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Paris-Roubaix Challenge 2018
The Hell of the North is truly a gruelling challenge...
The challenge covered 19 of the cobbled sections of the 29 that the pros attacked the next day and was 145km overall.
This year Lee and Doug decided to tackle it.

The day itself was glorious, roughly 21 C, 6000 riders on the road all with the same intentions, to finish.
The atmosphere was incredible, as a first time cycling abroad for Doug it truly demonstrated the love of cycling in other countries for him. From the moment we left the velodrome, to the awe-inspiring moment when we swept through the gates upon your arrival back. There were supporters on the roads, the pave and even in the velodrome. For any cyclist - we couldn't recommend it enough.

The initial section, the Arenberg forrest, gave them both a suggestion of how hard the cobbled were going to be. The following sections were no different, as they pushed on across the cobbles, it was clear that Lee on his stunning Domane SLR was finding this easier. Doug's Crockett, a cross bike converted for the event did an amazing job, however, it was no cloud of comfort like the humble Domane.
The weeks of preparation, using gel under our bars, the bottle-cage changes with the pro hack of adding griptape certainly paid off. Bontrager's AW3 tyres in 32mm widths did not go a miss either. We saw plenty of people suffering for not being so prepared, bottles lost, blisters occurring - we could only be thankful we had taken such precautions.

The cobbled sections varied in lengths and difficulty, the longest of which was the Mons-en-Pevele, the first timed section, the lads pushed on here despite the pain they had already endured and managed an impressive time of 07:47 on this brutal pave section. Following this, the worst was the Carrefour de l'Abre, also a timed section where the lads did an incredible 6.45.

The Carrefour de l'Abre sticks into Lee's mind as the worst section, it felt as if you'd never recovered from it when you hit the Velodrome at the end.

At the end, we couldn't be more relieved. The smiles on our faces as we saw the velodrome could not be matched by anything else.

Doug and Lee were also lucky enough to be on the Continent for a few days, so they managed to squeeze in a small loop covered in the De Ronde Van Vlannderan, they hit the Kwaermont, the Paterberg and the Kopperberg the day before, almost as a bit of a reminder of how the cobbles are. We think Flanders is on the cards again very soon!






22th March

A huge thanks to you.

Recently we've begun to use our social media accounts more, one that was seriously neglected was Google.
On Google, due to our lack of use, your reviews and queries were never answered, which isn't our plan. We aim to be more available for you on all platforms, be it in the shop, email, phone call or social media.

Over the past couple of weeks we've asked anyone coming into the store to leave us a review and the results speak for themselves.

You've pushed us up from 3.6/5 to 4.1/5, all in just a week or so! And we want you to know how much we appreciate that, so again, thank you!
A huge thanks from all the staff at Ken Ellerker Cycles!


13th March

Save the V718


It's incredible what we can do when we group together. As cyclists we've recently been faced with the potential ban of riding on the very popular time trial route on the A63. A recent article on Cycling Weekly shows that 9,500 letters of dispute have been received! The sheer number of complaints should hopefully prevent the ban, described as a 'dangerous precedent', from being imposed.

Due to all you guys support, it looks like the Speed Concept will be charging it's way down the A63 for a while to come yet.
  
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