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it's a drag

several years ago, specialized bicycles was most keen to point out that peter sagan had ridden a specialized allez frameset in the criterium event that formed a part of the tour down under. the complete bicycle, featuring a polished aluminium frame was available to purchase at a very respectable £1500. in order to find out why sagan had opted to ride one of the company's lowest price frames, rather than one of their top-level carbon offerings, i asked specialized if they would be happy to send one to the hebrides. happily, they said yes.

the bicycle has changed just a smidgeon since then (january 2019), having gained a set of the ubiquitous disc-brakes, though at the lowest price point (£1,000), those are of the cable actuated variety.

of course, sagan did not ride the most basic of versions; aside from a dura-ace groupset, his particular bicycle featured a pair of roval, 60mm carbon wheels, no doubt of great benefit for a race around some city streets. however, in order to gain the full sagan experience, i went back to specialized and asked if i might borrow a similar set of wheels. the review bike might only have featured shimano's 105 groupset, but a pair of deep rovals would surely allow a verisimilitude of peter's experience down under. happily, the company was more than happy to comply, sending not only the wheelset, but a pair of tubeless tyres that might be fitted to the latter.

i believe i have made my feelings on tubeless tyres quite clear over recent years, so we'll leave that alone for the time being. suffice it to say, however, it took three days to get the rear tyre to seal properly, long enough for a bike ride. but even then, the air inside remained for only one day's extended travel; the tyre was compeletely flat by the following morning.

deep-rimmed carbon wheels appear to have usurped logic and pragmatism by featuring on virtually every race bike in the professional peloton. i still wrestle with why they're found to be necessary on cyclocross bicycles, given that the maximum speed achieved in such events, is well below that at which such wheels come into their own, to say nothing of the parcours which hardly requires such deep carbon. but so besotted appear the manufacturers of aero frames and accompanying wheels, that they mostly fail to point out at any juncture, that there are conditions under which aero is rendered impractical. i know, because i live in such conditions.

while reviewing the allez and its embarrassingly deep wheels, i rode the route of the regular sunday bike ride. along the lower part of the glen road, heading towards cluanach, there is an opening in the tree cover on the right hand side of the road. should the prevaling south westerly be blowing, riders entering this clearing are likely to experience sudden gusts, if the wind proves strong enough. on one of the earlier rides, the aforesaid wind caught both those 60mm carbon rims, and blew me from one side of the road to the other, narrowly missing one of my fellow pelotoneers. there was nothing i could have done, even had i anticipated such a strong shove sideways.

on my return, i immediately swapped out the rovals for the standard pair of wheels that had arrived with the allez. my review pair of campagnolo bora wto 45mm wheels ultimately suffered the same fate. i dreaded awakening on a sunday morning to the highly frequent galeforce winds, rendering any foray on the bora outfitted ritchey logic far more of a challenge than i sought, so ultimately, they too were remaindered in favour of a pair of handbuilt, 32-spoke wheels from condor cycles. their shallow mavic open pro rims will quite cheerfully cope with any winds in which it is deemed safe to ride (i've inadvertently ridden in 100kph crosswinds and lived to tell the tale).

the van rysel bicycle mentioned in yesterday's monologue is supplied from the sigma sports shop floor, replete with 60mm carbon rims and an aero frame, that would only make sense in the hebrides for someone with a death wish. i don't necessarily wish to give the impression that meteorology in the hebrides is confounded with perpetual galeforce winds (though it can sometimes feel like it), but it's the lack of knowing that makes it an unwise decision to spend £10,000 on a bicycle that you may not be able to ride as often as you'd like.

and then i read of the farce that was the final stage of the volta catalunya, where (undefined) strong winds cancelled the bulk of the originally proposed stage, resulting in a two lap race of which the peloton subsequently only rode one. as mentioned, i have been unable to find at what speed those winds prevailed, but is it just possible that, had the riders been aboard standard round tubing (carbon, aluminium or even steel) and wheels of similar ilk to those currently gracing the ritchey logic, riding in the wind would have been considerably less of a problem?

monday 31 march 2025

and we fell for it

don't ask me why, but i first noticed the strategy with the russian camera brand zenit. the zenit e was arguably their most popular model; aesthetically not quite up to the stylish, sleek,curvy offerings from canon and nikon, and still boxier than a leica, but nonetheless, its photographic qualities appeared every bit as good as the aforementioned, and at a noticeably lower price. conspiracy theories being what they are, the smart money was on subsidies from the kremlin allowed it to gather market share in the west, grabbing not only foreign currency, but confirming the slant of eastern propaganda.

