Two cyclists riding down Brighton seafront with 4 Seasons wheels

What makes 4Season, 4Season?

4Season

Here at TheRiderFirm, we’ve been asked before what makes our 4Season wheels special. Sure, they’ve won awards for their design and durability, and have been found on builds of some of the most desirable all-road framesets in the world, but how do we actually identify wheelsets in our 4Season range?

Harry Tanfield's headshot

ON THE DROPS INTERVIEW WITH HARRY TANFIELD

Tanfeild

Harry Tanfield (known as The Wizard by team-mates) is one of many prodigious young talents rising to the top of domestic pro cycling within the ranks of the BIKE Channel Canyon team. As a rider he's had a tremendous season for the newly-formed team, and is on most cycling fans' radars as 'one to watch' for the future. Particularly talented at time trials (finishing 5th at the National Championships earlier this year on the Isle of Man) and all things proper aero, we caught up with Harry whilst flying back from his last event of the season, to look back across the 2018 season and chat the breeze! 

Hunt CS guru, Jack Tweddle riding the lanes

ON THE DROPS INTERVIEW WITH JACK TWEDDLE

Jack has been with us for a while and since then has been mostly taking care of answering all of your questions as well as making sure your wheels get out to you on time! We finally managed to catch Jack of his "On the Drops" grill session to find out more about what grinds the gears of the Derbyshire native.

From punk rock to slamming the stem, everything Jack does oozes with style. Even his Frankenstein of a 'cross bike has something nice about it.
A beautiful winding climb

CLIMBING EASTERN EUROPE'S GREATEST

Climbing is an art. Striking the balance of pushing up a gradient without popping before reaching the summit and being able to stay deep in the red zone requires experience which many cyclist's never master. Climbing is, in this sense, a very personal form of cycling. Passing over the point where the gradient stops pointing upwards comes with a sense of accomplishment... and relief... especially when the summit just reached is atop of some of the hardest climbs in Eastern Europe.

 

Our very own tech guru, Stan has translated his dad's blog from Bulgarian describing his experience of climbing Romania's climbs. By the looks of it, the hills here look to be highly underrated.... although we will pass on the bears crossing the road!

Canyon team rider getting in the zone

TOUR OF BRITAIN | BIKE CHANNEL CANYON PHOTO EPIC

We always try to use the word 'epic' sparingly... reserved only for those rides which are truly 'epic'. But we are going to use an 'epic token' here to describe BikeChannel Canyon's effort in this year's Tour of Britain which concluded late last week.

Please enjoy the photo gallery of BikeChannel Canyon's first Tour of Britain... 

Will Johnson almost at the top of Mount Ventoux

AGAINST ALL ODDS PART TWO: VENTOUX @99BPM

Smile for the Camera

A few weeks ago we featured OpenDev rider Will Johnson article detailing his preparation of riding up Ventoux at 99bpm (which can be found here). We are glad to say that Will's adventure was successful, but it certainly was not without mishaps and a huge challenge for the ex-Leicester Tigers professional rugby player. 

Read below to find out exactly how it all went down (and up) for Will.

-

Well, here’s the story of a heartless fat man climbing the Giant of Provence, a fine title for a fairy tale! To recap, a heart arrhythmia and a few operations in 2016 has left me with chronotropic incompetence, which basically means my heart rate barely rises when I exercise. A little annoying to say the least, but in the bigger picture, things could be worse, I’m still on my bike.

Hunt team having a drink at Eurobike 2017

HUNT does Eurobike 2017... Sort of...

Schwalbe presentation on the Wednesday evening

Going to go against the grain here, but I am a Hunt employee who doesn’t like camping. There, I said it.

I’m not of the same rugged cloth of our fabled (and former) Josh Ibbett, or either of the Marchment brothers who kicked things off a couple of years ago. They all love it. The cold, the damp, I’m not sure what the appeal is – but they dig it and they dig it big. Luckily, during our visit to Eurobike this year I had company in the ‘hating camping’…. errr… camp. Luisa, our new senior engineer, spent most of her time either moaning about having to sleep in a tent whilst visiting a trade show, or listening to me doing the same. My idea of touring just means stopping at a different hotel each night. A TCR contender, I am not.

