Twenty3C - Your Independent Cycle Shop

An unbelievable start to the Tour 🙌 great to see a Bianchi cross the line first 🤜

When the Bianchi Aquila CV gets a race win thanks to the incredibly talented Wout van Aert and team. The first of many 🙌

The first Grand Tour of the year. The fight for the pink jersey started today and Primoz Roglic came out on top 🙌
What a way to start 🤜
Team Jumbo-Visma Cycling ... Bianchi
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We are looking for a new team member to join us in our award winning coffee shop. Somebody as passionate about coffee as we are about bikes.
The role would be 28hrs a week (4 days) Tuesday-Friday, (a job share is possible).
Full training will be given by our coffee partners and there will be a whole lot of caffeine-fuelled fun!
... If you're interested and would like to apply for the role, please send your CV with a covering note to team@twenty3c.co.uk FAO Ceri and we will be in touch.
We can't wait for you to get started!
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The saga of the broken collar bone....
Many of you will have seen or heard over the past weeks the story of James and a cheeky afternoon MTB ride taking full advantage of the early Spring sunshine. Unfortunately it ended abruptly when James ran out of talent (his words not mine before you think I’m cruel kicking a man while he’s down!). The result of his which was a broken collar bone, and, whilst the initial decision in A&E was to let it heal naturally, the fracture clinic... decided that plating it would be a better solution.
So a week and a half after his crash, James headed to MK general for his op. All prepped and ready to go under general anaesthetic things were going well, right until the point the surgeon walked in to stop the general being administered because ‘they didn’t have the right part’ in stock! In retrospect we can’t help but laugh! That sounds like a line used in most IBD’s! Something that we occasionally find ourself saying, but it’s not normally quite as critical and typically it would arrive next day. Anyway, back to James. His op was postponed until next Tuesday (or tomorrow by the time you read this!) and we are hoping that it’s second time lucky.
The perfect storm.
One of the reasons I’m telling you this is because a challenge of running an independent business is that we are a small team and there isn’t a huge staffing resource to pull from. The knock on effect of the delay to James’ operation is that we have some staffing challenges for this coming week. James’ operation now coincides with some race support that Pierre is away doing in Greece with a local team for 10 days and rescheduled meetings for me after the the original op plans that couldn’t be postponed again. As such I’ve come to the decision that the best way to manage it for both the Twenty3c team and you, our customers, is to run the following hours for this week only;
Tuesday 6th March: CLOSED Wednesday 7th March: 9am - 4pm Thursday 8th March: 9am - 4pm Friday 9th March: 9am - 4pm Saturday 10th March: 9am - 5pm as normal
I hope you understand this decision isn’t something that’s been taken lightly but given the circumstances it’s feels like the right one. We will be back to normal hours next week.
And given that every member of the team has crashed in 2019 including myself, I’m considering a ban on all outdoor cycling activities... Thank goodness for e-sports..!
Ceri
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FEBRUARY SHOP RIDE - CANCELLED! So this may not be quite the view from our shop window but given the current forecast, we have decided to cancel this months shop ride. We will still be open as normal so if any of you want to venture out yourselves then pop in for a coffee, just make sure you check the roads before you do go out. Riding on ice is never a good idea, as Pierre has found out a couple of times already this year and has luckily escaped without serious injury.

We have a pair of Ex-Demo Fulcrum Racing Zero Nite wheels that we need to find a new home for.
RACING ZERO NITE PAIR - £550 ex-demo
RRP £1049... Fulcrum Racing Zero Nite wheelset with a Shimano freehub body, 10/11spd compatible. Weight - 1503g
They were on a beautiful ex-demo Bianchi Specialissima that we sold without the wheels so it's a great chance to upgrade your wheels.
They will be supplied with skewers (in the photo) and also some new Fulcrum Racing Nite specific brake pads. The wheels have been ridden but we have stripped and serviced the hubs and they are in great condition.
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A great little review of the new Bianchi Oltre XR4 Disc by road.cc. Definitely worth a read, so grab a coffee and take 5.

Merry Christmas everyone 🙌 That’s a wrap for 2018! We are checking out until Wednesday 2nd January 2019. It’s been an amazing year and we look forward to what 2019 has in store. Have a great time over the festive period and we will see you in the New Year 🥂🎁🙌 #christmas #cycling #retail #localretail #holidaytime #merrychristmas #bikeshops #roadcycling #miltonkeynes #stonystratford

OUR TAKE ON BLACK FRIDAY... Save ££'s on our workshop services when purchased before 30th November. The best bit is you don't have to have your bike serviced immediately. You will be able to select a date between now and 25th February 2019.
The reason?
We are an independent business and we are probably not alone in feeling like BFCM is not great for independents. Short term, if we buy into the right offers, we could pass on some great discounts, but in reality, whatever... we do, the online retailers will always be cheaper because they are playing an entirely different game.
If we wanted to get involved, we might as well stand in the street and hand £5 note to passers-by. For this reason, when it comes to BFCM in the traditional sense, we are out. We will let them do what they do best and fully understand if you can’t resist 50% off a new pair of wheels or the like. We wouldn’t blame you, who knows, we might even do some BFCM shopping ourselves.
Despite the fact that we are not fans, we wanted to take this as an opportunity to give back to every single one of you in the form of reduced price workshop servicing. This is a key part of our business, and the fact that you continue to support us and use us for our skills and expertise is the very reason that we survive as a bricks and mortar bike shop.
We don’t believe in BFCM but we do believe in rewarding those of you who value us as a business, who value our service and who don’t judge a bill solely on the price of an item, but its value as a whole.
So thank you from the entire Twenty3c team - a group of individuals who love everything about bikes and want to make sure you do as well.
You can purchase online or in-store between 23/11/18 - 30/11/18.
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We are working with Ferris Heart Sloane in store to bring some festive wreaths to #StonyStratford. We love the new additions to our window display do you?
#cycling #flowers #christmas #festive #fauxflowers #colourfuldisplay #windowdisplay #southwoodsocial #maven #independent #retail #reflections

Don't forget it's our first ever Bike Jumble this Thursday at 6pm.
You have the opportunity to buy a 'table' for the evening and you can come and sell your unused cycling paraphernalia!
We all have stuff that would be better off in the hands of somebody else, but the hassle of eBay is just a bit to much hard work!
... Our solution is a bike jumble at the shop between the hours of 6 pm and 8 pm where you can book a table and bring all of your stuff to sell. The great thing is we don't take any commision, you don't have the hassle of shipping, you just turn up, sell your stuff and have fun talking bikes with like-minded people.
NEXT DATE - Thursday 1st November 6pm - 8pm
Tables are limited so book now - £10
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