Friday, July 16, 2010

Another sneak preview befor the holiday: The Fandrien


It’s the last week before our annual Holiday.
During the end of July we close the company for 2 weeks. It’s very strange but those 2 weeks I make more mileage on my bike then normally in half a year.
Every year I go to the south of France and ride my bike in the mountains. I love to ride in the sun, I love to climb, for me it’s the perfect bicycle environment. For a lot of Belgians it’s a bit crazy that people love to come to Belgium and ride their bikes on our cobble roads, in cold weather with some (or a lot of) rain. I think it’s mainly because we are used to cobble roads and we have rain and bad weather all the time. But I can imagine somebody who only saw the Tour of Flanders on tv, with those “warriors” on their bikes flying over the cobbles all dirty, soaked, … as a cyclist you need to experience that feeling at least once. For us it’s all day life, it’s like we say in our catalogue etc the center where we developed our bikes.
Anyway I am happy I can go to the sun and the mountains to ride my bike. It the perfect preparation for the Spa 24 hours an important car race I am participating in at the end of the month and where I have to defend my last year’s victory.
For those who have holiday enjoy the sun, rain, … whatever, … but far more important enjoy your bike rides ;)
….

Obviously as in September we launch our new catalogue and I gave a sneak preview last time, here one of my personal favorites in the 2011 range: The Ridley Helium FLANDRIEN: designed to withstand the most brutal races on earth, the Classics ;) Every detail has been chosen with the traditional classic’s rider in mind (high mileage comfort and durability).

Italian dealer days


Hello,


This week, 12-13 and 14 of July, we had our Italian dealer days at our new HQ in Paal-Beringen. We invited our main Iitalian dealers to our new Ridley premises. The evening before the visit we went out for diner and of course we showed our Italian dealers Belgium's finest...........Beer ! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.......but the next day, the Italian dealers were very excited to visit our new company. Ridley showed them that Belgium is more than beer and fries........we have the fastest bike in the world. After a quick coffee and a warm welcome at the company, Jan showed the dealers around in the new building. The new wharehouse impressed all of the dealers. They were explained the complete process of painting a frame at Ridley Bikes. After the guided tour of the company, Luca presented the new Ridley range. The dealers spent hours in our Ridley showroom and they were amazed about the new range. In the evening they went back to the airport to catch their flight back to Italy. Full of Ridley joy, they went back to Italy. Best regards Jan

Tuesday, July 13, 2010


He Bloggers Just back from a visit to the TOUR and I have some inside Tour news for you ,….. our Moldovan Champion is planning a long attack to show his new national jersey.


I hope Robbie will be one more time the GREEN MAN for Ridley …? Robbie sais: I have still many problems with the arm so my maximum power is still far away and even with that big handicap I’m in a good position for green ……I see things from Day to Day and with a good form later on in the Tour who knows ….

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Bike park

I've just landed in Minneapolis to visit our friends at QBP and it would appear that I've brought Belgian weather with me :(

In the meantime, here's a pic of the bike provisions at one of the biggest rock festivals in Belgium at the weekend. Being from the other side of the North Sea it always amazes me when I see how well cyclists are catered for in Belgium. There must have been thousands of bikes in the park below. It just goes to show that if investment is made in safe bicycle networks and other cycling facilities that people will use the bike instead of the car.









Friday, July 2, 2010

National Championship wins

A big congratulations to the following Ridley riders who claimed victory in their national championships:


Swedish road champion Emma Johansson (Team Redsun)


Swedish road champion Michael Stevenson (Sparebanken Vest - Ridley)




Russian road champion Alexander Kolobnev (Katusha)



Russian TT champion Vladimir Gusev (Katusha)



Moldavian road champion Alex Pliuschin (Katusha)

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The toolbox…

Hey,

Summer in the city… you would better not be reading this blog during the day. These perfect times require you to cruise, sprint … wander the streets by bike, preferably one of ours :p

As I briefed you in my last post, these are exiting times. While working on the catalogue we are already getting feedback in on the new MY11 range. Feedback that is much appreciated and pushes the team to do an even better job for futures models.

So the toolbox, yes, I finally got my own little toolbox. I no longer have to hassle the guys in the workshop for tools. Now I can work, tweak and experiment with samples while using my own tools :) life is good!!!!!

Talking about samples, I was on the track in Gent last Thursday. Together with Arne Van Snick we built up and tested the latest version of our new carbon track bike. He is the reigning junior Belgian track champion. He will be competing with the Arena on the European and World championships.

It’s great to support such a young rider in what hopefully be a successful track season.
I try to work with various types of riders. Fresh young riders with loads of enthusiasm and a burning desire to make it to the top of cycling. The more established, professional riders, share their experience and allows us analyze how the feeling of the bike has evolved over time or compare with other brands.

To conclude some live shots from the afternoon on the track. So keep your eyes peeled and let’s hope Arne rips the track to shreds :)




Cheers