Consider D-BAD to be our contribution to basic cycling (and human) etiquette.

There is a strange little phenomenon we’ve noticed among road riders, and it’s only been getting worse over the past few years. Many times we’ve been tootling through the hills and offered a cheery ‘hello’ to a fellow cyclist, only to receive stony silence in response. After lots of these snooty encounters, we began to wonder... what’s behind it? What’s up with this bizarre elitist attitude, and why does it get worse when people ride in packs with matching kit?

With this in mind, we used our February e.newsletter to declare Don’t Be A Dickhead Month. All you had to do to participate was to say ‘hi’ to a fellow cyclist. And if they didn’t return the greeting, you were authorised to call them a dickhead. Easy!

Within a minute of our missive going out, we were flooded with emails from people who were also sick of being ignored. “I want stickers!” said one. (Then we started trying to work out how we could slap them on said Dickheads.) “I want T-shirts!” said another. And so a movement was born.

We could argue about D-BAD being about cyclist solidarity, etc, but really it’s about elementary politeness, and, thus, the foundation of civilised society. So if you’re a roadie who’s been guilty of ignoring other people, start saying ‘hello’ (even if you think their bike/jersey/knees-out pedalling style has seen better days). No, you don’t need to ride with them. No, you don’t need to share your gel or swap interval training tips. Just say ‘hi’! And would a smile kill you? There you go. Don’t you feel better?

Now, by popular demand, you can also show your support for basic politeness by wearing one of our brand new D-BAD jerseys or t-shirts, seen to the right, available in store or by mail order.

(Because, really, D-BAD has applications in all walks of life, not just on a bike.)

:-)