs, demand for places is going to be huge.

With the sportive setting off in Birmingham city centre, riders of varying levels of ability will travel through Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Sandwell and Dudley, before returning to Birmingham.

For more information, visit here, or follow Vélo Birmingham on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Last week, the BikeBiz team travelled up to Birmingham’s NEC Cycle Show, Britain’s largest gathering of cycle traders.

While we did set up our own booth so that interested parties could sign up to the print magazine, we were also able to make our way to a number of exciting, creative, and notably more colourful stands dotted around the hall. 

Our Facebook photo gallery is now available for viewing here, and an extensive account of the show will be printed in the November magazine over the next few weeks. 

The BikeBiz Directory 2017 is set to return alongside the December print magazine and we're calling on you in the trade to get in touch if you have a new business or altered details since the publication of the 2016 edition.

The deadline is October 20th to submit your firm's details, which you can do by emailing us. If you were included in the prior edition and your details remain unchanged, there is no need to re-submit.

To be listed, BikeBiz asks that you supply the business address, telephone, website link and type of business that apply to you from the categories listed below (max two categories per business).

If you're in the process of moving premises or are opening a new store in the near future, get in touch via khowells@nbmedia.com.

For advertising enquiries, or to simply boost your listing's presence within the directory, contact rsetters@nbmedia.com.

The categories are:

Services and training
Legal, insurance, Cycle to Work, sales and mechanic training, shop fitters, service centres, printing and prototyping

The largest annual cycling industry gathering in North America once again descended on the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Innovation was the central theme this year, with product releases from the likes of Polar, Lizard Skins and Muc-Off.

Team BikeBiz was once again in the middle of the action, you can find a larger Facebook gallery here and a full report from the show will feature in our November edition. 

Prospective participants have until 5pm BST today to pre-register for the first ever Vélo Birmingham – a 100 mile fully closed road sportive taking place on Sunday, September 24th 2017.

Entries will go on sale exclusively to those who have pre-registered at 8am on Thursday, September 29th, and will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis. With tens of thousands of pre-registrations and just 15,000 entries up for grabs, demand for places is going to be huge.

With the sportive setting off in Birmingham city centre, riders of varying levels of ability will travel through Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Sandwell and Dudley, before returning to Birmingham.

For more information, visit here, or follow Vélo Birmingham on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Last week, the BikeBiz team travelled up to Birmingham’s NEC Cycle Show, Britain’s largest gathering of cycle traders.

While we did set up our own booth so that interested parties could sign up to the print magazine, we were also able to make our way to a number of exciting, creative, and notably more colourful stands dotted around the hall. 

Our Facebook photo gallery is now available for viewing here, and an extensive account of the show will be printed in the November magazine over the next few weeks. 

The BikeBiz Directory 2017 is set to return alongside the December print magazine and we're calling on you in the trade to get in touch if you have a new business or altered details since the publication of the 2016 edition.

The deadline is October 20th to submit your firm's details, which you can do by emailing us. If you were included in the prior edition and your details remain unchanged, there is no need to re-submit.

To be listed, BikeBiz asks that you supply the business address, telephone, website link and type of business that apply to you from the categories listed below (max two categories per business).

If you're in the process of moving premises or are opening a new store in the near future, get in touch via khowells@nbmedia.com.

For advertising enquiries, or to simply boost your listing's presence within the directory, contact rsetters@nbmedia.com.

The categories are:

Services and training
Legal, insurance, Cycle to Work, sales and mechanic training, shop fitters, service centres, printing and prototyping