Super Crazy Ceiling Hoist Blowout Extravaganza Insanity!

So if you've ever been in our shop, you probably noticed a plethora of ceiling hoists hanging above your head.
Well, no longer. We've re-structured our bike storage system, and as a result, have said plethora of hoist on super crazy blowout extravaganza insanity sale.

These normally go for about $30 online, we've got them in perfectly good but slightly used condition for $10.
So, if you have high ceilings and bikes in need of storing, come on by.

In related news, the shops looking pretty good these days, if I do say so myself. There is a distinct lack of ropes hanging all over everything, and we have doubled our ceiling bike storage, which will help us increase our complete bike inventory. Dang.

Holiday Hours

Just so you know....
We will be closed on Thanksgiving day, and Friday as well.
Closed on the biggest shopping day of the year? Yeah, we're that crazy (or is it lazy?).

We'll be back open as normal Saturday morning at 10:00.

Word to mama bird.

Drilling In Moab?

Just had this sent to us:

Famous Moab Trails Put at Risk by Drilling Leases
Action Alert
For Immediate Release
10-12-08
Contact: Mark Eller, IMBA Communications Director
markeller@imba.com
303-545-9011

IMBA urges mountain bikers to help preserve some of Moab's most famous trails. A new Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan would lease land parcels for oil and gas extraction near iconic trails such as Porcupine Rim, Amasa Back, Barlett Wash and Tusher Canyon, turning sections of trail into heavily used access roads. IMBA respects the need for domestic energy production, but believes Moab is better served by protecting its world-class recreational assets.

If these parcels are leased and put into production, the BLM will be required to provide adequate access in the form of roads capable of accommodating trucks and other large vehicles. Parts of these roads would be located on or near some of Moab's most famous mountain biking trails.

IMBA believes the BLM should balance the need for energy production with the benefits of recreation and tourism. Please tell BLM officials to protect mountain biking and Moab's sustainable recreation economy by withdrawing parcels near Porcupine Rim, Amasa Back, Barlett Wash and Tusher Canyon. The deadline for comments is Dec. 3.

Use the following official protest letter to file your comments. This form must be used for correspondence with the BLM regarding this issue and cannot be emailed. It must be mailed or faxed. The address is attached and the fax number is 801-539-4237. Due to the high volume of faxes received by the BLM on protest deadline days, we encourage you to send you comments well in advance of the deadline.

Remember, too, that IMBA's Legal Advocacy Fund provides vital resources for protecting mountain bike access.

--- November XX, 2009 [BLM MUST RECEIVE PROTEST BY DEC. 3, 2008]

Bureau of Land Management
Utah State Office
PO Box 45155
Salt Lake City, UT 84145-0155 FAX 801.539.4237

Re: December 19, 2008 Lease Parcels: 180, 181,182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 196, 197 200, 217, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224, and 225

Pursuant to 43 C.F.R. 3120.1-3, please accept this letter of protest regarding the proposed lease sale of the above noted parcels. I respectfully request that these parcels be withdrawn from the December 19, 2008 sale, for the following reasons:

I am a resident of ____________, ________. I have been to Moab/am planning to visit Moab, and have specific concerns about BLM's upcoming oil and gas lease sale in Utah.

Moab's Recreation Economy Part A: I understand that the recently released Moab Resource Management Plan (RMP) includes specific reference to the Colorado Riverway Special Recreation Management Area (SRMA) which includes both the Porcupine Rim Trail and the Amasa Back Trail. The existence of this SRMA requires that the following parcels be defered as access to these parcels will violate the Visual Resource Management Objectives set forth in the RMP. Further, the loss of these two trails would greatly reduce my desire to visit Moab. Parcel numbers: 200, 217, 218, 219, 221, and 223

Moab's Recreation Economy Part B: Tusher Canyon and Barlett Wash are both designated Mountain Bike Areas within the BLM Resource Management Plan and are closed to motorized travel except on designated routes. Oil and gas activity in this area will greatly detract from the desirability of these trails. The RMP does not include a site-specific analysis that addresses the impacts of oil and gas development included in these lease sale parcels. The BLM must conduct site-specific analysis before making these areas available for oil and gas leasing. Parcel numbers: 180, 181,182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 196, and 197

Moab Water Quality: I am concerned about the health and safety of both residents and visitors to Moab if drilling is allowed within the Moab Aquifer. The RMP specifically states that there will be no exceptions for oil and gas development within an aquifer. Parcel numbers: 224, 225

Parcels contiguous to Arches National Park: Due to the physical constraints of Moab's unique topography the only access to these parcels would be through Arches National Park. Therefore, I request that these parcels be deferred. Parcel numbers: 217, 218

BLM acknowledges that the potential for oil and gas production is low in these areas, so why allow permanent scars of access roads and development to tarnish the landscape that provide a high quality of life to residents of Grand County and that visitors from around the world come to enjoy? A large portion of the Moab economy will be at risk if these parcels are not deferred. The BLM has discretionary authority to approve or disapprove mineral leasing of public lands. We request that the above listed parcels be withdrawn from the December 19, 2008, lease sale, and that these parcels not be re-offered in future lease sales.