it has also been possible to witness a similar attack on market share within the drum world, where once hoshino gakki and pearl, both of japanese origin, began the manufacture of exceptionally cheap, yet serviceable drumsets in the 1950s, selling them into europe and easily undercutting the prices charged by europe's better-known brands and those imported from the usa. gradually, having nabbed a decent slice of the percussion market, both quality and prices increased. those in the know will find it easy to agree if i point out that hoshino gakki is the parent company of the renowned tama drums, which includes stewart copeland, bill bruford and peter erskine amongst its endorsers.

a similar strategy is not unknown within the motoring world. a gent who used to farm less than a mile from the croft, was regularly to be seen driving an early model kia, resembling a poor man's land rover defender. he had purchased said vehicle because it was 'cheap as chips', and given its agricultural employment, aesthetics were not high on his list of demands. kia is now a brand renowned for its design and build quality, and its sportage model is currently the top selling car in the uk.

the strategy, deliberate or otherwise, seems to centre around providing basic functionality at rock-bottom prices, pretty much always guaranteed to attract customers (i might also mention dacia), before using this marketing confidence to produce progressive improvements in quality, design and reliability. it's a series of moves that have been compared to the trojan horse, and it's hard to deny that it seems to work rather well.

to a greater or lesser extent, the cycle industry has always practised a variation on this theme. it's why, at one time, every range of bicycles began with a low-priced model bearing the very name to be seen on professional downtubes. the rationale, such as it was, revolved around attracting customers who might remain for life. assuming the £750 heavy steel entry-level bicycle acquitted itself well, and the professionals continued to ride theirs across international finish lines, when the bank balance and cycling ability improved, the fervent hope was that said customer would buy a more expensive model from the same brand (and so on, and so on).

most of us would expect, however, that any attempt to purchase exact replicas of those ridden by our heroes, would result in many thousands of pounds being spent. after all, any cycle sponsor worth their salt is unlikely to provide tour de france competitors with second or third string models, even though the pros would likely find very little disadvantage. the top tier of the uci world tour teams are most likely to be seen aboard well-known brands, such as bianchi, canyon, colnago, pinarello and several others. however, in recent years, a hitherto unknown brand has seeped its way into the world tour, almost by means of nepotism, given that van rysel is the in-house bike brand of ag2r la mondiale sponsors, decathlon. last year, a team replica could be had for £9,000, which still seems like quite a lot of money until you compare it with the price tags on several of the other bikes in the peloton. with treks and specializeds and colnago team replicas costing around £15,000-16,000, a van rysel for the proletariat, seemed a snip at £6,000 less.

but van rysel have begun to capitulate; the latest, snappily-named rcr-f, the team bike first seen last year, but only now available to buy, has added £1,000 to the cost, and, in the uk, is only available via a reputedly exclusive agreement with sigma sports. that could be because those who shop at decathlon would blanche at the thought of spending £10,000 in-store. a bit like paying habitat prices in ikea. none of this is to accuse van rysel/decathlon of harbouring a cunning plan; for those determined to own a world tour replica, it might mean a few more months of saving. but perhaps if such is your ultimate aim, you should do so now, just in case next year's model eases ever closer in cost to its peers.

sunday 30 march 2025

impaired vision

we are by now, more or less inured to the trials and tribulations experienced by the cycle industry, post-covid. while many of the major players appear to have been strangely blindsided by the end of lockdown, and i have seen many instances recognising this to have been a major factor in the much vaunted overstocking of product, i have yet to read even a theory as to why this happened to so many. it is understandable that advance orders for product, in much the same way as distilleries project future demand for the amber nectar, are based on educated guesswork, quite why so many proceeded as if lockdown, and thus unabated demand, would be the default future for the world, remains, and probably will remain, one of the world's great mysteries.

but the industry's current modus operandi surely calls into question yet another apparent assumption on its behalf. during even the early stages of covid lockdown, tales were many of bikestores selling their entire shop floor inventory, then struggling to order replacements. the lack of available bicycles of any genre, can be logically apportioned to the unexpected nature of the sudden demand, conjoined by the closure of the majority of factories in the far east, where the virus was first identified. the latter state of affairs was effectively magnified by subsequent delays to international shipping for the selfsame reason. so while the big boys could estimate their immediate requirements, there was no-one at the other end to satisfy the demand.

