Recently in General Category

We're on the move. Finally I've got round to buying the proper domain for this blog - www.chasingwheels.com.

I'll still be publishing to the old address (I hope) but links will start www.chasingwheels.com/page-name rather than www.atomicecho.com/cycling/page-name

It's a long overdue change and it should free up my atomicecho.com domain to be more about my work and other stuff.

If you are following me using a feed reader then you may need to update your subscription. I'll be updating the Chasing wheels Feedburner feed source so that should still work for all subscribers to that.

I'm hoping that if I've got this right all the existing content will still exist at the old address so no unpleasant broken links. But I'll not be able to sort it out until after the Bank Holiday weekend when I've got time to look into it all properly. So apologies if things are a little broken until then.

It's a difficult time if you are looking for gifts for your cycling-obsessed, loved one. Thankfully, the subject is covered in some detail (and a jolly good job they do too) by the Two Johns podcast. A little American-centric but neatly divided into price points, it's a great little listen:

The Two Johns Podcast - Christmas buying guide

This all helps to cover for the fact that I've yet to get any training done. I've managed to catch two or three of the many colds going round London in a row wiping out the last fortnight to three weeks.

I've managed not to balloon up the scales and I'm still holding tight to the 75kg mark which is a good place to be. Previous years I've done cyclocross or taken it easy for most of November and December so I'm not panicking as yet about my fitness, just concentrating on getting healthy again.

Even if you start in January you've got a good few months before you have to seriously think about your racing. I don't usually get into the road racing stuff until late February when you start to get beginners' races in the calendar and the Winter Series start drawing to a close.

I had planned to get some winter series action in before Christmas but after all this illness, I don't feel much like wearing myself out chasing wheels in the freezing cold. Especially as I'm currently looking forward to my snowboarding holiday in Banff over Christmas and will get killed if I break/injure myself before then. It's just tempting fate to go racing isn't it?

I know she's cute, I know she's pretty much unbeatable in a sprint event, but why is she the most common search term people end up at this site via? Is there nothing I'm writing about that is of interest *awaits predictable "no"?

Five out of my top ten searches are for her, or feature her alongside other terms. Unsurprisingly two of those are "nude" and "naked". The other is "observer" which I assume is the newspaper.

The other five searches cover the title of the blog plus some things that maybe I've written about more than most:

• Rapha
• Condor Tempo
• Bagaboo
• Cyclocross Wheels

The number of visits via google search as a result of these is pitiful in cold statistical terms. It's less than 30, compared to the 250 plus from Victoria Pendleton's name on its own.

I keep on saying I'd like to review more kit but I guess I need to pull my finger out and do it, and write more about pro racing. Once the Etape comes back on my radar then I'll be updating that blog as well and figuring out how to make the two cross-post to each other, which is apparently doable.

If you love riding a bike is there really such a thing as "the off-season"? It feels like there are less competitive periods of the year but, as I ride most days to commute, I don't feel like I ever have a season without the bike.

Last year I contented myself through the winter months with cyclocross which was fun but hard work; not just in terms of riding on the red line of my ability for an hour, but in terms of the time it took up in my weekend. It's a big commitment riding in the London League because it eats up your entire Sunday getting there and back without even counting the bike cleaning time.

This year I'm thinking I might look out for some races which aren't closer to Calais than London. Although, I'm quite keen on giving Penshurst a go because it was such a great course - proper off-road madness that gets the adrenaline going.

Then again I might just put the road wheels on the Dolan 'cross bike and take it out riding wherever I fancy. I've got the 25mm tyres on which is, as Steve described it on Saturday morning, a "sensual experience". It's buttery smooth and a bit like a hovercraft through the corners - you glide round rather than dive.

I'm already lining up my goals for next year and I think I want to do the Etape again. My year has lacked a focus like that to motivate me and I've been riding for fun rather than to achieve. Nothing wrong with riding for fun, it's just that I feel like I'd have more fun if I was achieving something.

Malcolm Elliott and Stephen Roche, originally uploaded by leguape.

Malcolm Elliott and Stephen Roche having a chat. No I didn't ask for an autograph, although I swear Roche thought I was a nutter because I kept on going past them and muttering as I got a bit lost and was going round in circles.