Test: Absolute Black N/W chainring

During the last winter I've had it with my chain guides. First, the Hope chain guide including the fancy Integrated Bash Ring sucked at keeping the chain on. Despite using the clutch rear mech I was just dropping it on and on. Then on one of the rides the lower roller on Gamut P30 seized up permanently. MRP G2 Mini SL got screwed up in Hafjell, in a stupid slow speed crash the boomerang got bent and I have never managed to straighten it up so that the chain wasn't rubbing on the upper guide. That was just before i lost the lower roller to it... lots of bad luck aye, enough to turn my eyes on narrow wide chain ring...

I decided to try that hyped thingy before buying a new guide. There were plenty of options but I wanted to buy something made in Europe, and it happened that there is a Polish bloke in UK making those. He runs a small manufacture called Absolute Black making very nice looking components. So I gave it a try. I bought a beautifully carved 34t chainring fitting my old XTR cranks. The finish quality is top notch and it arrived quickly in very nice packaging. I like such approach to business.

Cairns World Cup - Who is going to win?

It always amazes me, why people want to know the future, what is coming. There are some relatively non-creative fantasies of what is going to come: who is going to win a race or a match. Most of us if asked about the sense of visiting an astrologist or a fairy, would use words like useless, stupid, delusion, mumbo jumbo, waste of money. Yet everytime a new race comes along, many of us "fans" predict future in the same manner, it's just that instead of horoscpes or cards they tell future from start lists, timed practice, qualifications:  Danny is going to win. In more popular sports, like football, tennis or F1, there are masculine fairies. They sit in TV studio and are called: "experts". There are also means of wasting money on future telling called "betting".

I believe that surprise is a bigger reward than "Hah - I said so!"  so just sit back and enjoy watching it unfold alright?

Say NO to Prejudgment! Kill the prejudice!

I recently read a book called Spiritual Bypassing by Robert Augustus Masters. A great book about the mechanisms that push us into unhealthy denial of our own feelings, like: "I was too harsh for my girlfriend today, I should not have shouted on her so much" - "it is because I haven't prayed too much lately, I am too weak in my faith, I am missing the leading power of God". Or more secular interpretation: "I overreacted because I am disfunctional, I grew up with a harsh father", or atheist interpretation: "I haven't read enough articles from psychology, how to control emotions, maybe I should have been more aware of the low atmospheric pressure causing me to be irritated due to diminished ability to focus - I am missing the leading power of Science". Maybe: "I should have taken a spare tube, I wouldn't be so angry after walking home for 3 hours in hard clipless shoes"