Bikes, Bikes, Bikes

Team Sky

Look Mum. No hands cafe

I am Precious website

London is going bike crazy at the moment. The cycle highway is up and running, the hire scheme is here and there are loads of Skyrides happening soon. Plus there is a brand new British pro cycling team in the form of Team Sky.

So this post today is going to be bike related. We've already mentioned the Nike Chalkbot from the Tour de France so we won't repost that one, however we have found these pedal powered related things...

Team Sky

A brand new British team that is gaining popularity more and more. David Brailsford (Head of GB cycling) has decided that he wants to conquer road racing. And with the like of Bradley Wiggins in the squad he is bound to achieve this soon.

The website is put together nicely with not much advertising from Sky. Fans can stay up to date with every race with their race centre and see the latest videos and pictures.

Team Sky have actually just signed a deal with Map my Tracks, which means real time training data may be made available to fans, and for bike geeks this is very cool. Google did something similar with the team HTC Columbia during the Tour de France. It's finished now, but you can still see how it looked here.

They have also become popular on Facebook. Mainly because they want to be very involved with the fans.

The Team Sky website is here.

Look Mum. No hands!

This is a nice cafe near us that lets you take your bike in and have a coffee.

One of the problems with cycling around the city is the chance of having your bike stolen, even if you do lock it up. So, to get round this Look Mum, no hands cafe has decided to be cyclist friendly and let you park it inside the shop. There's lots going on as well such as guest appearances from Pro Cyclists, like Michael Barry (Team Sky) and meet ups for bike rides around London.

The location on google is here.

I am Precious

Janeen is riding her bike (called Precious) across America for the Livestrong foundation. Livestrong is Lance Armstrongs charity, hence the bike link.

The clever thing about this idea is that they have put sensors on every part of the bike. Speed, cadence, gradient, terrain etc are all tracked, and then nicely visualised as a virtual bike. The bike also tweets as if it were human. The site is here.