Expansion Time

Look out – our bike shop is about to get bigger!  We can barely turn around in here without knocking over this or that, and we want to have more room to better serve you with your every bicycle need so we are going to take over the next door space right here at 310 E Prentiss St.  The move will begin on December 1st, and we plan to remain open through the entire reorganization with only a couple of long nights and weekends for us.

All that will change for you is that our door will switch to the South side of the building, and there will be more elbow room for all of us.  And bike room!  See you in the future,

30th Century Bicycle

 

New Shirts

Today we got a bicycle delivery of a big box of 30th Century Bicycle t shirts!

Made in the USA cotton/poly blend,  screenprinted right here in Iowa City by White Rabbit.

 

Two Year Anniversary!

Two years ago on Earth Day we threw our doors open to the world.  It was symbolic to us, yes, as we believe bicycles are more than just toys (although they are really fun), they are powerful tools that change lives and make our world a better place.

Get on yer bikes and ride!

 

Employee Of The Month!

Some of you may have noticed that our supply of ready to take home Used Bikes has been up lately and there is a good reason for that.  We hired our first employee!

He is hard to catch on film, but he has many years of experience as a “pro” mechanic and has been a long time volunteer at the Iowa City Bike Library.  We are happy to have him on board.

He replaces our previous 3rd wheel, Sit on a potato pan Otis, who has been placed with a good home where he has the all day company of another kitty and new loving people friends who are home a lot to give him all the attention he deserves.

Plus he does not have to roll around on the floor in a dirty bike shop with all the grease, metal shavings, chain lubricants, and other pleasantries associated with the fixing of bicycles.  We miss him but know that this move is in his best interest.  And we still get to go visit!

 

We Are One!

Today is Earth Day.  We opened our doors for business on this day last year.

It was a great first year, and we are looking forward to our second.

Happy Earth Day!

 

Improvements

This weekend we broke out the power tools and made some changes around here.

First was a new shelf in the corner.

Then we moved the lending library from the front door to the counter.  Not sure about this one, but we will give it a try.

A wall mount map dispenser under the bulletin board.  The statewide map and the local trails map, free!

And, sure to be a mechanic favorite, a new centrally located shelf with cables, housing, and such, nicely tucked out of the way.

And of course, Otis keeps making our shop a better place!  Here he is hard at work helping compose this weblog post.  Thanks, buddy.  Otis is the latest Your Change Can Make A Difference Can beneficiary, to help with the costs of his vet bills.  We are glad he is here, and not out in the cold, and we think he feels the same way.

 

MK Fenders!

The cat is out of the bag, we have MK Fenders in stock.  These wood fenders are locally produced, fully shaped, and finished with a marine quality coating so they are well protected and shiny beautiful.  $200 a set.

We have them on the Xtracycle and they look and work great.  Mounting hardware will be coming from Velo Orange, unless you happen to have your own already, and everything needed to mount these comes to around $20.  The manufacturing team that is making the fenders are also hard at work with a machine shop in Cedar Rapids to produce their own hardware, but it is not there yet.  We have two sets of 700c, one 650b and one 26″ so come on in and take a look, we are sure you will be impressed!

 

I know this doesn’t rhyme, but the clutter on the table is getting out of hand.

Jingle Cross 2009 is officially  in the books, and there are far too many stories to tell in just one blog post.  However, we would like to share the results of the MASI CXR frameset drawing for the Women’s Beginner category.  Heidi came out to the races on a borrowed mountain bike and got a day license in order to give cyclocross a try.  She raced on Saturday, and the next day we drew her name from among all the racers.  Here she is with her new frame:

Photo courtesy of Mauro Heck.

There are lots of pictures and videos from the weekend on Mauro’s page.  We had a great time sponsoring the event and were glad to see the registration numbers for the Women’s Beginner category were up this year.  Looking forward to next year!

In other big news we finally received our much anticipated shop waterbottles!

These bottles are BPA & DEHA free if you’re interested in that kind of thing.  Even though it would have been far more DIY to rig up a way to attach our screenprinting frame to blank bottles, we’re pretty happy with how they turned out, outsourced or no.

 

Let Yer Fingers Do The Riding

How quaint, we are in the phonebook!  Remember those?  Look for us under Bicycles in the “yellow pages” section- it’s easy and fun, too!

Wayne seems to like the book even more now.  If you don’t have a phone book, don’t worry, our phone number is available in many places online, too.  Like right here:  (319) 248-1288

Gotta go, the phone is ringing!

 

Up Shifting

A couple of cool shifting solutions happened upon this week.  The first came into the shop for a tune up.

XT thumbshifter mounted next to the brake on a drop bar, sweet!  I have a set of XT thumbies and they are not on a bike now, but will be again someday I am sure, maybe even on a road bike.

And, spied on a fine looking KELLY seen parked at the new pi co-op, wowsers!

The closer look, can anyone tell me more about these please?

Cool stuff.  If you like talking bikes, shifting, CSA, or anything else come on by the shop and be heard!  Enjoy a cup of espresso while you are at it.  Yep, that is right, the dream is realized, coffee shop next to bike shop right here in little old Iowa City.

Ben’s espresso is fair trade, locally roasted (by him), and really delicious.  Get it while the getting is good, he will be there 7am to 5pm Tuesday thru Saturday all summer long!