Where the hell are you guys getting the cash from? Seriously. It's the last week of Jan and personally I'm broke, but feck me, you guys have dug deep and bought some damn nice bikes this week .Thanks. Or really, the tax man should be saying thanks. For those of us who are effectively self employed our tax for 06/07 is due now, we were looking like coming up a bit short, as usual, but we just scrapped it by the skin of our cleats. Anyway, can't wait to see some of the bikes you lot have had on the trail :-)

More Macs? This week the constant threads on our MTB community site forum about Macs went into overdrive, so it was time for a dedicated Mac forum. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Check out the chaos at www.mtbrider.com

New brand? Hmm, we've been talking about this for ages. Lots of new bike brands are in the Uk for 08, and with the new shop opening and the workshop in the existing shop moving out the back we had the space for a third bike brand in Real Cycles. Only, well, I couldn't make a decision. They all had their strong points, and all had their potential issues. So I was stuck, postponing the decision until the very last moment. Then the last moment came and went and I still hadn't made a commitment. Then as I'm about to successfully convince myself that actually we didn't need a third brand after all, a new one comes up totally out the blue, totally unexpected, and totally so perfect for the shop, it's crazy that I didn't think of it in the first place. More on that one soon, very soon.

New shop stuff? Stevo, the elite rider from our DH team is also a joiner, a good joiner and he's done some bits for us, not a lot, but enough to let us dump the silver MDF monstrosity that TimH built in then ten minutes about 5 years ago (It'll do til we get something sorted new month!) and the horrible counter I picked up for £150 about a million years ago. The shop is looking almost, well, like a proper shop. Just wait til I get to Ikea and get some proper display cabinets, the shop will look... Well, like a shithole shop with some Ikea furniture in it!

Finally.....

New shop? OMG the rumour mill went bellistic after the post mentioning it a while back. I've been questioned like the spanish inquisition (cue Python renditions) about it. All I'm saying is it's gonna be in Belfast, it's gonna be good, and...... It's not called Real Cycles!!!!!! We've got the keys, we've started fitting, slowly, and it'll be open by Easter at the latest, maybe sooner, maybe later.

I think that's it for this week. Seeya.

Steve.