Wednesday 9 November 2011

An audience with a cycling Legend

Tonight I went to The Bike Factory in Chester for the launch of a new Bike range. ( I told you there were other bike shops available)
First of all I was privileged to see the owner of the bike factory receive a commendation from the CTC for their services to cycling in the Chester and North Wales area.
The main event was the unveiling of the new Boardman Bikes Pro range. The man himself, Chris Boardman MBE was there to introduce the range and explain the reasoning behind the brand and new bikes. Then Andy, the operations Manager of Boardman Bikes, explained how the range came to market, why they have chosen the designs and also why they have chosen independent retailers to sell the brand rather than a national chain. After the talk Chris answered questions from the audience about his cycling success in Time Trials, The Tour and The hour challenge. All very interesting and inspiring.
After this there was a scrum to have photo's taken with Chris and get autographs, so I took the opportunity to talk to Andy about the bike designs, specifically integrated headsets and bars!!!!! You had to be there!
I waited until there was a chance to talk to Chris. Most people were talking about the Tour etc, so I decided to ask him about next years sport relief challenge against his old adversary Graeme Obree! He admitted to me that he originally hadn't agreed to take part, just supply the bikes, but in the end, Bowed to the pressure and agreed! As I have said before I have seen Chris training recently, and took the opportunity tonight to extend an invitation to our Saturday morning training sessions! I'm not sure he took me seriously, but you never know he may turn up one day!



Not only did I meet Chris Today, I also had a bizarre experience that started after I replied to a post on Twitter.
I ended up talking to Yanto Barker, a past Tour of Britain competitor and now signed to Team UK Youth for 2012 and owner of Le Col clothing http://www.lecol.net/. We were discussing Clothing sizes and the range available to the rounder cyclist. More to follow in the future on this one!!

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