Liv Avail: My new wheels for the Etape du Tour

As part of my preparation for the Etape du Tour I have been given a bike by the good people at Liv Giant, a Liv Avail road bike which is perfect for long-distance rides and cyclosportives.

There's nothing like new kit to get you motivated to take on a challenge - be it clothing, a training device, and my case a bicycle. 

I have recently taken ownership of a Liv Avail Advanced 2, and I must say I'm loving it (as the saying goes). 

The good people at Giant-Liv have provided me with a bicycle as part if their ambassador programme. Liv have a history of supporting women in their bike-riding adventures - be it in elite road racing athletes and teams, amateur athletes, or events like the Women's Tour de France. 

So I am very happy and honoured to be supported by Liv, and I am very excited to be riding one of their bikes.

The Avail Advanced 2 is an endurance bike, with a geometry that allows a slightly upright position rather than a full-on racing position that you find with the Langma. Endurance is my thing these days, so it is ideal for cyclosportives. It comes with Shimano 105 groupset, hydraulic disc brakes, and tubeless tyres. Most importantly, the saddle is a women's specific Liv Approach, which I have used before on other bikes and I know it will be comfortable over many miles. The other important thing is the very low gears, which are perfect for my ageing knees!

I must say I like the deep green colour (officially called Kelp Forest), which then gradually shades into black at the bottom. You don't often see bikes in that colour so that makes it quite distinguished. 

I will do a proper review in the coming weeks, but I just wanted to say how excited I am to have the bike. Maurice Burton and his team of shop assistants and mechanics at De Ver Cycles kindly set up the bike for me, and it was quite a joy to get out and ride around the block when trying it out. I look forward to getting in lots of miles and smiles on it

Related posts 

Operation Etape du Tour: February update

The Etape du Tour comes to Nice

Back again to Paris by bike

Daily photo - 16: Bye bye Blue Door Bicycles

After nine years of trading at Central Hill, Crystal Palace Blue Door Bicycles has shut up shop. It's a real shame that the shop is no more. A combination of high rents in the area plus people choosing to buy their bikes and bike bits on line has led to the demise of the business.

It's such a shame that the shop is going. This site has had a bike shop there for almost 100 years, so it is a real shock that there will now just be an empty shop. It's a sign of the times - not good for cycling, and not good for the local area either.

I am a bit traditional when it comes to buying anything. I generally like to buy things from a shop rather than online, unlike many of my contemporaries.

I like the interaction with a sales assistant, and in particular when buying items associated with hobbies or things I enjoy doing it's always good to have conversations about items. Furthermore, in the days before online buying was so prolific I would always bump into other local club cyclists when I went to De Ver Cycles or Geoffrey Butlers cycle shop on a Saturday afternoon, and you could catch up with other riders. You just don't get that experience buying on-line, so I only buy stuff on-line when it becomes difficult to find what I want in the shop and so am therefore forced into shopping that way.

I went to the shop and bought some lights; I was glad to catch David Hibbs before they finished. He said that there may be another bike-related business occupying the space in due course. As for him, he will be starting a job with the cycling and walking charity, Sustrans. I wish him well.

So now, Crystal Palace has one less local bike shop to go to. I hope the other cycle businesses in the area don't go the same way. So anyone near Cadence, SE20 Cycles and other bike shops near you I encourage you to support your local bike shop.

52 Cycling Voices - No. 1: Maria David

For this year, each week we will hear from different women talking about cycling. They will be women who ride a lot, a little, for leisure, competitively, who just go to the shops or to work by bike. Some may work in cycling but don't ride, some may just like watching cycling, and others might be cycling wives, girlfriends or widows who can't stand cycling! Whatever, 52 Cycling Voices will be about women giving their thoughts on bike riding.

This week the person in the spotlight is yours truly.

Maria David, Aged 47

From: London (grew up in Yorkshire)

Medical Copywriter (and cycling writer/journalist too!)

