Cycling Cafe requirements

What would you guys like to see in a cycling specific cafe, my thoughts so far, in no particular order are…..

– super geek level quality coffee
– cake
– cake
– bike wash
– secure storage/locking/good bike visibility
– tool stand
– live racing
– perm roller racing
– some kind of live strava feed for local segments – SuperBob has just got KOM on squiggly climb kinda thing
– cycling vids on when live streams not on
– decent music/musac
– energy bars – perhaps homemade
– guided rides, both road and mtb
– small stock of essential spares
– wifi
– cleat friendly floor
– cake
– evening screenings of cycling related stuff/adventure films

what else? would you want breakfasts/more substantial meals? Would you want it to be licensed premises?

Any points would be appreciated

you seem to be missing a few 🙄
-cake
-cake
-cake
-cake
-cake

Good location.
Perhaps the option to purchase a nice bottle of beer.
Savoury snacks, sometimes cake just doesn’t cut it.

Two successful cycling cafes around Newcastle for you to consider:

Home

http://www.pedallingsquares.cc/cafe.html

Both tick a lot of the things you list there. (Not actually been to the second one yet but heard good things)

The Hub also hires bikes, has a workshop, does evening classes on bike maintenance wheelbuilding etc, and allies itself with local cycle campaigns and charities who use it for meetings and the like.

I think I’d agree its the location really – if its a cafe for cyclists then then it needs to be both a destination/waypoint for an enjoyable ride as well as a start point to cycle from and back to. All you need then is some decent refreshments (which people on internet forums will complain about being less affordable than the cafe in Asda) and perhaps a few tools and spares in a drawer that would get people out of a tight spot, but it would rarely be the case that people would need them.

Otherwise what you’re talking about is a cycling-themed cafe.

Is this a themed cafe or the sort of place you stop off for a top up whilst on a ride?

If it’s the former then I would prioritise good food and drink above any theme.

If it’s the latter, then:

– As someone that doesn’t drink coffee it would be nice to have more soft drinks on offer other than coke and sprite.

– Outdoor seating with patio heaters, sometimes You’re just a bit too wet/mucky to feel comfortable sitting indoors but you don’t really want to get cold while having a break so a heated rough and ready area would be great.

– Map with local lanes/routes marked out.

Saddleback cafe in keswick have opened recently, and have done a nice job. Locks for bikes, magazines, great coffee, tea for under a quid (unheard of round here!). On c2c route and next to keswick bikes. Recommended.

http://www.velo-cafe.co.uk/%5B/url%5D

Main thing they do is really try and engage with the local cycle communities (of all types).

– perm roller racing
– some kind of live strava feed for local segments – SuperBob has just got KOM on squiggly climb kinda thing

Please don’t.

Cheers for this guys – all great points.

Even/especially the strava/rollers thing, I take your point – may be a bit too much.

Location wise for this would be in the centre of a very cycling centric town, often on the route of people cycling out of a big city into one of the national parks on road or as a pass through point for off road. Also a, non catered, trail centre near by. I guess it might be both a cycling cafe and a cycle themed cafe – a cycle styled cafe catering for cyclists amongst it’s other clientelle.

OP your Cafe sounds like a gimmicky, Meeja types and Hipster overrun Hell-Hole TBH, but I’m just a miserable old git…

We often stop in here[/url] and so do a lot of other cyclists. Its got nice (if rather overpriced) cakes and coffee, but the real selling point IMO is having a lovely view of the river, I’d look at that than a “Strava feed” or two web-designers racing each other on rollers…

Incidentally When does the cycle show start up again?

INDOOR PUMPTRACK!

Good location
Good food
Good service
Good value.

Crack that, you’re made. It’s amazing how many places further that those are the basics. The rest is just gimmickry

Good location
Good food
Good service
Good value.

That’s just “a cafe” though isn’t it?

I’m sure there are loads of those near the OP. His USP is the cycling aspect. He just needs to figure out how to do that without slipping into gimmickry and tackiness.

A proper coffee. Not a pretend double espresso. If I’m riding my bike, I’m thirsty!

And it must be a bit grubby. There’s nothing worse than sitting there feeling like you’re muddying up the doilies.

