Our refer a friend scheme has been such a huge success we’ve now added a new tab to the ‘your account’ section of the site so you can keep track of your referrals, view all your vouchers and see which of your friends are dragging their heels on getting you some cash!

Just a quick reminder on how it all works;

1. Refer a friend that hasn’t shopped at wiggle to us through our website
2. Your friend places an order over £50
3. They get a free pair of dhb triple lens glasses added to their order
4. You get a voucher for 10% of their total order spend!

click here for the full offer details.

Don’t forget we are giving away a huge £500 voucher to the person that completes the most referals before New Years Day 2007! So keep nagging your friends on those frosty winter ride outs, or down the pub over Christmas and you could end up having a very happy New Year!

In our ongoing quest to provide only the highest quality goods we gave world renowned sports photographer and all round top bloke Dan Milner a couple of our dhb bike bags to put through their paces around the globe, the man does some serious travelling! He got in touch just last week and sent us a shot of the bags in action with a little blurb about his recent trip to Morocco.

“Morocco isn’t on everyone’s top 10 destinations for a bike trip, but what the hell! Having a mate who raves about the place we thought it would be a good place to head over, get lost for a week in the mountains and shoot a feature for What Mountain Bike mag. So armed with a GPS, a map and a Camelbak filled with all manner of intestinal treatment drugs we flew into Marrakech where, due to the design of our dhb bike bags, we retrieved our bikes in the condition you’d hope to retrieve them. Those bike bags rock! But getting them out and back was the easy part. Unfortunately, we had to leave the bags in Marrakech, stuffed behind a cleaning cupboard in the cheapest hotel we could find (hey, can’t complain about £4 per night… and it had hot showers… of a kind!). Loading the bikes on to a bus roof was the next challenge… You can’t be too precious about a bike when its loaded onto a roof and a metal ladder gets put on top of it, even if it is a brand new Commencal. So what of Morocco? It’s a great place. Fantastic people. We literally did lose ourselves for 7 days in the high Atlas Mountains, riding between and staying in villages along the way, eating what was served up each night (not always easy being a vegetarian… I had to live on 3 packets of biscuits one night!). The highlights? Having a new set of views opening up before you around each bend, riding through massive V-shaped river valleys awash with different coloured earth, red, orange, green and being chased by excited kids who just wanted to squeeze your brake levers while you’re riding! Go check the place out if you get chance. It’s amazing and easy to do. Look out for the feature in WMB too. Dan”

Thanks for this little insight into the life of a sports photographer mate… Dan is holding a small exhibition of his work in Chamonix from December 16 to February 2007 - 17 random images shot over 17 years. So, if you’re planning a trip to Chamonix, drop in on the exhibition at the Grand Central café, Ave Michel Croz.

Right, where’s my passport! 

Things are getting super busy here and it’s all hands on deck with the run in to Christmas. However we are still finding the time to add some great new products to the site, take a look;

• - New Balance running wear and running shoes
• - Asics running clothing
• - Great new Conti tyres
• - Cool DeFeet socks
• - Northwave shoes, road and MTB
• - Some Push bike stands and stabilisers
• - Loads of kids cycling accessories - Barbie, Loony Tunes, Flintstones & Dennis the Menace
• - TYR swim gear including caps, googles and kickboards
• - GT Lola girls bikes
• - Fitness DVDs on Yoga, Pilate, Cardio dance and more!

Summary of article on howies website, link at bottom.

Having taken the brand as far as they possibly could financially for over a decade, David and Clare (owners) realised they needed to bring someone else to the table in order for them to carry on pushing howies clothing forward, and also not re-mortgage their house… again…

So the answer for both of them was clear, they had to find a like-minded company to help howies become even more brilliant at being howies!

Finding a like-minded company didn’t take them long. They narrowed down the candidates to three. 

I believe there were quite a few other companies very interested in talking to Clare and Dave, but they only wanted to talk to like-minded companies about investment. They didn’t want to get the biggest deal but wanted to find the right one for howies.

After speaking to all three, they knew who they wanted to partner with. And that was Timberland. Feeling right from the first phone call, they were down to earth and honest, forward looking and into the same ideas and values. They understood why howies are who they are.

I was very interested to read that Timberland:

• Have made commitments for carbon neutrality by 2010.
• 60% of the energy for their distribution center in California comes from solar power
• Their European distribution center is powered by 100% renewable energy
• They are one of the first companies in the world to have developed ingredients labels on every box of shoes to increase environmental transparency to help customers make more informed choices.
• They will be the first shoe company to give an environmental Green Index hangtag to provide a product-specific rating of select environmental factors on five shoes this coming Spring.
• They give employees 40 hours of paid time-off to serve in their communities.
• They were voted one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For by Working Mother magazine.
• They have pledged to plant a million trees around the world.
• They issue a CSR Report and
• Recently launched their first facility-level sustainability report for their Dominican Republic Factory.

So what does the deal mean for howies? Well, it will help them make better and lower impact products, give a better service and do even more good as they go about their business.

We’ve been working with them for years now and they have been, and I am sure always will be, a superb company to deal with, with great people working for them.

It’s an incredibly positive move for the guys and will allow them to carry on growing the brand and the ethics it stands for in the exact way they have always wanted, they even get full creative control too!

Again, well done guys.

howies goes forth! (full article)

Top gear and Xmas gifts from howies at wiggle