Maria on Westminster Bridge with the Raleigh Mustang Sport

"I've been cycling on an off since the age of seven, when my dad decided that I had to take my stabilisers off (much to my chagrin!). I then got a second-hand Raleigh 14 which I loved, even if I had a few spills on it. Back then I really hoped I could get a Raleigh Grifter like the cool kids in my class, but that never happened so I stuck with the kiddies' Raleigh 14. 

When I was a little older I shared a bike with one of my sisters, though she hardly rode it and I rode it a lot - mainly to go to the shops and run errands. It hadn't been long since I passed my cycling proficiency test, so I always found it exciting to get out on my bike and go somewhere. 

One day we were invited to take part in an 11-mile cycle ride organised by the local church youth group and I had hoped to go on the ride. But my parents didn't allow me to go because I had had knee problems and they thought that the distance would be much too far, so ironically, my sister who hardly cycled went instead! She never said much about the experience so I'm not sure she enjoyed it. 

After that I never did that much cycling until when I was at university. I got a holiday job in a packing factory to save up money to get a cheap mountain bike. The make was Falcon and I remember travelling up to their factory in a nearby town called Brigg, which was like the big city for me, considering I was just living in a small village on the Lincolnshire/South Yorkshire border. 

The bike was my pride and joy and I used it a lot, particularly in my second year at university, when I lived off-campus, and would do the eight-mile ride to get to lectures. I also went on a few trips with it during the holidays - to the Peak District, the Lake District, the Mendips and the Malvern Hills - much to the worry of my mother, and the anger of my dad who both kept thinking I was trying to get myself killed!

There have been long gaps when I hardly cycled since those days, but cycling has been a continuous part of my life since 1999 when I had to become a regular/committed cyclist in order to get through triathlons. 

That was a big step for me because it was only then that I rode a "racing bike" with dropped handlebars for the first time, and also had to deal with cleats where my feet were clipped into the pedals. I am grateful to the motorists who were sympathetic towards me during those dicey moments when I had to lean on their cars to avoid crashing because the bike stopped but I still had my feet clipped into the pedals! 

I ride an old De Ver road bike that was built by Maurice Burton, the former professional racing cyclist who owns the De Ver shop in Streatham, South London. It's not the only bike I have, but it's my favourite because it was my first ever road bike. Lately, I've been riding a nice Boardman women's road bike, kindly provided by Halfords, and Raleigh provided me with a Mustang Sport Gravel bike, which I have also been enjoying testing.

For me, cycling is just part of my daily bread like other constants in my life such as running, writing and crochet. Cycling means freedom to get from A to B without being in the lap of Transport for London, or being held to ransom by Southern Rail and their industrial disputes. 

Technical problems on a bike are infrequent and easy to resolve, and when riding I get to see places from a different angle to when I am zooming by in a car or on a train. Cycling allows me to see the fabric of a country or a region that bit more intricately than if I just went on a bog-standard trip or package holiday. It has certainly allowed me to see some nice places around Europe and beyond. 

Furthermore, being a cyclist I feel like I am part of a community and it's great to see other kindred souls on the road - whether it's when commuting to work by bike, struggling up a 2-hour long arduous climb in the Alps or seeing others who are equally mad as me rattling our bones across the South Downs on a rigid cyclocross bike!  

For all the places that I have ridden my bike, I must say that my favourite bike ride is just riding around the various neighbourhoods and touristic parts of London when there's no traffic. London is my favourite city in the world (closely followed by Paris) and I just like to ride and take in the sites of this great city on a sunny day. I did that recently on Christmas day and usually do this whenever I am in London at Christmas. 

It's also nice to do the Ride London FreeCycle event where Central London is completely closed to traffic and again you can ride your bike at a leisurely pace with thousands of folks of all ages, shapes, sizes and cultures. 

