Month: April 2013

Back in the mid to late 80’s I was in my late teens, the fittest I have ever been and as well as being an A’ Level student, I was a mountain biker racer.  I raced most weekends throughout South Wales, the Forest of Dean and surrounding areas and that was my life.  My school’s ‘games’ consisted of Rugby in the Winter and Cricket in the Summer and that was it, I however got special dispensation (one of only 2 in the school) to ride my MTB during games and was trusted to do so.

Throughout this time and for another 15 years the thought of having a child was an alien one to me, I was often heard saying “I’ll never have children” or “Not for me”.  The mountain biking took a back seat during and after university when I moved away from the biking mecca that is the Forest of Dean and for a while, cycling all together left my daily life.  

Roll forward to 2008 and the fitness bug bit again only this time it was mainly running.  After a couple of years, several marathons and one amazing cycling trip to the Alps, I decided the bike was my preferred mode of transport and wanted to get back into all things cycling.  It was also about this time that my wife and I had decided it may be time after all to try for a child.  Never say never…..

Since the birth of our lovely daughter Sophia 1 year ago I have really got back into cycling, specifically mountain biking.  Another birth took place last year too, that was the birth of the Hadleigh Mountain Bike Club. Based on the legacy of London 2012, the Olympic track being only 3 miles from my house, I wanted to be a part of it for sure.  Me becoming a part of the club, riding more and more and wanting my family involved has lead to where I am now and to writing this review.

Being 1, my daughter is now old enough to come out on the bike with me but with so many options of how to carry, push, tow and generally transport her, which is the best?  We started looking at seats that attached to the bike as, in my opinion, all that towing them in a trailer is a bit boring and she is too young for a tag along type bike attached to the rear of mine.  There seems to be 3 options for this type of seat, behind you, in front of you (on the bars) or between your legs (on the cross bar).  After immediately discounting the ‘behind you’ option primarily because I thought “who wants to stare at my back whilst riding” and also it would be difficult to interact with her whilst behind me, we started looking at front mounted options.

Coincidentally, it was at this time my work with the Hadleigh Mountain Bike club and it’s supporters and sponsors led me to WeeRide UK who are the UK distributor for several child safety products from, amongst others, the WeeRide brand.  A couple of days later, their latest offering, the WeeRide Front Safe arrived at HMTBC towers and it was time to get testing. (yes this is a product test and not a life story but you know I like a story)

WeeRide offer 2 mid mounted, front facing child safety seats, each coming in 2 variants, Standard and Deluxe. The 4 different models can be seen on their website at http://www.weerideuk.co.uk/  The product we have for test is the WeeRide Front Safe Standard which, in the middle of the range, probably makes it the most popular choice.  

Opening the brightly coloured box sees 3 well packaged items, the seat itself, the mounting bar which attaches it to the bike and the  ‘resty bit’ (more on that later).  I am not usually one for instructions, I  am after all a man, however I felt compelled to read them thoroughly as this is a review which someone might read and take notice of.  I can confirm the multi lingual instruction manual is comprehensive and easy to understand however if you are near an internet when you install the WeeRide, I would suggest watching the instructional videos on http://www.weerideuk.co.uk/Videos.htm  which are very easy to understand and will have you up and running in no time.

Almost no time…..   My first gripe with the WeeRide was that it was a little fiddly to install the bar that clamps between your seat post and headset, adjustability to any length of top tube was simple and they even include long bolts for those with oversize head tubes however with the nuts, bolts, washers, protective inserts and the clamps it takes a dextrous person to make light work of it.  Once installed however it felt very safe and secure and importantly did not foul the top tube running cables on this, my old 1980’s race MTB (yes I still have it).  In order to attach the ‘resty bit’ (more on that later) to the seat itself, you will need a screwdriver, normally I would not mention that but the WeeRide came with the spanner and allen key required to attach the bar to the bike so why not include the simple third tool needed to complete the job?  

‘Resty bit’ attached (more on that later), the process of attaching the seat to the bar is so simple, a 6 year old could do it.  Very cleverly however not something a 1,2 or 3 year old could do.  The single thumb screw that attaches the assembled seat to the bar and therefore the bike, is between the child’s legs but only tightens or loosens when pressed hard down (imaging a child proof pill bottle from the pharmacy) making it impossible for your little one to loosen it whilst on board.   The other advantage of this single screw design is that the seat can be removed and attached to another bike as desired (WeeRide sell the mounting bar separately or a pair bundled with the seat).

