Fancy some singlespeed fixie action German style? No not Fixie inc (we’ll check them out later) – here’s some Bergamonts that caught the eye. Not sure about pedalling the pink and white number down Peckham High Street but there’s also this classy looking flat bar version or a tougher looking urban effect black and green number – I’ll try to nip back later and get a shot of that baby in focus… 
Something altogether more radical on the technical front – at least in the sense that it’s come back into fashion again – is belt drive, in the form of these two new belt driven Treks. Apart from being different and probably silent, not sure exactly what the great benefit there is of powering your bike with a plastic belt. Unless this is very special plastic, which I’m sure Trek will tell us it is, there is no way that a belt is as efficient at transferring your power to the back wheel. Even without the belt drive the new Trek District is an eye-catching bike. Sporty looking semi-discs look great but this isn’t a performance machine – and I wouldn’t fancy catching one of those urban crosswinds that blast out of sideroads. The clock is nice, maybe it’s for timing your run into work – and the chainguard makes a lot of sense. It’s weird, but I like it. 
Slightly less weird is the ’09 version of the Soho which combines belt drive with a rear hub – and still gives you somewhere to carry your coffee. 
Street classicism from Salsa (try saying that with a mouthful of würst in a bun), the Casseroll has been around for a while, but I haven’t spotted one before with a chainguard – could be I wasn’t looking hard enough. If the Trek and the Salsa are anything to go by Chainguards could be something a mini-trend on ‘performance’ commuters – Mike Burrows will feel vindicated and so he should – not everyone wants to ride around town fast with one trouser leg rolled up or your jeans tucked into your socks (hurts my knee eventually). As ever with Salsa, nice detailing around the dropouts. 
Street bikes are go…
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" ... noticeably easier to pedal." Really? How noticeable? I've seen a thing at point of sale in a major bike shop near Kingston which had two identical chainsets connected to two different bottom brackets, inviting the customer to try spinning each one and go "ooh, this one spins much longer when there's no grease in it or load on it, it must be better", but from what I've read, the real-world difference between tuned ceramic and out-of-the box decent steel is about one watt, at best?
@imajez Most people would have walked, but we take your point. I've never had a problem with riding on stoned tracks, designated as footpaths, but I'm not ripping up the surface on downhill footpaths. 0:-)
'Rather than using cups that cartridge bearings sit within, the MAXhit is the bearings, if you catch my drift' Still none the wiser - stick with dub and a ceramic Chinese affair at that which are brilliant for cost & durability in my experience!
@tomlew Will check Neco, cheers.
I’m not sure it’s a knee jerk reaction from Adam Hansen’s point. I think it’s more the media, as per usual, having a full statement in front of them about everything that was wrong with the tragic incident on Friday, and running with the headline that will get the most attention and clicks. No doubt this very publication will be the same come Monday. My sincere condolences to Finlay’s family and friends.
@mdavidford Always worth remembering with these spending outcries as well that a fatal road incident costs us as taxpayers £2.7M, and a serious injury incident £325,000. So if just one fatal road incident, or a small handful of serious injury ones, has been prevented across the whole of Oxfordshire by 20mph limits in the last four years, the taxpayer is actually in profit.
For reference, annual highways spend is about £80m (out of a total spend of £999m). Less than 0.013% is an interesting definition of 'high'.
Maybe the problem is the bikes are too good to make the trails challenging. Hence the growth of trail centres. Most MTBs are ludicrously competent now, particularly e-MTBs. Want a challenge? Change the bikes to something less competent.
Didn't move with the times, consequently it failed. Sad for the employees, but the real Raleigh died years ago.
"If there wasn’t enough parking the car-owning residents would be up in arms organising and petitioning the council" There isn't enough parking, in pretty much every neighbourhood. There a street in my town, where just about every house has off road parking for at least 2 cars, but somebody still saw fit to paint lots of parking bays along it. In addition to just encouraging even more car ownership, it causes regular incidents where people simply can't wait for a gap in the traffic and overtake the parked cars into oncoming traffic. (Said road is on a bus route, and a short walk from a well connected railway station, a large supermarket and not too far from town, but people still feel the need for multiple car households. It's a strange mindset that we've got ourselves into.