based on the wholesale closure of almost the entire bicycle manufacturing region for several months, many sought to ameliorate the current and future problem, by effectively over-ordering. and that, it seems, may have been the ultimate folly.

with public transport in the western world viewed with great suspicion by those still able to travel to work, if only due to a not unnatural suspicion that closely packed humans in buses, trams or trains would be highly likely to promote an unwished for level of covid propagation, many turned to the humble bicycle as an efficient yet largely safe means of personal transport. it's also worth bearing in mind that lockdown held particular force during the summer months of 2020, when the weather has a tendency to look more favourably on those exposed to its joys and vicissitudes. those who already possessed bicycles dragged them kicking and screaming from the bikeshed, often directly for repair to their nearest bikeshops, which had government blessing to remain open for business.

those who were short-sighted enough not to have owned a bicycle, made their collective way to the selfsame bikeshops, intent on getting hold of anything that might resemble the new transport of delights. however, i do recall publishing a monologue helpfully pointing out the fallacy of those who believed the bicycle's day had finally arrived, based purely on the (correct) supposition that the onset of autumn and winter weather would undermine many of the previously perceived benefits accrued from cycling to work, to school or to the shops. additionally, anyone apart from the bicycle industry could surely have forecast that the minute lockdown was lifted, a majority of the world's population would quickly return to its love affair with the motor car, a state of affairs also predicted by thewashingmachinepost. and let's face it, if i saw it coming, those whose livelihoods and profit margins depend on it really ought to have done so too.

however, were that not enough to sanction the industry for myopia, there seemed (and still seems) to be genuine astonishment that sales figures have not remained at the heightened lockdown levels. even if we discount the covid effect, we roll back to the oft asked question, once everyone has bought double-glazing, then what do you sell them? if hundreds, if not thousands of people who would not have admitted to being regular cyclists, purchased bicycles during the pandemic, why was there the assumption that a few years later, they would wish to buy another? you and i might adhere to the philosophy behind rule #12 (the correct number of bikes to own is n+1, where n = the number of bikes you already own), but the majority of new owners are likely to have considered their purchase as a once-in-a-lifetime spend.

of course, as someone who does not manufacture or purchase any number of bicycles, all of the above is based purely on what i'd like to think are educated observations. however, as the recent international taipei bike show appears to have demonstrated, all is not well in the garden of eden. according to the taiwan bicycle association, taiwan's bicycle exports have failed to reach the one-million mark for the first time in years, having declined by a not insubstantial 31.3%. perhaps of greater concern, however, are the export figures for the reputed saviour of the industry, the ubiquitous e-bike. those dipped by almost 50%. perhaps surprisingly, the one aspect that continues to buck the trend is high-end road bikes, quite possibly the most impractical representatives of the velocipedinal realm you could think of. this would tend to suggest that those of us who already cycle, and smugly consider ourselves to be the cognoscenti, are continuing to do so, while those who could make a real difference to personal transport all across the world, simply don't see the attraction.

cycling on the whole, however, may not be in any real trouble at all, though possibly the only way to tell would be to find out if those who bought covid bikes are still riding them on a regular basis. based on historical and anecdotal evidence, probably not.

saturday 29 march 2025

guilty as charged

at lunchtime on thursday, my office colleagues and i observed the owners of an oddly two-tone coloured '74 plate motor car, place their shopping in the boot before pressing a button on the underside of the hatchback to close the the lid (so to speak). no doubt this facility was once trumpeted as an additional extra over the previous year's model, though it now features on virtually every car produced in the last few years. however, it does call into question humanity's ideals, when the act of closing a car bootlid or hatchback requires the assistance of an electric motor.

how hard can it be?

but such has become the trajectory of the human race ever since the tv remote control was invented, relieving tv designers from finding a space on which to fit manual controls. however, the number of channels currently available on freeview, freesat or sky woud undoubtedly have predicated the development of some means of accessing so many options. but the rise of the tv remote began more simply in the halcyon days of only terrestrial channels. i recall my parents' first tv with a 'remote' control, where the handset was tethered to the television set by means of a cable. unfortunately, in our case the cable was of insufficient length to reach my father's armchair, meaning it rather eccentrically sat on the floor, just out of reach.

