The Federal Trade Commission has a series of guidelines pertaining to reviews on websites such as The Chainlink. You can read about those here. The primary requirement is that we're supposed to let y'all know when a sample product was provided for us free of charge in exchange for an honest review about it. Yes, let it be known that some or all of the item(s) featured in our product reviews were provided to us free of charge for the purpose of testing them and then writing an honest review about them. Sometimes we review products offered by companies that advertise with The Chainlink.

That said, we're going to take this opportunity to shed some light on our general attitude toward product reviews. We get a lot of companies wanting The Chainlink to review their stuff. However, we don't like wasting our precious saddle time testing products we don't feel will meet our needs. And with all the awesome, innovative products available out there, we don't believe it makes sense to write a review about something that in the end we're not going to recommend you buy. That's why you'll never see a bad product review on The Chainlink. We'd rather highlight something great than blast something we don't like. And just because we don't like something doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. It could mean that we just don't "get it," or that it meets the needs of a different kind of rider. Also, being that everyone here at The Chainlink has worked on the manufacturing side of things, we fully understand what goes into bringing a product into market. Therefore, we don't think it's right for a few people with a website to damage the reputation of a product that took years to develop with a mere flick of the pen. We respect anyone and everyone who wants to improve the sport of cycling with their inventions. To put it another way, if we don't have anything nice to say, we're not going to say anything at all.

And while we have your attention, let's talk for a minute advertising. We could be making a ton more money if we jam packed our sidebars with banner ads for online poker sites, but that ultimately cheapens the Chainlink brand, and compromises our reputation as a serious resource for avid cyclists.

So, long story short...if something appears in our reviews, or in a banner ad on our page (or both), rest assured it's a product or service we believe in and would purchase with our own money.