Plus ça change... Several huge shipments arrived from the states and elsewhere, with the usual flurry of back order activity and website updates. ST-1000s, B-123AAs, Tuggnuts and (ta-da!) Bareknuckles are now all back in. But we're out of chainwhips and 43mm Jaguars for a couple of weeks. Also, Robert Hanks of The Independent returned Scorcher #001 after a valedictory column. The bike went off to John Keating in Edinburgh, who has promised a photo from the middle of the Grassmarket or somewhere. Next up: reorganising the Stronglight page to re-price according to ring setup.

A quiet afternoon dealing with orders and waiting for the new Phil delivery. (Grr.) I stayed in because ParcelForce promised the latter for today: guess it will be Monday now. Sorry to all affected parties. Well, at least it was a chance to rework the Stronglight page, which now does more pricing options for different rings. Cheering bike porn is from Colin White, who custom-ordered a bunch of keirin kit including some very nice B-125 steel drops and then put it all on a red Pinarello. Yum.

All together now: Heatwave / Heatwave / Why is it beating down /On the... I unwisely took the Karate Monkey on the train to Oxford and despite one of those nifty Wet Rock hats with the cooling stuff in the brim I damn near boiled my brain on the outbound leg over the bridleways to Winchester station. Let's be careful out there. While I was recovering the new Phil Wood stuff arrived. Better late than never, I guess. Haven't seen the new Cycling Plus but Paul Hewitt tells me there's a good writeup of the MKS 'tugs. The bike is Tim Underwood's lovely green Solitude custom, now boasting some Stronglight ST-1000s from Hubjub.

$-¥ has been all over the place for the last year or so (much like the gold price). I'd been considering cutting our prices on Japanese stuff for a while, but resisted because a good surge in the Yen would have left us high and dry. Circumstances have rather forced my hand: those wacky On-One guys have bought in a massive shipment of Nitto kit. I've tried to do a little pricecutting meself, but since I can't match their purchasing muscle, they have the better deal on 25.4mm moustache bars and B-123AAs. (You read it here first.) And $-£ isn't nearly so favourable: I'm actually having to *increase* the cost of LeVeL sprockets, since the prototype days are long gone...