#Velocity cafe and bike workshop pro
#Velocity cafe and bike workshop professional

Selling bikes may be the core business, but the coffee shops are busy on mid-week mornings as well as at the weekend. Take Maison du Vélo in Reigate, Surrey, now with a second shop in nearby Cranleigh. These cafés may be aimed at cyclists, but they’re definitely not for cyclists only. It’s a model that other bike shop/cafés have adopted, with roadies talking gear ratios and Strava segments sitting next to non-cyclists simply looking for good cake and coffee. With its views over the harbour and a menu offering proper meals as well as coffee and cake, Mud Dock is broadly popular, not just with Lycrawearing locals. The shop and café have expanded hugely over the past 20-plus years. Mud Dock in Bristol opened as a bike shop and a café way back in 1994. Then there are the growing band of bike-shopcum-cafés that offer a genuine one stop solution to your biking needs. Some of these highly-rated cycling cafés also offer accommodation: Afan Lodge in Port Talbot, Bike Beans Cycle Café at Box Hill, Bank View Café in Sheffield, Dales Bike Centre in Fremington and Route 2 in Topsham, Devon are excellent examples.” “On the other hand, there are the regular cafés that make a point of welcoming both cycling groups and regular trade alike, knowing they need to execute the basic requirements of all customers really well.

#Velocity cafe and bike workshop pro

We have seen Rapha opening its stores everywhere from the UK to Australia, and now BMC, partnered with its pro team rider Greg Van Avermaet, has done the same, adding its recognised brand name to a familiar format. “The bigger cycling brands are also seeing the value in these community hubs. These hubs can be found the length and breadth of the UK, with some of the best examples being Cadence Performance in London, Velocity in Inverness, (n+1) in Brighton, and Café Ventoux in Leicester. These hubs are a cycling community with flat-screen TVs showing races, group nights and weekend rides (sometimes followed by in-house meals), organised guided rides, cycling tuition and indoor training, covering such things as stretching, core exercises and spinning sessions. “On one hand, you have the cycling-themed café, which is a hub for cycling enthusiasts looking for more than just coffee and cake. And while cyclist friendly cafés have long existed in isolation, the age of social media has seen something of an informal network take hold riders able to share their top tips and cafés able to alert cyclists to their presence.Īccording to Cappuccino Rides ( on Twitter) cycling cafés usually fall into two types. Even here in the UK, where club runs were once powered by tea and beans on toast, coffee and cake has become the fuel of choice for Sunday morning riders across the land.

#Velocity cafe and bike workshop professional

This connection between coffee, cafés and cycling could also be the reason why so many ex-professionals have become café owners, both historically and more recently with the likes of La Fabrica owned by Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEdge) and located in central Girona, the home of over 100 professional road racers.Ĭoffee and cafés are not just part of the professional culture. Today, the coffee machines may have changed, with the favourite among bike racers and cycling cafés being the Rocket Espresso Milano, Lotto-Soudal’s André Greipel owning one, and as used by cycling teams such as Sky and Bora-Hansgrohe. At this time, more studies were investigating the effects of caffeine on training and performance, but most pro cyclists were already aware of its performance enhancing effect without having to see scientific proof. Faema was famous for its Italian espresso machines and was looking at ways to promote its product Eddy and his team proved to be a great way of doing so.Īlthough sports drinks became established in the 1970s for in-competition hydration, drinking a coffee before training and racing remained extremely popular. Maurice Garin, the Tour de France’s first winner in 1903, replenished his reserves by regularly stopping at the cafés en route.Įven the great Eddy Merckx enjoyed indulging in coffee and cakes on training rides, once famously saying: “It’s not the pastries that hurt, it’s the climbs.” He, of course, rode for the Faema team between 19, winning his first TdF in its colours in 1969.

After all, if you’re going to ride the sort of distances involved in these races, through day and night, you’re going to make a friend of caffeine. Cycling, coffee and the cafés that serve it have made perfect bedfellows since the early days of the sport’s most famous events, such as Bordeaux-Paris, Paris-Brest-Paris and the Tour de France.