Final adjustments before getting Sophia in her new seat consisted of adjusting the 5 point harness and foot cups (which are height adjustable) to somewhere near where I thought they would need to be and for the observant amongst you, put some pedals on my bike.  I had a quick ride around and noticed straight away I would have to adjust my riding slightly as my knees would bang on the seat in front of me.  I was expecting this however and to be perfectly honest it’s a small adjustment and worth it for having the child so close.

Our first ride:

When strapping Sophia into the seat for the first time, I noticed another great safety feature. The buckle on the 5 point harness requires you to press 2 small red buttons before allowing the clips to be released, again making it very difficult for your child to make a premature bid for freedom.  Once strapped in and with her helmet on (there in lies a whole other story) we were off and I have to say both mine and my daughters immediate reaction were great.  

Having your child directly in front of you feels almost like they are sitting on your lap and although securely strapped in I also felt extra comfort that my daughter was between my arms as I held the handlebars.  In addition to the safety aspects, it is also really easy to see her face and interact with her, pointing things out and seeing that she is looking too.  As for riding the bike with the extra weight of the seat and baby it was noticeable but not difficult in any way.  I have ridden a bike with a handlebar mounted seat before and this felt unsafe as all the weight was over the front wheel and more importantly the steering.  The WeeRide does not have this issue and apart from knocking my knees a bit, the seat felt good.

Let’s talk about the ‘resty bit’

I am not sure what it is called, I was also not really sure what it was for however I can now say without a doubt that I am calling it ‘the resty bit’ and “It’s an inspiration…. ”  The pictures on WeeRide’s website show a child asleep hunched over the resty bit which I thought was wishful thinking but my daughter did exactly that on one of our rides so it must be comfortable.  There are other uses for the resty bit too, as you can see from the pictures below.  It’s a sleep rest, a toy shelf, a play table and I reckon you could mount guns on it too for shooting less considerate road users like the driver who knocked me off my bike the other day (thankfully without Sophia on board).

Overall the WeeRide Front Safe is a fantastic child seat for anyone who wants to have their child, not only on the bike with them but also in a position that is safer and provides more scope for interaction than rear mounted or handlebar mounted options.  

The question that most of these stories (reviews) ends with is “Would I buy one?”   To that I can answer an emphatic “Yes”  I like the fact that my daughter is effectively between my arms on a seat that looks comfortable (hopefully she will agree when she can talk), holds her in nice and securely, can be simply moved between my wife’s and my bike and most importantly has the versatile ‘resty bit’ for everything from a mid-ride power nap to the gunning down of inconsiderate motorists.  One day, I could even mount a laptop on it and dictate my reviews to her whilst we are out riding.  That, however may be some time off….. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, there are 2 versions of the Safe Front.  Whilst the ‘normal’ version I tested in this review is great and ticks all the boxes you would want, I personally would spend the extra 20 quid and go for the Delux version which has a little more padding on the seat, harnesses and ‘resty-bit’.  In fact, probably the Delux + so as to get a second mounting bar and save a few quid off the combined price.

Wee Ride seats, along with a whole host of other child safety and cycling products can be purchased directly from WeeRide’s website.  http://www.weerideuk.co.uk

Review by – Chris Hyde

Who am I ?

“I am stronger than steel, stiffer than aluminum, have more impact strength than carbon fibre, can be eaten, drunk, used to make medicine, paper, textiles musical instruments and scaffolding”

Any ideas yet?

What if we add “I am also the staple diet of the Giant Panda, a species of grass and used to make Mountain Bikes…..”?

Yes, you are not mistaken,  “I am Bamboo!”

Now before we start, lets get some facts on the table. Bamboo is a very versatile material, that is clear to see.  All of the above statements are true, from gravity defying scaffolding up the sides of sky scrapers in Hong Kong, to ancient Chinese medicine to Mountain bikes made in Yorkshire…..  We all, of course, already knew about the Panda..

I felt at odds with myself on the drive to London to pick up the bike.  Here I was driving to the big smoke, in my (carbon footprint of a small nation) Range Rover to pick up a bike that was largely ‘grown’ in the ground and more sustainable than the wind, as anyone who has ever tried to get rid of bamboo from their garden will know.  My guilt subsided when I started to think about the 2 whole weeks I was allowed to have the bike and also that I was picking it up, not from the London reseller, but from Rachel herself..

Once finally parked, travelling by bike in London is much easier, I met Rachel headed for the nearest coffee shop to sit down and get my questions answered.  What? Who? Why? Where? When? How?  Lets answer those questions right now.

