Happy Anniversary to We

Our building down here is going to be anniversary central for the next week. First up our neighbor the Trumpet Blossom Cafe is celebrating 2 years of great food, drink, and music on Saturday!

Not to be outdone but without a poster we will be celebrating our FIVE year anniversary on Earth Day, next Tuesday April 22nd! We have come a long way since we started in that garage. Well, okay we are still in that garage, but it’s a bigger garage with more stuff. We won’t have live music or food and drink specials, but all qualifying purchases of 5 dollars or more will qualify for a free high five! Maybe we will crack open a couple of 5 packs around 5 if you want to stop by for the 5 top tales from the 5 years gone by.

As ever when we think back on the time past we have to consider it a privilege to get to do what we love and we have to THANK YOU for that. So thanks, and here’s to 5 more years!

 

Past Present Future Events

First up – future event! Next Friday, March 7th The NCJC Youth Off Road Riders are having a Spring Benefit and Hand Built Bike Show at the Terry Trueblood pavilion. Silent auction. Live auction. Pretty hand made bikes to look at from the UI frame building class. Hope to see you there.

Presently, just want to mention that our Swing into Spring Sale is still on, and while the stock of hats is gone and gloves are low we still have a limited selection of studded tires in 26″ and 700c. And for good measure our remaining 2013 MASI road bikes are 15% off.

To the past then, this unforgettable winter weather will soon be forgotten as the cycling season proper is coming at us. Last night Bicyclists of Iowa City held their annual Bike Expo out at the North Ridge Pavillion in Coralville.

Donnie and I loaded up a couple of cool bikes with cool stuff to show off and made the ride out to do just that.

Xtracycle Edgerunner, Detroit Bikes A-Type, Ironweed BP bags, Selle Anatomica demo saddles, a full carbon MASI road frameset, some Arkel stuff, Retroshifters, Giro shoes and more.

The Ironweed Dolliver trunk bag fits a 12 pack perfectly! We had a good time drinking a couple of those and chatting with folks, and the ride back was all tailwinds and smiles, like the Spring season just ahead.

 

Fat Tire Bikes Old & New

One inspired a beer.

The other a lot of beards.

All of those things are okay with us.

 

Dinner + Bikes + Blog

We hosted the amazing traveling Dinner + Bikes roadshow and vegan dinner last weekend. So first, clean house! We even mopped.

Then, we organized a Bikes at Work convoy to pick up all the chairs. We blew that gate doing 8.8 said, “let them cargo bikes roll”

Had to activate the overflow bike parking system at showtime.

And it’s on! =Dinner, bikes and beers as promised, plus the tallest sponsor on earth Brian from Ironweed BP.

The show went on, first Elly Blue and then a movie, Aftermass.

Anne here deserves huge props for luring these fine folks to town, rounding up sponsors and making sure everything ran smoothly for the event – thanks Anne!

Now the party is over and things are back to crowded normal on the floor.

Thanks to everyone who came out for a great night with Dinner + Bikes – take the lane!

 

 

Bicycles for Peace & Battle

Want to let you all know about a couple of exciting upcoming events. First, this Saturday November 10th at 12:30 pm you can join Michelle Gin for lunch next door at the Trumpet Blossom. Michelle was the sole US representative to the International Peace Bike Tour from Nagasaki to Hiroshima. A talk about her  bike tour and experiences will follow at 2 pm so check out one or stay for both.

We are proud to have sponsored Michelle with financial support and equipment for her 600 km ride to rid the world of all things nuclear!

The next weekend, November 16th – 18th, the Jingle Cross Rock returns to the Johnson County Fairgrounds bringing bar banging bicycle battles back to bear!

Er, bare? We are sponsoring the Women’s Beginner race all 3 days, and 30¢ Squadateer Leader Steve will be racing (riding?) the singlespeed events on  Saturday and Sunday. Come on down to ride, race, watch, volunteer, sing, drink, photograph and / or just run around in your undewear!

 

Poker party, art party, & he who shall not be named

Poker Run is tonight! $10 entry fee gets you a coffee at Wake Up, a beer at Trumpet Blossom. Ride to five places in Iowa City and get five cards Start at Wake Up & end at the Trumpet Blossom Cafe where you play your hand to win gift certificates to WAKE UP, Trumpet Blossom, 30th Century Bicycle, or White Rabbit! Music starts@ 5:30 with the musical stylings of Chasing Shade & We Shave!! A portion of the proceeds goes to the Crisis Center.

ICCSA Season 2 Launch Party is tomorrow night at Trumpet Blossom!

Lots of options to support local artists: $50 will get you a meal and an ICCSA commemorative print all while getting a healthy earful of Dustin Busch’s pickin’ & croonin’. If you decide to do the full CSA subscription for $350, you get six pieces of artwork from six local artists. If those options are too rich for your blood, $10 will get you in the door tomorrow night for music and a commemorative print and the opportunity to hang out with a segment of your arts community.

Shameful, sheepish self-plug time: 30¢’s own Cody G. is one of the repped artists this season, so she’ll be there to tell anyone who will listen all about why it’s worthwhile to spend an entire month+ making a letterpress artists’ book of Art Bears‘ 1981 still sleeping sleeper album The World as it is Today.

Let’s keep this dance with the devils of intellectual property law going with this Italian bar plug that landed in the shop earlier this week. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

 

Roam

Yesterday we had a cross country cyclist stop into the shop. While always tan, windblown, and generally exciting, there is nothing really out of the ordinary about this, except he was riding an Ira Ryan touring bike.

It is pretty cool to have a bike built by an old roommate and good friend stop in. Not as good as if it had been the Ira himself, but we still got some good biking stories over a beer on the patio at the Trumpet Blossom.

Roaming closer to home, the buffalo (okay, bison) that are part of a mural long covered up were uncovered when a building on the ped mall was demolished, pretty cool peek at local history. Read more about it here.

 

 

 

Tiny Tour Lite

Friday afternoon I (Steve) decided to go on an overnight bike tour. So, naturally, I had a beer.

Left the shop early, quick stop at home to pack and off! But where to go? Anamosa of course, to say hi to ragbrai. There was a bit of headwind, but the temps were in the 80s so no complaining. Saw the first riders in Mount Vernon, taking their time on the 45 mile day, it was 5:30 and they still had 25 miles to go!

Escape to Ragbralcatraz by gpickle at Garmin Connect – Details.

It was a nice ride, and from Springville there were lots of riders still out enjoying the short day and the cool temps. Set up the camp. Did you know we can get tents, sleeping bags and pads and other camping gear? Well we can, and this 1-person Sierra Designs tent and Nemo sleeping pad are great for bike touring, they pack small and light. Had a good time wandering around taking in the sights and smells, and found some old friends from rides gone by to do some catching up.

Then a quick pack and ride home to get to the shop by 10 Saturday morning. Using a Revelate seat bag and handlebar sling took care of all the gear. I was surprised to think that really you could do the whole week carrying all your gear with just this set up. It rides well, and when you consider the weight of racks and full sized panniers, plus all the extra stuff they invite you to take along, this is a pretty great set up.

Escape from ragbralcatraz by gpickle at Garmin Connect – Details.

The ride back offered tailwind, which was great, but I was not aware that my route was also the vehicle route, so the first 15 miles were hectic being passed by lots of buses and RVs. Another ragbee in the books, in under 16 hours!