Well, and here we are again. I thought we'd kick off the restarted Blog with a picture of the MKM, since a couple of people have asked about it. This 23 1/2" 70s steel frame, picked up at a cyclejumble for 35 quid, is Hubjub's primary transport. It has the predictable Nitto bars and stem, 80s Campy BMX cranks, and the Paul hubs from the 63xc.com review (which, after a couple of years of 10 mile post runs in the wet, are in bad need of new bearings). Ulterior motive for the photo is to announce our upcoming Bikeshave, a cunning plan which will recycle 70s steel frames as svelte fixers and raise money for a good cause to boot. The MKM will be the recipient of Bikeshave 001, and should end up with no gearmounts, a nicer colour, and incidentally a set of Stronglight cranks. Watch this space.

Well, and here we go again. In a truly eerie rerun of the earliest Hubjub blogs, my father has managed to fall out of his chair and put himself into hospital. No bones broken this time, thank goodness, but he had a nasty headwound and trucking out of Castle Hubjub in pitch darkness with the beech trees scraping the roof of the ambulance made me feel like I had a bit part in a 'Nam movie. Anyway, I'm struggling manfully through the backlog that built up while getting the new site was getting sorted. If you're expecting a message, you will get it shortly.

My dad is doing fine, thank you very much. Today, however, I intend to bend your ear about our Stronglight Shenanigans. Long-term readers will know that, while the ST-1000 has only be on the site for a couple of weeks, we sold several sets over the summer while struggling to bring Hubjub v.2.0 together. One of the attractions was the pure track chainline: according to Stronglight, you bung on a 107mm JIS BB and there you are, 42mm, sorted. The excellent Iwein, one of the aforementioned early adopters, duly bought a 107mm JIS and found that his chainline came out with a 2mm error. The distributor disclaimed all responsibility, and Stronglight responded to my email with gallic insouciance. Was I sure I had the right BB? Cursing, I went back to unofficial enquiries. The excellent John Dacey of Business Cycles (highly recommended to stateside readers) stated that he got pretty close to spec but on an Italian thread BB. English thread BBs come up with 2mm more clearance. No, I don't know why, either. I've taken to recommending 103mm JIS, but, more to the point, will be importing a batch of Phil BBs with the chainline hack feature. More shortly. Time we had some nice photos up, too--I'll go through the files.

Gloomy old day today. The clocks went back, and in my experience the euphoria of an extra hour in bed wears off PDQ and then you're left with the afternoon closing in and then what? Cheerful Hubjub news is that the EuroAsia shipment including 17 and 18t sprockets finally left the US a week ago and should be here any day. I haven't been sending out crawling updates to those patiently awaiting cogs because there's only so many times you can say 'Pretty soon now', but I expect to start on the backorders next week. I was promising a trawl through the photoarchive that has built up since my dad went into hospital, but there hasn't been time. Fortunately Joaquin Sanchez sent in photos of his distinctly un-retro Steamroller equipped with some of our Nitto randonneur bars. Rando bars aren't just for veterans--check this out...