this was undoubtedly the beginning of the obesity crisis following a halving of the effort required to change channel.

since those days, matters have improved/degenerated, where there is often greater effort required to find the remote control in the first place, coupled with removal of any means of switching on the tv or channel hopping other than by means of a remote handset. and prior to acquisition of a set with freesat built-in, whereby the channels were displayed via a separate box, we possessed two separate, yet often indistinguishabe handsets. motor cars, having accrued all manner of labour-saving options, including power-steering, electric windows, heated seats and several other improvements, are now in the process of transitioning to all electric motive force, a transition which apparently has removed any need for a gear lever.

however, where once it was a simple matter of reaching a petrol station to refuel, a process that rarely took longer than a few minutes, the substantial batteries needed to power those electric motors now require to be periodically re-charged, a situation that takes a bit longer than refilling a petrol tank. however, there's no denying that an impending ban on internal combustion engines has kick-started frantic development not only of batteries, but the speed at which they can be charged. though i don't drive an automobile, i would not like to be the pilot of an electric vehicle in sore need of charging, who has to explain to the kids in the back seat, that they might have to spend an hour or two sitting in the car in the rain, while enough electrons are taken on board to allow for progress towards the next charging station.

under the above situation, and those of a similar ilk, it's not hard to see the pressing need for so-called rapid-chargers to obviate too long a period of stationary reflection. if solely for that reason alone, the choice of electricity over that of hydrogen-cell powered vehicles, now seems a tad misguided. but that scarcely excuses the simultaneous development of the e-bike, arguably an unnecessary step for the majority of the population. though it's easy to see the benefits for the elderly, the infirm and the disabled, many of those to be seen aboard electric bicycles display evidence of the physical ability to easily pilot an acoustic bicycle. not for the first time do i make mention of those considerably younger than yours truly to be observed riding e-bikes, as i sail past them when riding my acoustic bicycle.

however, the average e-bike battery takes between three and six hours to re-charge, a task easily accomplished overnight, or during the average working day. and since the majority of e-bikes on a full charge can usually achieve up to 100km, i perceive little problem with the current state of affairs. however, it seems that even one of the godfathers of the mountain bike, a genre of velocipede that arguably fostered the art of self-propelled adventure, has fallen foul of a desire to further ease the trials and tribulations of the not even remotely physically challenged.

gary fisher, once a part of trek's bicycle empire, but which he departed in 2022, claims he is about to release a 15 minute, rapid-charge battery included in his new morelle e-bike venture. according to a report in america's bicycle retailer, fisher's latest project is characterised as a commuter bicycle, providing even more obscurity to the machine's raison d'etre. had mr fisher admitted he was working on the ideal machinery for use in extended bikepacking, i could almost see the point, though i feel sure i would still be indulging in untrammeled disparagement. however, given that the ideal of commuting generally encapsulates the act of cycling to work or school, both of which feature more than adequate time to sufficiently recharge the battery, and rarely, i'd imagine, over a 100km distance, i fail to see the point in being able to re-charge the battery in quarter of an hour.

in short, whether mr fisher perceives it or not, he is actually fostering the likelihood of his morelle bicycles becoming attractive to the less physically adventurous bikepacker, riding 100km, recharging in 15 minutes while scoffing a doughnut and slurping an oatmilk latte, before continuing on their earth-shattering, yet scarcely challenging expedition. and though the above might bestow the ability to do so on those otherwise disbarred from such expeditionary activities, just like the teenagers to be seen aboard regular e-bikes, the fast-charging battery will follow that of the tv remote control in facilitating a lazier means of getting exercise.

what is wrong with the world?

friday 28 march 2025

not waving, but drowning

a few months ago, my cyclocross bicyle began making an odd noise, subsequently traced to the freehub/cassette. i'd be fibbing if i said i could be more specific; i have removed the cassette from the bicycle sprocket by sprocket, cleaned each of the eleven sets of teeth, lubed the freehub and replaced them all. and the noise had gone away. at least, until it came back again. so, as three of us headed along the road between uiskentuie and gruinart, one of my compatriots attempted to identify the exact source of the sound, by staring intently at my rear wheel. unfortunately, in the process of attempting to be of assistance, he failed to notice a water-filled pothole of substantial proportions, and launched himself over the handlebars and into a roadside ditch full of water.

