It’s Official: TLS is the First Canyon Authorised Service Partner in Western Australia

It’s Official: TLS is the First Canyon Authorised Service Partner in Western Australia

  TLS is the first official Service Partner for Canyon Bikes in Western Australia, and amongst the first in the whole country. We’ve been brand agnostic for a long time, servicing bikes and building rider relationships across all the reputable marques. This will not change. Getting those brands to sit up and pay attention to the work we were delivering to their customers has been a long, tedious grind. It started before we even had a commercial address. We’ve been…

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What’s More Important: The Bike or The Rider?

What’s More Important: The Bike or The Rider?

Different customer profiles are an endless source of entertainment here at TLS. We thrive on being able to identify different rider priorities and apply those findings to the work we do on their bikes. We could have any number of road bikes booked in, belonging to different riders who all ride the same roads in and around Perth…and their preferences, needs, wants and concerns can all be TOTALLY different. This is one of the major reasons we abandoned fixed price…

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The Greatest Hits of the Last Decade

The Greatest Hits of the Last Decade

I’m prone to the occasional bout of nostalgia, usually when a customer drops off an old bike that I remember fondly or have otherwise attached significant historical value to.  More often than not, the bikes I consider to be the Greatest Hits from a given manufacturer or model year are NOT the flagship models… yet they contain within them just a little bit of magic that makes them special and memorable…..and worthy of a mention here. So with that in…

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MTB Tyre Inserts: Worth it?

MTB Tyre Inserts: Worth it?

I’ve installed (and removed) countless tyre inserts/ rim protectors for customers who specifically requested it over the years, but was never tempted to run them myself. A wholesaler offered to throw a pair of inserts into a recent order for me at a ridiculously low price recently, so I figured I had nothing to lose. The plan was to fit them when my Norco Sight needed fresh rubber, and that opportunity presented itself a few weeks ago. It’s worth pointing…

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Seven Gravel Race 2024
SeVen Gravel Race – Mechanics POV

SeVen Gravel Race – Mechanics POV

At the time of writing, it’s the 3rd of March 2024, just under 6 weeks out from this years edition of SeVen Gravel Race – and riders have already been talking about it for months. I am lucky enough to have perspective from my own time spent racing mountain bikes, as well as years of being a pro mechanic and wrenching for the people doing the racing. Our customers here at TLS who sign up for big events like this…

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Dedicated Suspension Service for Perth’s MTB Community

Dedicated Suspension Service for Perth’s MTB Community

Perth Mountain Bikers, this one’s for you: With the steady increase in the amount of shops + riders sending us their suspension jobs, it was time to split that work off into its own business module. Say hello to TractionLabs – A dedicated MTB Suspension Service Centre operating inside the existing TLS workshop in Joondalup. Suspension has been an obsession of mine for years, and back in 2019 I mapped out a very deliberate (and expensive) journey to become a…

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MTB Tyre Review: Pirelli Scorpion Mixed Terrain

MTB Tyre Review: Pirelli Scorpion Mixed Terrain

For the first time in a decade, I moved away from Maxxis tyres to try something else on my daily hardtail – I had a new set of wheels on their way to me and the rubber on my outgoing set of hoops was very, very tired…. The second big change for me (look at me go!) was running identical tyres front and rear. Same tread, same profile, same compound – rather than the super aggressive front/ semi slick rear…

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Road Bike Disc Brake
Mechanical Ramblings: High Performance Brakes

Mechanical Ramblings: High Performance Brakes

Disc brakes on bikes, particularly the newer generation of road bikes, cop a lot of flack for various reasons (some of it is justified…) but on the whole they are actually incredibly high performance products that punch well above their weight (literally) But….like most things in life….complaining about problems is a lot easier than engineering solutions. For this example we have a high quality TRP rotor off a road bike, measuring 140mm in diameter – nestled snugly inside a fairly…

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Mechanical Ramblings

Mechanical Ramblings

Every now and then, after the roller door and the sun have both gone down, I like to type out some thoughts about workshop life. The vast majority of them never make it to a screen outside my own computer, but occasionally I’ll hit SAVE & PUBLISH. This is one such entry.    I remember, years ago, when I was slowly filling up notebook after notebook with ideas about how this business might work, it always made me feel more…

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An Open Love Letter to Norco

An Open Love Letter to Norco

As a young, penniless teenager one of my favourite things to do was walk around in bike shops looking at everything I couldn’t afford. Of course back in those days you actually had to leave your house to go look at stuff you wanted to buy – no smartphones, no socials. Browsing the magazines at a local newsagent was always an option too! I loved the smell of the tyres. I loved seeing new technology and trends emerge from model…

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