Bike riding can be a great leveller and brings out the best in me (at least most of the time!). I can't see myself deciding to stop cycling any time soon!"

One Day One Photo - 7

Tuesday 16th September

After my Specialized road bike was cheekily stolen from me in a Milan street a couple of years ago I reverted to riding my old racing hack. It was the first road bike I bought, about sixteen years ago - a red bike from De Ver Cycles in Streatham, South London. It was my pride and joy back then, and I was really grateful to Maurice Burton who built it for me at a very reasonable cost.

Riding it again after having spent 7 years using the nice lightweight Specialized (which I'd also bought from De Ver Cycles) felt like riding a tractor, thanks to the heavy grade aluminium and fork, commuting rack and mudguards. Time trialling or riding hilly cyclosportives on this has been challenging! But the good news is things have just become easier - at least for the remaining weeks of the road season.

Once more, thanks to Maurice, I have received this little beauty to test ride - the De Ver Flight. So far, I have used the bike in a triathlon and also in 2-up time trial, and the bike has performed well. It is so much lighter than the first De Ver bike I rode, and with a more responsive frame. The comparison between the Campagnolo Athena groupset versus my old Shimano 105 is more than night and day! Even better, there are electronic gear shifters to play with, thus eliminating clunky gear changes. Of course, this is not the first swish new bike I have been given to test ride. It is just noteworthy how my first bike was a De Ver heavy unwieldy thing. And here I am all these years, coming out of the same shop with a light speedy thing that can rival many of the big brand road bikes that people rave about. Watch this space for the full review!

Maintenance - Ugh !!

Cyclo cross is to me as how some guys find their girlfriends - loads of fun, great to be involved with it, gives great highs - but boy is it high maintenance. You've gotta do the right thing at the specific moments otherwise before long you'll get nagging protesting noises and suddenly things go awry big time !

That's what happened to me last Sunday. I hadn't cleaned my bike properly after my previous muddy capers at Stanmer Park. So I paid for it at Herne Hill. A marshall helped me tighten the gear cable, but that did nothing to help my knackered jockey wheels or wonky derailleur. So my race proceeded with difficulty. Pedalling was hard work even before I hit the sticky muddy sections. The slipping gears didn't help matters any, and I continued to slip further and further down the field on my peers. In the end I couldn't go much further at any decent speed and so my race came to an abrupt end.

Thankfully those nice people at Condor Cycles were able to fix the problem quite quickly.
But why can't I maintain my bike ? I hear you say. The answer is I loathe cleaning and maintenance.
When racing cross you can easily spend more time cleaning the thing than actually riding. Where's the fun in that ?

A fellow cyclo cross rider commented on how, even though he had 2 bikes with him at the Stanmer Park race he preferred to soldier on with the one extremely muddy bike than swap it over to a more freely moving clean spare bike. The reason : he couldn't bear to spend hours on Monday cleaning two muddy bikes. Just to clean the one bike had taken him all morning - at least he has the luxury of being able to spend Monday morning cleaning bikes while the rest of us slave away at our desks !

OK - so I know it was a little bit naughty of me to not make any attempt to clean the bike, so I rightfully suffered the consequences. (I will clean my bike regularly in future.) However I must admit that beyond bike cleaning, inner tube changing and the odd lubing here and there I become a hopeless case - changing brake pads, adjusting headsets, indexing - you've lost me there - this is where I become such a girl !

I'll probably develop a bit of confidence to do these things myself once I'm in a sink or swim situation, but as long as I've got the likes of Condor Cycles, Sigma Sport, De Ver Cycles, Geoffrey Butlers and Pearsons etc to help out I'd prefer to support their businesses while at the same time being sure that I have parts that are in tip top condition when I race. The Herne Hill cyclo cross round was a bit unfortunate, but it's unlikely to happen again soon - afterall this is only my first dnf in 3 seasons of cross racing.

And who never knows - maintenance, like Guinness and Marmite may become an acquired taste over time.