(if you’re thirsty, try drinking water, not coffee…?)

when someone orders an espresso, please pre-heat the tiny cup with hot water first. It’s amazing how many places don’t do this, and seem happy to serve cold espresso.

my favourite caff is in tideswell, it’s not a ‘cycling’ caff, it’s just a good caff, in the right place.

oliverracing – 10% discount
sandwicheater – 10% discount
GrahamS – 10% discount
maccruiskeen – 10% discount
muppetWrangler – 10% discount
TomB – 10% discount
Drac – 5% discount
cookeaa – barred
scottfitz – not barred, no discount
IHN – 10% discount
butcher – 10% discount

Surely the most important thing is:

bonus points if anyone can recognise the cycling cafe in question…

scottfitz – not barred, no discount

Don’t want discount if you have one of these:
http://ep1.pinkbike.org/p4pb4268446/p4pb4268446.jpg

A lot of cafes / bar type places in Finland have a special drying cupboard thing just in the door so that things like gloves / hats / jackets will dry while you have your drink. Awesome idea, no idea why we don’t have them here considering how cr@p the climnate is.

These kind of things:

http://www.geautomatic.co.uk/dryingcabinets

A good addition for a bike cafe I’d say.

one of these would be a good job

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/schwalbe-we-ve-been-inundated-with-tube-vending-machine-requests/016339

Roll for the Soul are doing a good job of it though their location means that it’s not really somewhere to go while on a ride, unfortunately.

http://www.rollforthesoul.org

My only issue is that they’re veggie only. While the food is actually very good and I’ll admit that I greatly enjoyed their meat free ‘Soul burger’, nothing will ever replace a real burger or bacon.

So, good coffee, good cake, mid ride location (or a very popular/convenient start/end of ride location), safe place to keep your bikes while there and not too hipster fakenger theme. Oh and bike spares.

Job done. 20% I reckon that’s worth 😉

The Hub also hires bikes, has a workshop, does evening classes on bike maintenance wheelbuilding etc, and allies itself with local cycle campaigns and charities who use it for meetings and the like.

Also worth mentioning that it’s a natural starting point for easily the most popular bike rides here abouts. Location, location, location and all that.

Also, Pedalling squares goes to great lengths to say it’s in Newcastle so I was a bit puzzled when I realised it’s in Whickham. Surely that’s just confusing?

Decent loos please.

There’s a good place local to me which is “cycling themed” although it also seems to attract a reasonable percentage of locals.

Good basic range of food, nothing too gimmicky, expensive or complicated.
Nice and varied range of cake.
Excellent coffee.
TV showing the races (or YouTube stuff when there’s nothing live)
Various jerseys, photos, pictures etc on the wall – these get changed around regularly to reflect the season, the races.
A shelving unit for helmets, gloves etc so they’re not clogging up the tables or rolling round the floor.
Locks and a rack for bikes.
A great big laminated map on the wall showing some local routes, notable climbs etc.
A few books, magazines lying around for people to browse and a small selection of gels, bars and cycle accessories to buy.

Saddleback cafe in keswick have opened recently, and have done a nice job. Locks for bikes, magazines, great coffee, tea for under a quid (unheard of round here!). On c2c route and next to keswick bikes. Recommended.

We’ve been there and it was really good. It was fairly new and she was run off her feet.

Agree with c_g – decent loos
Plenty of hooks for hanging stuff up.
Fire or log burner in the winter.
Outside seating in the summer.
Home made cake.

Also worth mentioning that it’s a natural starting point for easily the most popular bike rides here abouts. Location, location, location and all that.

True, and it’s on the c2c / Hadrian’s Cycleway route, which is also a popular path for more local rides. So the location is very important.

But they also make themselves a starting point by organising multiple monthly rides (including a relaxed social ride) and making themselves available to Sky Ride, Breeze, Bikeability etc

Agree with Pedalling Squares BTW, but I guess “Newcastle Upon Tyne…ish.. sort of..” didn’t look as good on their fancy logo:

🙂

– perm roller racing
– some kind of live strava feed for local segments – SuperBob has just got KOM on squiggly climb kinda thing

Actualy I quite like those ideas!

Also liking the helmet/shoe rack by the door and a drying cupboard.

Drac – 5% discount

😀

Good location
Good food
Good service
Good value.

That’s just “a cafe” though isn’t it?

I’m sure there are loads of those near the OP. His USP is the cycling aspect. He just needs to figure out how to do that without slipping into gimmickry and tackiness.

