I Am Gerard Thomas - Writing About Bikes

ABOUT BIKES.

After 20 odd years working in and around the cycling industry, for myself and others, I decided riding bikes was more fun than working with them. Over that time though, I wrote a lot of stuff about bikes on blogs and the like. Some was good, some, well... not so much. Rather than loose it all when I shut everything down once and for all, I have kept some of my favourite, and more popular pieces here for... prosperity?

I also am working on a few new pieces as well...

I’m going back to heavy

Reading Time: 6 minutes The 55 is a great fork but it’s bloody heavy, it truly is. All you have to do is pick up the bike to realise this…. or even just the fork alone. I wondered if I could stick a lighter fork on the front?

Advertising?

Reading Time: 3 minutes Yet despite this many of today’s adverts tell you that it should be, and is mostly about, victory and winning.

And that’s where I have an issue.

650b, placebo effect or something more?

Reading Time: 11 minutes Unless you have been living in a large hole of late, there is a new wind blowing through the mountain bike world…

The Bog Standard

Reading Time: 6 minutes Put up your hand if you remember what it was like to ride a mountain bike in the early to mid 90’s. Remember all those must have, lust worthy boutique parts?

That Place

Reading Time: 3 minutes I think it’s one of those things that every one who’s ever ridden a mountain bike has

The Brand

Reading Time: 8 minutes How it started was one of those strange stories, perhaps best left for another post about how the internet works. What happened though was I found myself working in the bike industry (in a way I had not before, just to clarify) and for one of the great names in the annals of Mountain Bike history.

The abbreviated guide to bicycle dynamics

Reading Time: 18 minutes marketing departments tell people how bikes work, meaning there has been an ever growing tide of misinformation about how and why bikes do what they do

A retraction, tyres and an old school attitude to gears… in that order

Reading Time: 6 minutes After putting them on the bike though, my elation turned to confusion as it seemed they were to softest wheels known to man.

Off into the wild

Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve never done unchallenging and I am not about to start.

Wait! The MTB weight conundrum…

Reading Time: 5 minutes The prototype bike came off the line, ended up in a box and was in my hands within a day. A few days later I was out riding on it, working out all the little things that needed correction – hardly anything.

Wider is better, yes it is.

Reading Time: 2 minutes When it’s wider, it just feels better.

Got your attention you dirty minded folk, haven’t I?

Old dog, new tricks?

Reading Time: 6 minutes The frame was called the San Andreas and was the first true mountain bike full suspension frame. With a solid background in designing MX machines for the likes of Kawasaki, Reisinger applied a thinking to his design, that up until then (and even now to some extent), was foreign to the bike world.

Reviving the classic Proflex 855 and 955

Reading Time: 4 minutes I’ve often wondered where do old Mountain bikes go? We’ve all owned bikes only to sell them and sometimes wish we hadn’t. The thought had crossed my mind a few times as to how some of these classic old bikes would stack up today.

Welcome to the Dark Side my son…

Reading Time: 5 minutes But I have this theory. No, really I do. Just hear me out.

I AM GERARD THOMAS.