Aside from Cream’s classic album, the only musical reference to derailleurs that I have found is this 2 minutes 55 seconds of teeth-grinding torment recorded by the (hopefully) legendary Gina at the equally legendary Studio Dinosaure, somewhere in France in 1987.

I had wondered what ‘La Nana’ is - I couldn’t believe Gina was really claiming to be a grandmother from South Yorkshire - but a recent correspondent has terrifyingly assured me that ‘La Nana du Dérailleur’ translates as ‘The Babe of the Derailleur’. Gina certainly looks a happy soul in her hairnet helmet - if appearing somewhat partial to the winter training diet made famous by Jan ‘Who-ate-all-the-pies’ Ullrich.

While this is only a promotional video, it is also possibly the greatest work of cinematographic art with a starring role for the derailleur.

Particular highlights are; Gary Fisher’s headwear, the Bollywood style dance sequence, and the groovy music by Fearless Chicken.

A literary work that is surely worth the price if only for the cover picture of the ‘derailleur of death’ which is credited to Matt Brownson.

Greg Moody is a serial author of cycling murder mysteries. The blurb for this particular work is as follows:

‘Follow the ongoing adventures of Will Ross and Cheryl Crane in their world of professional cycling back to the United States where Cheryl travels to meet her newly formed mountain-bike team in the resort town of Vail, Colorado. She’s challenged with taking over as leader of her reluctant Haven-TW team, but they are nothing compared to what Will finds himself tangled up in. His agent has stolen and carried off $4.5 million in mob cash, and is being pursued by two experienced hit men. A rabid old lady environmentalist and her gigantic, and seemingly dim-witted, son soon become involved, thinking that $4.5 million would nicely help their battle against rampant development and evil real estate developers in Vail. All elements collide on a single weekend at the Ishmael Coffee mountain-bike race’

It all makes Taggart sound like a model of sophistication. I can’t wait to actually read it...

Having conquered the worlds of music, cinematography and literature, the next obvious stage on which the the derailleur could strut its stuff was in the theatre of fashion.

Put your hands together for the Elevengear R.Mech T-shirt, a surprisingly tasteful garment constructed out of simple but high quality fabrics.

I had hoped for something more lurid, perhaps involving the fluorescent colours and meaningless geometric shapes that were so inexplicably popular amongst cyclists in the early 1990s, but this was what I found.

Shockingly wearable.

And so, inevitably, on to politics. ‘The Derailleur’ magazines from April and May 2004 cover the World Naked Bike Ride, the Lucy Parsons Memorial Route (named for a prominent 19th century Chicago anarchist) and, in the poetry section, an ‘Ode to Johnny Payphone’. What can it all mean? Well clearly not overly much - but that is not necessarily a criticism.

I had wanted to include some activism somewhere on the site and this is perfect.

Idealism is so charming in the young.