Get into Road Cycling

Get Into Road Cycling is the only magazine completely dedicated to new riders and improvers. Our aim is help get you on the fast-track to acquiring the fitness, skills and kit you’ll need to properly establish yourself as a fully-fledged road cyclist. Inside these pages you’ll find guides to buying a new bike, getting fit, eating well and learning essential riding skills like hill climbing and cornering. The advice within comes from the experts at Cycling Plus – the UK’s biggest selling cycling magazine written by the most trusted names in the business. Road cycling is great way to improve body and mind, take on new challenges, make friends and have fun. Your journey is about to begin, so swing a leg over and enjoy the ride.…

1 HEALTHY BODY As hobbies go they don’t come much healthier. Cycling is a great form of exercise without putting huge amounts of pressure on the knees like running. With obesity affecting 25 per cent of UK adults and 10 per cent of children, finding fun ways to keep yourself and the family active makes a lot of sense. While helping keep body fat down and lowering cholesterol the knock on effects of regular cycling include healthier bowels, better sleep and a reduced risk of developing cancer. 2 CYCLING CITIES As Britain continues to transform itself into a bike-friendly nation, money has been pumped into our cycling cities. With millions having been injected into eight English urban centres, as well as four national parks, there will be yet more cycle…

The road bike hasn’t changed a great deal over the years at first glance. Compared to complex full suspension mountain bikes, this is a traditional bicycle with a near identical silhouette to those raced 50 years ago, even if the technology has moved on. It’s important to know your way around a road bike in order to get the best from it. While the overall shape has changed little, the details are quite different. The most important aspect is how the bike fits you. If you get that right at the start, everything else will be simple. SADDLE AND SEATPOST As you would expect, these parts have a big impact on the comfort of your ride. For road bikes especially, the comfort is more dependent on correct set-up than it…

YOUR LOCAL BIKE SHOP IS STILL THE BEST PLACE TO BUY A NEW BIKE DESPITE THE MANY TEMPTATIONS OF THE INTERNET Are you after a bike that you can do 75 miles on in a weekend, hammer the hills with, race or simply explore the open road on? Whatever bike takes your fancy, what follows is our guide to deciding how you can get aboard, explaining what you need to buy, how you go about buying it and where to find the best possible deal… CUTTING THE COST The Cycle to Work initiative has encouraged employer-purchasing schemes combined with government tax breaks. This makes it possible to treat yourself to some serious equipment, worth up to £1,000, and feel that you’re getting something back from the taxman at the same…

THE BIKES ON TEST PINNACLE LATERITE 3 £700 Pinnacle is the house brand of Evans Cycles. Its Laterite 3’s double-butted aluminium frame is paired with a carbon-bladed fork. Both have mudguard fittings, there are rear rack mounts and this sub-10kg bike has Shimano 105 shifters and derailleurs – great to see at this price – and all the cabling is internally routed. This all looks like a lot of bike for quite a modest amount of cash. ROSE PRO SL 2000 £860.04 One of the big German direct-sales specialists, Rose offers an absurdly good spec for the money with a full Shimano 105 groupset, right down to the chain. You also get tidy Ritchey finishing kit and Mavic Aksium wheels. The fork is full carbon, and some supersmooth welds mean…

The Laterite demonstrates all the advantages of 105 There’s barely a town in Britain that doesn’t have an Evans Cycles store, which is one reason you see so many Pinnacle bikes. Pinnacle is the Evans in-house brand, and while the range encompasses bikes costing well over a grand, the Laterites, Dolomites and cyclo-cross-inspired Arkose allrounders are Pinnacle’s bread and butter, most of them costing well under £1000 and featuring some very good kit for your cash. Our Laterite 3 demonstrates that perfectly, coming with an 11-speed setup based around Shimano 105 shifters and derailleurs, making it one of the most economical routes to the world of 11-speed. At the heart of the Laterite is a double-butted aluminium frame. The tubes are predominantly round, with a slightly flattened top-tube, and there’s…