New on road.cc: Buy it Local buttons

It's great being able to look for reviews of cycling kit online, but here at road.cc we know that lots of you also like to support your local bikeshops, wherever they may be. And we do, too. That's why we're teaming up with UK distributors and some manufacturers too to add Buy it Local buttons on any of their products that we review.

What's a Buy it Local button? For now it's a link to take you through to the dealer locator page of the distributor that's responsible for the product (or in the case of Giant a link through to their 'Click and Collect' service). You can then use their online search engine to find a local bike shop that stocks the brand. So far Giant, Upgrade, Paligap, Moore Large, 2Pure and Hotlines have signed up to have the buttons added to their reviews and we're working to get as many other distributors and manufacturers to sign up so that as many reviews as possible carry the button. The idea isn't to favour one way of buying over another, but to give you the maximum amount of choice, buying online is always going to be a competitively priced and convenient option while the Buy It Local button offers you the chance to always buy the actual product reviewed rather than something similar and to benefit from the personal service and knowledge to be had down at your local bike shop.

Make sure you phone ahead to the shop to ensure they have the product in stock before you rock up cash in hand; they may not have any available, although most good bike shops will be happy to order something in if you call them and ask.

That's how it works for now - we've been adding the buttons to the site since just before Christmas; as things progress you'll be seeing more and more of them, and we're working with a number of distributors to see if we can introduce a more sophisticated system. More news on that when we've got something to show you. But for now it's another option if you want to know where you can buy a product in person.

As mentioned the Buy it Local buttons are already live on some reviews and we'll continue to add them. Not every review will carry one, but we aim to cover as many products as we can. Look for the button in the sidebar of the review, to the right of the main image.

And if the picture of the groovy looking One23 hex keys has pricked your interest you can read the review here