Dave Atkinson's blog

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm.

When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet.

When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking.

This understanding extends to all things.

From Ghost Dog: the way of the Samurai (1999)

We've just had a few test samples in from Urban Hunter, which came with this sticker. You can't buy it on their website (or at least I can't find it) but it tickled me and I thought I'd share.

The nice folks at madison gave us an insulated stainless steel mug for going to iceBike. Anyone want one to keep their beverage slightly warmer? Just reply to this and you're in the draw. You've got, like, a week, i guess...

Just been writing up the BMC SLC01 Pro Machine that's just in, and it got me all angry about carbon stems again. Not because it has one – sensibly BMC spec the EA90 – but just because they exist, really. Why do they exist? The EA90 and EC90 are a good case in point. The EA90 is an excellent stem. The EC90, which is £100 dearer and 5g heavier, is average at best. Why even bother?

Shimano were giving out their press pics on these natty 1GB memory sticks. Who wants mine? Be the envy of your cycling buddies with your Shimano branded storage. Maybe. it comes in a little presentation box so you could even give it to a mate as a present and claim it cost you money,

Simply comment on this post and you're in the bag. This compo closes Friday, I guess. The judge's decision is etc and so on. I've taken all the Shimano pics off...

Don't have a course? you soon will...

Dear manufacturers: we've come a long way since those grey boxes that took batteries the size of your fist and spat out enough light for you to see your front tyre, so praise where praise is due: we've had some progress. Now we've settled on what looks to be the perfect solution, the humble LED. In a decade we've moved forward a long way, from those green flashy things that cateye used to make to 1300 lumen searchlights you could use to light a football stadium. And it's all good. There's one thing that hasn't really changed though.

1) overtrousers don't break when you're trying to get your bike in the boot

2) If your overtrousers rub on your wheel, you don't need a spanner to make them stop

3) if you get a stone jammed in your overtrousers you don't end up in a hedge

4) it doesn't take half an hour to put your overtrousers on

Idly browsing on the web at lunch I came across the Kona Africabike on www.sbrsports.com. it didn't really strike me as a good triathlon mount, but now i've seen their suggested accessories, who knows? i might give it a go...

So far road.cc has been spam free, and hopefully it'll stay that way, but we have had a bit of bogus registration going on in the last few days and it's had us a bit nervous. Anyhow we've now signed up with a service to monitor all postings on the site. If it works like it should then it shouldn't have any effect at all. If you find yourselve having to jump through any hoops to get your posts on the site, let us know at info@road.cc and we'll have a look at the settings.