I’m sure the OP has loads of cafes near him, but I bet few, if any meet all four of the requirements I listed. His USP would be doing so.

The cycling aspect can add character, but without the fundamentals of food, value and service it’ll just be another slightly $h1t British cafe, along with the other 80%+ of British cafes that fall into that group.

We recently visited the Greystoke Cycle cafe on the C2C route. It had been raining on and off for a couple of hours by the time we arrived, They brought hot water bottles for everyone and had a big stack of blankets and towels so we could dry ourselves and get warm. They do have an aga running though so getting hot water for the bottles is not an onerous, expensive task

Tea
Beer
Cake
Sausage Sarnies
Eggs benedict
Nice view
Bike parking very close to hand/in view
No coffee as it’ll just attract the dicks 😛
A collie/lab/cats roaming about the place

I’m sure the OP has loads of cafes near him, but I bet few, if any meet all four of the requirements I listed. His USP would be doing so.

I think there’s maybe two sorts of cycling cafe people are talking about here and I’m not sure which the OP wants to open.

There’s the lunch stop cafes, usually out in the country somewhere, which are absolutely chocker with riders all day on saturday and sunday but which rely on locals and passing trade the rest of the week – for these I think you’re right and there’s little reason to go down the road of making it too cycle themed.

Then there’s the inner city cycling cafes which try to be something of a community hub for local cyclists. In most cities you can fulfill those requirements in dozens of places these days so there needs to be something to make you stand out.

You need to encourage folks to ride to your cafe, with that in mind you need to provide temporary storage either secure or not, if not secure then on view.
Rapha have a simple hanging hook near the door but down some steps that encourages folk to ride to, get off, hang bike up, waddle over to coffee/cake, buy coffee/cake/have a piss then sit and watch Eurosport feeds of current/past races.
LMNH has a secure lock facility but that’s outside and not on view to the riders, it’s not very encouraging leaving your £10k sex machine outside in the rain whilst you go have a shit.

Nice Loos.
Nice Loos
Nice Loos
Nice Loos

Hairdryer.

False Tan rubber’inner/spray or lube, not fussy.

Mirrors, lots.

beer/cake/good coffee/good music/chilled out friendly staff/comfy seats/somewhere to lock bikes with free locks?

i’d rather go to a good cafe than an average/naff cycle themed one mind. i used to live near the Hub in newcastle and tbh there’s plenty of other places i’d go instead of there, great idea though – they do put on film nights and organise rides/have workshops too. will try that peddaling squares place over swallwell way that GrahamS link to, not strictly on the derwent walk though so not sure if it will get much passing trade (i ride the Derwent Walk every day and didn’t know it was there!)

Knowing some of the figures from a cycling cafe.

Choose your location well. Reliance on only cyclists during the week especially in winter is not a good idea.

Some cyclists will happily buy one coffee and then engage you in conversation for hours whilst nursing it.

I reckon a cafe that would make a reasonable amount of money would have to be quite large.

There’s a good place local to me which is “cycling themed” although it also seems to attract a reasonable percentage of locals.

Good basic range of food, nothing too gimmicky, expensive or complicated.
Nice and varied range of cake.
Excellent coffee.
TV showing the races (or YouTube stuff when there’s nothing live)
Various jerseys, photos, pictures etc on the wall – these get changed around regularly to reflect the season, the races.
A shelving unit for helmets, gloves etc so they’re not clogging up the tables or rolling round the floor.
Locks and a rack for bikes.
A great big laminated map on the wall showing some local routes, notable climbs etc.
A few books, magazines lying around for people to browse and a small selection of gels, bars and cycle accessories to buy.
Sounds a lot like ‘Polocini’ in Romiley ,Stockport they do a good brew and flapjack in there.

I’ve noticed large mid-week, presumably CTC, groups at both pubs and cafes around Hampshire.

Polite request: Please don’t make it poncey or pretentious. 🙂

I’m a midweek cafe/pub user. Lot of us shift workers out there enjoying the quieter times.

With this in mind I’d say please offer everything as you would on a weekend.

And make sure furniture/floor is mud proof (for yourself)

Tea
Cheese on Toast
Cake
Simple coffee – none of that poncy FrappeMachiaLatte rubbish that takes 15 minutes to make whilst I’m standing in the queue trying to get a cup of tea