This is going to be a quick one. The primary (achieved) aim was for me to vent about the sleeping in a tent thing. Beyond that, I thought it would be nice to show you all some of the pictures I took whilst roaming around (usually on the way to the next meeting). Most of the stuff that took my eye was high-end road stuff, but I tried to capture some of the bikes/things that your regular media outlet wouldn't notice! Not forgetting the occasional ‘Alligator’ (this won our internal award for Most Eurobike Bike of Eurobike).

Enjoy!

Ollie Gray

Hunt Service & Dispatch Manager

BIKECHANNEL CANYON BY NUMBERS TOUR OF BRITAIN

BIKECHANNEL CANYON BY NUMBERS TOUR OF BRITAIN

Hunt supported BIKEChannel Canyon have had a successful start to their first Tour of Britain. Stage two brought on 211km with Rory Townsend taking turns in the seven man breakaway...
Road captain, Hank, leading the pack

BIKEChannel Canyon takes on Tour of Britain

BikeChannel Canyon takes on Tour of Britain

UCI Continental team and Hunt supported, BikeChannel Canyon, will be taking on the pinnacle of British road racing starting this Sunday at the OVO Energy Tour of Britain.

Rolling out of Edinburgh, the Hunt supported team will be racing the eight stages as one of the twenty competing teams. Beating other high noting British based Continental outfits to gain a position on the start-line within the first year of operating is quite an achievement for the young team.

Luisa approaching a switchback

ON THE DROPS WITH WHEEL ENGINEER, LUISA GRAPPONE

Ventoux

We first introduced Luisa to you last week but finally got the chance to catch her for the dreaded On The Drops interview. Here is a quick refresher on what Luisa will be doing here at Hunt: 

Luisa Grappone hails from the motherland of cycling, pink jerseys and big mountain climbing (aka Italy), but has made the move to Sussex to further strengthen the Hunt wheel development team as our as our full time in-house wheel engineer. With an MSc in Aerospace Enigneering Luisa has a wealth of experience in the bicycle industry and materials engineering, with many years misspent sweating over hot CAD drawings, carbon fibre lay-ups and crunching wind tunnel data.

So here is our latest On The Drops with Luisa. Please Enjoy!

Climbing the famed Ventoux

AGAINST ALL ODDS: Ventoux @99BPM

For many cyclists, climbing Ventoux is a dream. The mythical status it holds in cycling and its moon like landscape means that it is more than just any old climb. It has been the scene of huge triumphs in cycling like Contador cementing his victory in the 2009 tour, as well as many tragedies like the death of Tom Simpsons during 1967 edition of the same race.

Out of the thousands, if not tens of thousands of people who ride the peak every year, it is almost undeniable that Will Johnson is taking on this monumental climb which previous to a year ago it would have been thought of as impossible for Will due to his heart condition.

Read about Will's story here.

Climbing @99bpm

Will Johnson climbing on the Etap

REFLECTIONS ON THE LONGEST DAY: THE WILL JOHNSON EPIC

You may be more familiar with Will Johnson from his exploits on the pro rugby pitch, and rightly so... as  a long-standing former member of Leicester Tigers first 15 and now, we're honoured, he is on the Hunt OpenDev Team. Will is a truly high appreciated contributor as he provides invaluable feedback on prototypes as well as where we can improve wheels designed for the most powerful riders. So with his input we designed the new Race Aero SuperDura wheels.

WILL JOHNSON HUNT WHEELS OPEN DEV TEAM MEMBER

Like most of us who ride in day-in-day-out, Will may never be lining up for the Tour, a Monument or pull on a Polka-dot Jersey... and that is completely fine. Cycling allows us all to enjoy and push as hard or as little as possible. In this article, Will definitely found his limits and it can even be said he pushed a little beyond them. Sometimes, we need to step out of our comfort zone and see what we are made of, not matter if its a Sunday century or lining up for a national championship.