that latter fact certainly softened the blow; he didn't hurt himself at all, though he did receive a thorough soaking and a flat front tyre. during the process of replacing the inner tube he also become rather cold, so we retraced our steps, didn't pass go, and headed straight to debbie's for a warming coffee and toastie. thankfully, he had previously arranged for his wife to meet him at debbie's, and had thoughtfully included a change of clothes, so we all lived happily ever after.

according to an article that had appeared in islay's local paper, the council admitted that any reported pothole would be repaired within 31 days. sadly, intervening events have prevented my return to find out if they have remained true to their promise. however, the fact that the poor chap hit a pothole is less worthy of comment than the question as to how we've managed to avoid all the others for quite so long. according to argyll & bute council, it would cost £122 million to raise the standard of the region's road infrastructure to a1 condition, before admitting that the current apalling state in which we find them, is the result of their having invested £80 million over the past decade.

in short, it's a crisis, but one that can be seen all across the country, though 40ft pot ale tankers and heavy articulated trucks supplying the distilleries on roads originally built by thomas telford, arguably make islay's roads worse than many.

but looking at the nationwide problem, the national asphalt industry alliance has reported the ever-increasing cost of repairing roads in england and wales. according to their figures, one pothole is filled every eighteen seconds, with one in six local roads likely to need re-laid within the next five years. according to those selfsame figures, bringing all britain's roads up to an acceptable standard would be likely to incur a budget of £17 billion. under the current and oft-reported fiscal hole in which the current government finds itself, the likelihood of finding that amount of money is slim to none at all. should you require supporting evidence, the department of transport is congratulating itself on investing £1.6 billion in road repairs.

we can moan all we want, but the national roads budget for 2025 is a mere £4.2 billion. yet there's no denying that the way-over-budget phase one of hs2 is currently priced at over £80 billion with no sign of any trains anytime soon. for that kind of money, britain's roads could be resurfaced four times over. however, it is surely something of a contradiction that, having spent many a long year ensuring that private motoring is prioritised over rail travel, government refuses to cancel hs2 and use the money to fix the roads.

in a recent letter to the guardian from a cambridge city councillor, contends that the worsening of britain's road conditions is in a large part, due to the increasing weight of cars. to wit: "the damage done by a vehicle to a road surface is proportional to the fourth power of its axle weight. a two-tonne suv therefore does 16 times more damage than a one-tonne car." and it's a well-known fact that electric veihicles are considerably heavier than their fossil-fuelled equivalents. witnessed by cmal/calmac having increased the average size of a vehicle when calculating car deck space, we're currently suffering the effects of an suv epidemic, creating a subsequent pothole epidemic of which cyclists are on the receiving end.

pessimistically, it doesn't look like it will be remedied anytime soon.

thursday 27 march 2025

you have got to be kidding me (part 32)

many, many years ago, i subscribed to north america's mountain biking magazine which i believe was published by rodale publishing, also publishers of bicycling magazine. i fail to recall whether this was before or after the title was absorbed into bicycling's production schedule, effectively creating a single magazine from two. however, i do recall a cartoon published in the offroad section which featured a mountain bike fastened into an offroad turbo trainer, where the roller under the rear wheel had been replaced with a log, still sprouting branches and leaves.

on 15 september, 1970, renowned, yet anarchic british comedy series, monty python's flying circus broadcast a sketch which included hypothetical ministers from a fictional government department known as the ministry of silly walks. the tall and long-legged john cleese could be seen buying a newspaper from a newsagent on his walk to work, before leaving the shop by means of highly exaggerated leg movements. hence the ministry of silly walks.

still in my early teens at the time, i's be fibbing if it said i could frame this sketch as comment on farcical government departments of the era, but if it were not true of the time, it most certainly is now, where various government departments seem to announce hair-brained schemes with concomitant appointment of ministers by the dozen. the situation can be seen as akin to the emperor's new clothes, where bizarre behaviour or constructs are introduced as bona-fide notions and accepted as such, until pointed out as blatant falsehoods.

over fifty years have passed since monty python created their ministerial absurdity, something that, at the time, we all figured would never be outdone, grossly underestimating the lunacy that would populate the subsequent half-century. and sadly, such lunacy has not found itself constrained to the political classes, having inveigled its way into the velocipedinal realm while pretending to be the next logical step.

