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Contact Us, Find Us and Opening Hours
Where to find Criterium Cycles We are located at Dobbies Garden World, Edinburgh. One of the best known Garden Centres in the whole of Scotland, Dobbies Garden World is located in Lasswade. It is just minutes off the City Bypass road, and is easily reached from either the Gilmerton or Sheriffhall junctions. On entering the…
New Bike deliveries – April update
The cycle industry is experiencing unprecedented demand with all the signs that it will continue for the foreseeable future. It’s particularly exciting because a large part of the upsurge in demand has been caused by more people turning to cycling, partly thanks to Lockdown but also because more and more of us can see the…
Covid-19 – Special Arrangements
The Covid-19 pandemic has meant a whole series of temporary changes in the way we live, work and exercise. Retailers too have had to adapt in order to respond to this and to ensure that customers are still getting a great service but at the same time, we are all doing everything we can to…
Bianchi Specialissima. An epic bike for an epic challenge.
“It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.” Attrib. Thomas Fuller (Theologian), A Pisgah-Sight Of Palestine And The Confines Thereof, 1650 In case you were wondering, a Pisgah-Sight is a distant view of a, perhaps, unattainable object. No, I wasn’t aware of that either, but it turns out that it’s rather appropriate for my…
2021. Criterium’s biggest year yet.
It’s remarkable to think that Criterium Cycles has been established for 8 years. We had no idea when we set the business up just how successful it would become nor how important it would become to a growing and loyal network of customers. Many of those customers have become friends as well. Now as we…
An extraordinary end to an extraordinary season
In a remarkable year for cycling, the last Grand Tour of them all, La Vuelta a Espana, served up perhaps the most remarkable highlights of the lot (albeit putting to one side the final stage of the Tour De France for a brief moment!) First of course, it was Chris Froome’s final outing as…
Criterium Cycles at the Marmotte 2019
Cycling is cruel. Indeed, some would argue it is the cruellest sport out there citing plenty of circumstantial evidence to support this fairly dramatic claim. Take a 3 week Grand Tour for instance. Where else would the competitors undergo 20 ‘full day’ stages of mental and physical anguish, where even just the slightest loss in…
The Tour on the Telly. Will Imlach, Boulting and Millar nail it again?
All pictures with kind permission of Vsquared TV With the Tour de France finally upon us, it’s appropriate to reflect on that most crucial element of a 3 week Grand Tour; the Highlights show on the telly. It’s one of life’s genuine pleasures. They are a great way to catch up and condense what…
In Search of Nessie (Etape Loch Ness)
Let’s clear something up straight away. What actually is an Etape? And why is it different to a Sportive? And does it actually matter? Well, whether it matters or not is probably rather subjective but let’s have a go at explain what they are. A sportive (or Cyclosportive) is a generic description that covers a…
A Trip Down Under
You’re probably thinking ‘that’s a pretty nice picture of a beach but what does it have to do with bikes?’ Not an unreasonable question to be fair. However, Madeline, one of the owners of Criterium and ‘completer of the Vatterundan 300 in 2018‘ grew up in Perth, Western Australia. So every once in a while,…
The Marmotte – Redefining the Envelope
We’ve probably all played that favourite pub game of “name your top 5 ”X’s” of all time”. Favourite lists include the best 5 albums ever (Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” is clearly Number 1), the best 5 films, the 5 best sportspeople, the 5 toughest races and so on. Part of the charm…
3 Peaks Cyclo Cross
By Sarah Rowell, former Olympic Marathon Runner and British & English Fell running Champion, 1995 and 1996 For one group of slightly mad devotees, the end of September means only one thing; the 3 Peaks Cyclo Cross. The history of the event dates back to 1959, when a 14 year old schoolboy, Kevin Watson was…
Project 3:20
Many of us can look to a moment in our lives when we reflect and say ‘that was a real wake-up call’. On balance, wake up calls are a good thing, as long as we actually listen to the call and do something about it. My own personal epiphany came in 2011 when our daughter,…
UCI World Championships Preview
First, a quick apology for the fact that the Criterium Cycles blog has been a little quiet these last three weeks. Paul says he has had a serious bout of Man Flu, a condition so serious that it was apparently close to being life threatening. Rosie, his long suffering wife, suggested that if she found…
La Vuelta – Week 1 update
Well, it’s been a pretty unpredictable week in a race that always promised to be unpredictable. Team Sky turned up with their weakest team for a Grand Tour for quite some time (which is inevitable when neither Froome nor Thomas are on the starting line). But the plan was that de la Cruz would lead and…
A new bike for my birthday
by Charlie Bowker (Aged 11) For my birthday, I received the coolest present – a Trek Domane AL2. I am going to tell you why I think it is the perfect first road bike to buy. Styling The styling of the bike is very good using a matte and gloss paint format. The colours work…
Dario Pegoretti : 1956 – 2018
Dario Pegoretti was one of the most uniquely talented of men; artist, engineer, craftsman, entrepreneur, philosopher, music lover and poet. We had the pleasure and honour of spending some time with Dario last year and only wished we had been able to spend much longer listening and learning. It was clear that this was an…
La Vuelta a Espana 2018
Saturday 25th August sees the start of the 73rd edition of La Vuelta a Espana, Spain’s contribution to the group that, with the Giro d’Italia and Le Tour de France, make up Cycling’s triumvirate of Grand Tours. Each comprise 21 stages spread over a 3 week period (23 days to include 2 rest days), though…
Willkommen in Berlin!
Ask a group of seasoned travellers to list their top 10 cities in the world and you are bound to get a list as diverse as the number of people you ask. Now ask the same group of seasoned travellers to list their top 10 “coolest” cities in the world and you are much more…
An Island Adventure
The Isle of Arran lies in the Firth of Clyde and is the 7th largest island in Scotland after the likes of Harris & Lewis, Shetland, Orkney and Skye. It’s a busy, tourist friendly destination whose economy has thrived in recent times with a population that has remained reasonably steady (4,629 in the census of…