Dougal McGuire

I sold a chaintool to Dougal McGuire today. I swear it was him. I have never had so much trouble or have spent so much time explaining to someone how something so simple works. I mean something like Stable Platform Valve technology or inertia valving – that takes a bit of intelligence to understand.

How a chaintool works doesn’t. I even resorted to using various analogies. It didn’t seem to make any difference though, he’d found the bike in a stream and was going to make the chain ‘tighter’.

This year Marzocchi responded to Manitou’s Sherman line of forks with a 6″ travel fork with a single crown. Now Manitou have upped the game with the unveiling of their new Nixon range of forks which includes a four pound SPV damped 6″ travel through-axle fork with an air spring. Singletrack reported their reviews a few days back, whilst you can read more over at Mountain Bike Action.

Talking of the mags, Mountain Bike have had the builders in and there’s a new look site. I found this and thought it was quite interesting – I rarely take my first aid kit on any rides. There’s quite a few spelling mistakes on there too and as I can’t see any e-mail contacts for them, they’re just going to have to find them for themselves.

AtomicZombie. Nothing to do with horror, but a lot to do with some scary metal work. I mean this is like a cross between a BMX, a shopping trolley and a luge. Mental. More on the main page.

Talking of which metal prices are on the up through out the global markets and this is going to mean a likely rise in bike prices next year. It’s all do do with a strong demand from China and the US for raw materials. Steel, Aluminium and Titanium bikes all look set to be affected, although whether composite based bikes will also increase in cost remains to be seen.

Bells and whistles? No, just bells. It’s the law (or will soon will be…):

From: Bikebiz
Subject: Does April 30th ring a bell to you?

By that date British IBDs should have completed stock checks to make sure the bicycles in-store are fitted with bells. The daft new law kicks in on May 1st and despite the Association of Cycle Traders asking for time for existing stocks to be sold first, an extension was refused.

That bells will soon need to be fitted to the majority of adult bicycles at the point of sale in the UK is well-known, but the ACT believes there are still some points that need clarified.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst retailers, not least of all the date when it all kicks off,” said Anne Killick, the ACT’s national secretary.

“It must be stressed that these are changes to the BS regs and will apply to all cycles from May 1st. The responsibility for compliance stretches across the whole supply chain including importers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

The new bike is near complete. Well except for a few bits like a front mech which is on order and a bottom bracket which I haven’t picked up yet. Oh yeah and the frame – guess that’s going to hold things up a bit. Anyway the rather elusive Marathon SL travel conversion kit is now complete. Now I just need to get in the workshop, strip them down and get these 85mm units in..

Available form you friendly local LBS