by now, the majority of us will be inured to the practice of riding bicycles indoors in front of flat screen televisions or considerably smaller ipads. whether you view this as an aberration or not, will depend on your particular ideal of that which constitutes 'proper' cycling. and just to make this one of the most topical monologues in recent times, let's ally indoor cycling with gravel riding. at this point, i would hope that the majority of you are continuing to read with a quizzical look on your collective faces. other than the cartoon described in my opening paragraph, possibly worthy of monty python himself, the conflation of indoor cycling and gravel riding would, i hope you'll agree, seem a contradiction in terms.

but seemingly not.

co-sponsors of visma-lease-a-bike, rouvy, has partnered with life time events to offer virtual gravel riding, a practice which, as you may expect, takes place on any bicycle you care to mention, affixed to a smart turbo trainer. this, i am led to believe, marks rouvy's "intent to better serve the gravel cycling community", no doubt encouraged by all the complaints we've never heard of from the gravel cycling community. the collaboration with life time events brings with it the opportunity to virtually participate in six offroad events, allowing rouvy users to "ride the real race routes virtually.

the fly-in-the-ointment, as far as i can see, is based on the knowledge that gravel, in all its many forms, tends to offer trickier and more tactile bike rides. i have yet to come across an indoor smart turbo with the capability of replicating the act of riding across a gravel track. meaning, of course, that once again, the emperor has new clothes, garments which resemble indoor cycling while watching animated replicas of specific gravel routes, none of which will educate rouvy's gravel cycling community as to the trials and tribulations they might realistically expect when riding the real thing.

living in this airy-fairy world, rouvy co-founder, petr samek, was quoted as saying, "Whilst the outdoor gravel scene has exploded in the past years, this hasn't been well supported by the indoor cycling space."

or is it just me?

wednesday 26 march 2025

the weakest link

though the bicycle industry has most of its materials science invested in carbon fibre, it still relies substantially on metal parts to make that carbon go fast. after all, you can create the lightest, most aero frame in the universe, but unless it has the ability to move in a forward direction, all is for nought. many of the super-duper carbon wheels available to assist with that process, feature aluminium or steel spokes, fastened to the rims by way of brass, aluminium or steel nipples. if this were a quiz, enquiring which of the latter three materials was the odd-one-out, read a few more paragraphs and you'll learn the correct answer.

though carbon has made specious inroads to the act of transmission by way of the gates carbon belt, by far the single most important component when related to motive force, would surely be the chain. we have discussed at length what might be the rationale behind offering several variations on the humble chain at differing price points; as far as i can determine, they all seem to wear out within a similar time scale. no doubt the difference is weight, but in the majority of cases, the material is steel.

the humble and relatively archaic 1/8" chain tends to buck the wear trend due to its predominance within the hub gear, single-speed and fixed market. with no demands to move laterally, few frictional demands are placed upon its links and rollers, remaining true to the straight chainline between sprocket and chainring. those particular chains were presumably the originators of the so-called power-link, effective due to the aforementioned lack of lateral movement. when the link migrated across to early 3/32" chains, it had an occasional propensity to ping off into the undergrowth (it happened to yours truly), perhaps ensuring that the cognoscenti remained true to the chain-rivet tool, beloved of campagnolo.

technical developments since those days have brought a greater confidence to the use of the power-link, even to the extent that vicenza saw fit to employ its benevolence on the 13-speed chain that forms a part of it's gravel ekar groupset. and in a nod to the new kids on the block, campagnolo has provided its blessing to a similar link for the chain on its wireless super record groupset.

however, no matter the joining method, or which particular componentry might be festooned about your bicycle, for americans at least, replacing the chains on their bicycles is about to become a tad more expensive. by 25%.

not something that immediately sprang to mind when america's recently elected president announced tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, it transpires that steel bicycle chains have found themselves not only attracting oil and muck, but the aforesaid tariffs. and the numbers are perhaps not as minimal as you might have thought. according to bicycle retailer, the usa imported $13.2 million worth of bicycle chains in 2024 (not including those which arrived on complete bicycles, which are currently exempt from mr trump's tariffs).

and in case you were wondering, steel gear cable inner-wires that arrive bereft of fittings (?) are also subject to the tariff.

where once manufacturing in china proved to be a particularly economic means of production, because of a demonstrable presidential prejudice towards imports from the far east, chains imported from china are subject to a particularly onerous 70%. and in case you've yet to work it out, brass was the odd one out due to its current exemption from any punitive tariffs. perhaps we're about to see the emergence of brass chains across the pond.

tuesday 25 march 2025