If you’ve been thinking, “Has Ian from Place of Things been swallowed whole by a Wattbike flywheel?” — fear not. I’m here. Slightly sleep-deprived. Mildly over-decaffeinated. And surrounded by small plastic parts that I absolutely promise are not an early sign of some kind of cycling-related breakdown.
First things first: thank you. Genuinely. To all the brilliant new Wattbikers who’ve joined the Place of Things believers… you’ve been rolling in like a perfectly paced sweet spot session — steady, relentless, and somehow still leaving me gasping.
And secondly… You are also the reason I haven’t updated the site in a while.
Because I’ve been flat-out doing the glamorous behind-the-scenes work of:
- packing orders like I’m in a pit crew
- troubleshooting my 3D printer like it’s a old Italian car
- and occasionally emerging from the workshop to remember what daylight looks like
So yes — the silence wasn’t me vanishing. It was me in full goblin-mode, manufacturing little upgrades for people who refuse (quite rightly) to accept clunky shifting and suboptimal Wattbike vibes.
The Sureshifters: the tiny plastic saga that took over my life
The last couple of years have basically been The Age of the Sureshifters. And there are now hundreds of you, and more joining every week.
It started as a simple thought:
“Surely… surely there’s a better way to solve shifting woes than swearing at the bike and threatening it with the bin.”
So I did what any thoughtful-but-slightly-unhinged Wattbiker would do:
I made a thing.
A small, practical upgrade. A little bit of engineering. A dash of “I can fix this.”
And suddenly… Sureshifters were born.
Since then, it’s been tweaked here and there — tiny refinements, small improvements — but the core idea has stayed the same:
Make shifting feel like it should’ve felt all along.
And honestly, the response has been ridiculously positive. The feedback has been the kind of thing that makes you stop, grin, and think, “Wait… this crazy little idea actually helped people.”
The ultimate durability test: me being… me
Here’s my favourite part.
I still have my original prototype fitted.
Not the “nice” one.
Not the polished, production version.
The OG.
And I use it a few times a week enthusiastically — with absolutely no mercy. If anything is going to fail, it’ll fail under my watch because I ride like I’m trying to outrun my own questionable life choices.
And they’re now two years old.
Two years of sessions. Two years of abuse. Two years of me refusing to be gentle.
Not bad for a bit of plastic…
…obviously well engineered 😉
So… what now?
Well, I’m still here. Still tinkering. Still building upgrades that start as “something I needed” and end up becoming “something the community wanted.”
And if you’ve ordered from me, supported the site, recommended me to a mate, or even just sent a message saying “this fixed my shifting and saved my sanity” — honestly: thank you.
It means the world. And it keeps the printer humming.
Right. I’ll stop before this turns into a full emotional cooldown ride.
Until next time:
Keep Wattbiking. Keep smashing workouts. Keep chasing those virtual rides like they owe you money.
Happy Wattbiking,
Ian