We are now stocking an NJS-certified track chain, and here it is.

DID haven't been about on the European market in the last couple of decades, but in Japan they never went away. Stylehounds should note that their track chain has the covetable NJS logo on every link, and that we're selling it on our NJS and Etc pages at £28.50. For more, read on.

In the last couple of years, singlespeeders and fixers have begun to shell out for 'track chain'. In fact there's really no such thing -- just chain that is likely to be used by track racers. What, then, do track riders want?

Trackies tend to be conservative. For instance, they clung to inch-pitch chain -- like modern motorbike chain -- for decades after the rest of the world had gone half-inch. In the same way, the old 1/8 width still holds sway on the track scene, although 3/32 is gaining slowly.

Right now, the best marker of a track-oriented product is the presence of bushings. Bushings are cylindrical pivots joining the chain links -- not so easy to describe, but Greg Goode has a useful account here. Through most of bicycle history, all chains had them.

Then, a decade or two back, manufacturers introduced bushingless chains. They offered increased lateral flex, making derailleur shifts easier, and rapidly came to dominate the market. These days, it's bushings which appear strange and exotic.

In some applications, bushings may be best. There's some anecdotal evidence that they outwear bushingless, tho' that is hotly disputed. What is not in doubt is that bushings make chains laterally stiffer. Many riders feel that this makes them less likely to derail, assuming that you have good chainline in the first place. This isn't a universal belief -- Matt Chester favours bushingless for his flexy frames offroad -- but it is widely accepted.

We can only source the DID in 1/8. If your fix is so equipped, it's worth considering.

Phew, this Blog thing. I dunno. When we launched Hubjub we promised 'rants, rumours and complaints' but the problem is that we can't tell you about the most interesting stuff for fear of getting sued or having our ideas nicked by the competition. Or both. What remains is rather samey: either you get Will droning on about how hot/cold/damp it is on the run down to the post office or how the international couriers have let us down again, or we're flashing up pictures of a client bike without enough space to explain what's so great about it.

Hence, we're moving to Plan B. Official. The Blog will continue sort-of, but with a different purpose. There'll be a piece about once a fortnight on the front (index) page of the site, covering developments at Hubjub, product announcements, in-depth accounts of client bikes and the like. Those pieces will get archived here under the 'One Cog Blog' header or in a new(ish) 'Projects' section, with both sections getting slightly updated navigation systems. You might still get Will whingeing about how awful DHL are but we'll try to keep it to the minimum.

Happy 2007, everyone. The Blog disappeared in December consequent on an extremely busy month (there seem to have been a lot of Nitto bars under a lot of Christmas trees this year). Here is today's token entry. Believe it or not, plans are afoot to move this lacklustre chroncicle to the front of Hubjub. Bah. I'm off back to the television.