Lights on full, it was off into the mud and my first reaction was how stiff the frame felt, every push on the pedal resulted in instant forward motion, no slack or twist in the frame at all.  This made for very quick progress on the harder forest trails, aided ironically by the bad choice of tyres.  It was not long however before we got to the mud and this is where the tyres fell down.  Grip was almost non existant in the sloppy stuff (these are not mud tyres) and I spent as much time going sideways as forwards.  Two things became very obvious here though: 1.  It was great fun and good for honing my bike control skills and 2. The Bamboo bike is extremely agile due to that stiff frame.  Back on the harder surfaces I also noticed that the bike does a good job of ironing out the smaller bumps and in some respects feels like a titanium bike would

We swapped bikes over between a few of us and everyone agreed the bike felt fast and agile yet forgiving, opinion was still divided over the looks however, that was one for the pub later on.  One thing we all agreed on though is that this bike looks great when it’s muddy and feels almost more at home and at one with it’s surroundings.The next big outing for the Bamboo bike was supposed to see it (and me) take on the jumps and bomb holes of Danbury.  When we got there however it was way too muddy to do any justice to any of the downhill runs so we just did the XC.  It was also the first outing on my new Kinesis bike so that was my steed for the day and the Bamboo remained securely in the back of the Carbon Footprint.

Week 2 saw me and my new found friend joining an outing to Bedgebury where around 30 of us spent the day riding the ‘almost’ dry trails interspersed with chocolate bars and cups of tea from the cafe.  This was the day that saw the Bamboo bike really come into its own.  The Rubena Scylla Racing tyres now started to make sense, the drying trails providing enough grip to be confident in the corners and over the huge number of exposed roots, there were only a few places where there was still real mud but we will ignore those.  Riding the Bamboo Bike in the dry, on twisting single track was a joy, the stiffness of the frame providing instant acceleration and climbing with the forks locked out was as good as any metal bike I have ever ridden.  There were a lot of exposed roots on the trails making for a very bumpy, and sometimes technical, ride, the Fox forks up front did their job well and felt a perfect match to the frame giving me every confidence to push on even over the most bumpy sections.  One negative I did notice was a lot of chain slap over the bumps and it did try to part company from the rings a few times, this was probably more noticeable as my daily ride is a 1×10 setup with a clutched derailleur and this was a 3×10 XT jobbie..

There is no doubt that the Bamboo Bike attracts a lot of attention and there were many conversations within our group about is construction, how it looked and how it rides.  I, after nearly 2 weeks and a good few miles, am still positive on all three counts.  Why was I musing about this again?   It was one of the trails at Bedgebury that did it,  I’ll let the picture below do the talking:

OK, there is a question mark missing but the answer is quite simply – No!

The final section of the single track loop at Bedgebury is called “Again, Again” and consists of a purpose built trail with berms and jumps all the way down. When we got to the end, the name made perfect sense as all I wanted to do was do it again.  The bike was great over the gravel surface feeling really smooth and totally composed in the jumps and through the berms.  I had more confidence than I expected enabling me to really press on however a later check of Strava showed we were not really pressing on and were clearly more tired than first thought.  Still it felt great and reinforced my respect for the bike made of grass.

My final day with the Bamboo bike was a cold one and I was lucky enough to gain access to Hadleigh Farm and the track used for last year’s highly acclaimed Olympic MTB events. Unfortunately, for now the track is closed to the public and most of the ‘obstacles’ are gated off so as to prevent over keen MTBers gaining access to the track and shortly later to the local A&E.  I had a last quick ride of the bike over the less technical bits of the track which are mainly surfaced in gravel and the odd small rock bump and jump and my opinion remains: This really is a competent bike which is comfortable with anything you throw at it.

To sum up my 2 weeks with the Bamboo Bike, it has been mixed.  Everyone who sees the bike has something to say about it, usually either something positive or something involving parcel tape.  Everyone who has ridden it however agrees that it is a real mountain bike with real mountain bike credentials that feels stiff like carbon yet forgiving like titanium.

So the question remains: Would I buy one?

Well, yes and no, it’s a bike that divides opinion on every level except actually riding it.  Personally I thought £1199 for the frame only was a little steep, however it is hand made in the UK and sustainable so somehow seems worth it.  There is also no denying the credentials of Bamboo as a construction material however it’s quirky and different so difficult to make a purchase decision over a more traditional ‘metal’ bike.  Finally I have come to the conclusion that as I already have several bikes made of light metal, heavy metal, plastic and carbon why not add one made of Bamboo to the collection?  With Bamboo Bikes current offer of half price frames, I might just be thinking about a CX version.  Alternatively, whilst giving the bike a final clean before packing it up I had a thought…..