In The Know Cycling

Gear reviews get a lot of the attention here at In The Know Cycling.  But, once you decide what to get, the key question is often where to get it at the best price from a store that you can trust will treat you right.

This short post tells you where on the site you find those stores and where to find the combination of the best deals at the best stores on the best cycling gear.

BEST CYCLING STORES

I regularly review and update my ratings of about 100 online stores that sell road cycling gear.  Those ratings are based on their prices of the range of gear we enthusiasts buy, how good their selection of gear is, how satisfied customers are shopping there, and how well those stores support you In The Know Cycling readers.

It’s probably just as important to know which stores I recommend you stay away from.  Buying at a store based on a great price that your fellow enthusiasts have had only average or worse experience with puts you at risk of being greatly disappointed with your purchase decision, to say the least.

So the first place to look when you are shopping for gear is my Best Online Bike Store Rankings post which ranks about 35 stores that have great customer satisfaction ratings based on independent services that collect customer satisfaction data.  That review lists another 65 or so stores that have average or worse ratings, or for which no customer satisfaction data is collected at all.  You can see both lists by clicking on the title above.

BEST CYCLING DEALS

You can also find my list of Deals and Discounts for In The Know Cycling readers just below the rotating photos and descriptions of some of my featured posts on the home page of the site.  There you’ll see links to storewide deals or at least deals on entire categories of gear.  Some of those deals are available only to you as an In The Know Cycling reader.

While it’s nice, for example, to know that one store is doing a 60% off sale on clearance items or another is doing big discounts on selected models of one brand wheels, you can spend a lot of time searching those offers only to find out that what they are discounting is available just in XS or XXL sizes or on 2 or 3-year-old gear that has already been replaced with better performing product from the same company.

My Deals and Discounts list, on the other hand, gives you links straight to discounts on most anything you put in your shopping cart or across an entire category of gear.  You also get deals and codes that stores only offer to In The Know Cycling readers.

BEST CYCLING GEAR

Finally, you can find the list of the best deals on the best gear from the best stores in each category of gear I’ve reviewed, all in one place.  If you want to know, for example, which of the best stores have the best prices on the best climbing wheels or best electronic groupsets or best power meters or best aero helmets, etc. you can find it in this one place.

You can also link directly to the listing for the wheelset or groupset or power meter, etc. at that store with the best price.  There’s also a link in there to the review I did on each piece of best gear and the other gear in that category which wasn’t as good a performer or value.  All in one place.

That one place is in the right-hand sidebar on every page under the listing Best Stores and Prices.   It’s shown in the screenshot to your right and if scroll down below this post, you’ll soon find the live version.

Of course, every review I do of a category of cycling gear or kit includes links to the best stores that have the best prices on all the gear in that category I’ve reviewed.  So if you want to get to the best stores with the best prices on some gear in that category you may feel is best, the links are there for you to get there.

BEST CYCLING REVIEWS

The best deals on the best gear from the best stores are there to help you be the best cyclist you want to be at the lowest cost and least hassle.  The links to all of those stores are also there to help you support everything that goes into the reviews that come up with these bests without costing you anything for a subscription or requiring you to see ads or sort through writer bias or having to do your own product research and comparisons.

How is that possible?  Quite simply, each time you buy at many of the stores using the links I provide, a small amount comes back to the site without adding anything to the price you pay for the gear.

With the collection of those small amounts, I can then buy the gear we test and cover the site and other expenses that go into creating what you read here, free of cycling industry advertisements and the conflict-of-interest that often goes with them.

What you support by buying the best gear at the best prices from the best stores through these links is the creation of independent, in-depth, category-wide, and comparative reviews done by fellow enthusiasts that you can believe in and that we think are the best cycling gear reviews you’ll find anywhere online or in print.

SIDEBAR STUFF

While I have you, I’ll also point out that the sidebar on the right has a number of boxes that allow you get new reviews sent directly to your email, feed reader or In The Know Cycling’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.  There’s also a new floating bar over there where you can share a post you are reading with your cycling buddies using your social media accounts.

SEARCH BAR

Finally, I get a lot of readers who ask if I’ve reviewed a wheelset or component or piece of kit or something else they are trying to learn more about.  The quickest way to get that answer is to enter the product name of the gear you are looking for in the search box at the top right of every page.

That’s it.  Perhaps one of the shorter posts I’ve done in a while but hopefully another useful one.  I invite your comments below about anything I’ve written above and how you think it would be best for me to come up with “bests” for you.

Thanks for reading and supporting In The Know Cycling.  You’re the BEST!