Brrr! Take me back to the present

September 1 2004
Joss Winn sends in first pictures of his Robin Mather fix. It's a stunner. For the moment, I'll stick to the fork crown, since I want to run full gloating photos here when the thing is completed. But caramba! what lugwork...

September 7 2004
I forgot to mention: last week I took delivery of two very large and very heavy crates, one full of rear hubs, the other fronts. Yep, Kogswell hubs direct from Taiwan, and still only £48.00/set--ridiculously cheap. The new batch arrived just in time to catch the first flurry of orders. I should be stocked well into the new year.

September 9 2004
The nights are drawing in. A month ago, the route home from Winchester station via Twyford and the Hazeley Road looked like an immensely appealing way to spend the early evening. Now I find my knuckles going white on the bars as mighty TIRs swing past me. Plus I've misplaced the mount from my excellent Cateye LED headlight, and the wimpy backup headlight barely illuminates the pitchblack treeshrouded C-roads up to the village. Roll on the 29"er: I'm taking this back onto the bridleways...

September 9 2004
Jenny Hopkins gets in touch to buy one of our groovy cheap lockring spanners and to update me on her Kogswell review in The Outcast. (Jenny was one our very first customers, and bought the last 54cm Kogswell frame available anywhere.) Here in staid Winchester, of course, no-one sells cycling fanzines, so I resign myself...

September 13 2004
...but then there's a brilliant mail day. Apart from the arrival of the next couple of weeks' supply of Phil High Flanges--and Dominick's much-delayed 32h Low Flange, sorry Dominick but it had to be made up special at the factory--Jo 'Mint Sauce' Burt has sent me The Outcast with the Kogswell review and Jenny's kind words about Hubjub. And Jo has also sent an original cartoon of an offroad fixer, looking like Fausto Coppi, which will go straight into 63xc.com. Xmas comp anyone?

September 16 2004
Ick. Growing pains. Now that sales are up, we're getting the first supply blips, specifically with ENOs. Fortunately stock was pretty good when the crunch happened, but one chap has been waiting patiently for several weeks and I've been getting more and more embarrassed. The hubs cleared customs midweek, shipment was due today, but unfortunately due to the large size of the shipment we couriered it. The company chosen was Lynx, whose drivers seem to live in a permanent state of dislocation. Sure enough, they couldn't find Hubjub HQ. Maybe tomorrow?.

September 18 2004
No luck on the ENOs, but at least I got the wheelbuild pages for Kogswell, Phil Wood and White up at last. An amazing number of buyers ask for help with builds: it seems like the number of LBSs that can do a decent wheelbuild gets less every year. Never mind: Paul's good...

September 22 2004
ENOs! I'm contacted at last by a Lynx driver who communicates in normal English and knows the area, and the shipment vanishes into the Hubjub distribution system like water in a drought. I end up refunding small sums up and down the country with the suggestion that people buy a drink on Hubjub.

September 24 2004
Continuing the water-in-a-desert theme, the bimonthly order arrives from the states. This one is the biggest ever, and I pass a largely sleepless night bagging 18t sprockets and moustache bars. I will look like Santa Claus when I take these to the post office. Nice mail from Olivier in the Netherlands, who some of you will remember putting Nitto bars and an ENO on his Raleigh. He's taken to rando-style FG epics. More photos here.

AUGUST BLOG | OCTOBER BLOG