Sincerely,

NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER



Sounds great, eh? Lets f-up a bunch of internationally known, world class mtb trails so that we might get enough oil out of the ground to keep us running for what, and extra day or less?
Please everybody copy the form down and send it in, mail or fax, as the instructions say.

Assorted News

I come across a myriad of very useful information during my nightly interweb bike news searching.

Firstly, there appears to be a miracle in progress in Richarounds office:


Yup, that is what you think it is... an acoustic tile water stain in the form of JC himself. Richaround wanted to keep this on the downlow, as he's concerned the masses rushing to his office to see this site may interrupt his work, but I clearly have no respect for the wishes of others, so if you want to go bug Richaround at work and get your worship on, give me a ring and I'll give you directions.

Secondly, The Great Trek Bicycle Making Company (as Bikesnob NYC puts it) has decided to claim belt drives for themselves:

Link to CNN article on Trek's undeniable amazingness

I find it a little amusing. We got our first belt driven Spot in the shop several months ago. I believe Trek is using the same belts and cogs as Spot, so it's not like they did a whole lot of work to get the system up and running. And the article generally makes it sound like they are responsible for the whole belt drive being developed, when I believe Spot is really the driving force behind it. Anyhow, just thought it was a little funny.

And last but not least, Fox's already completely 40 RC2 fork is being usurped by an even perfecter limited edition Atherton tuned 40 RC2 fork:

Link to Velonews article about most perfectest suspension bits ever produced, ever

There are a few details about this that concern me, particularly statements like
"The World Cup tune provides performance characteristics designed specifically for the highest level of competition."
and
“The harder these products are ridden, the more rewarding the ride becomes,”

I'm not sure how many videos of World Cup DH runs you've watched, but those guys (and gals) ride hard. Really really really hard, and fast, and aggro. I'm curious how many people will be disappointed with the performance of the fork and shock simply because they aren't capable of putting the energy required into the dampers to make them perform the way they are supposed to.
I would however, very much like to get one of the 200 available, so one of you local DH guys should let me know you want one, and I'll start pestering the fine folks at Fox.

Lastly, we got some more new Giants in the shop today. I held off of ordering the Anthem X on our initial order, as 4" cross country bikes aren't our forte. But after incredibly positive feedback during our demo day, I went ahead and got a few Anthem X2's in. Check out Marc's review of his ride on one here:
www.bikefix.net

We also got a Reign X0 in, a 2008 model on closeout. I initially held off on this bike because I thought it was more of a freeride rig than all mountain. Then I was informed that the X0 weighed 32 lbs out of the box, very impressivly light for something with nearly 7 inches rear wheel travel and a 36 RC2 fork. So we got one, and sure enough it weighed in at 31lbs 15oz. And the geometry is more aggro all mountain than freeride, with a 67 headtube angle and full length top tubes. And you know it's going to pedal awesome because it has Maestro linkage. So basically, we'll see how long before this bike becomes a demo, because I'm anxious to get on it.

And lastly, we are stocking a small selection of kids bikes, youth bmx, and rad tricycles from Giant for the Christmas season. So come on in and get your holiday shopping insanity on, because kids love bikes, and they are way way cheaper than video games these days.

A successful day in the foothills.

Sunday turned out to be a very fun and successful and tiring day.

Our morning started out by building a few demo bikes that were still in boxes, and had been driven to town the night before by our wonderful rep Cindy. Our bike building was severly hindered by the fact that Tony was playing his newest dvd, Nitro Circus 5, which proved to be the single hardest thing to ignore that has ever been put on a TV.
So we got to the foothills about 10:30, a little later than we had thought, but it didn't appear that anybody was too upset about it.

We then proceeded to set up the pop-ups and the flags, and then just watched the people come rolling in.



We got very busy for most of the day, with about 25 or 30 bikes being sent out for test rides during the course of the day. Not bad considering we had about 10 demo bikes.

Lucky for us Tony's parents, Tony Sr. and Rosemary, were on hand to make sure everybody was fed and happy.


Tony Sr. is a grilling machine. He basically had that thing loaded from noon till 5:30 or so when it got dark and we packed up.

The weather was perfect, unbelievably good luck for an outdoor event scheduled for the middle of November. I'm starting to think we might just go ahead and skip winter this year, and just hold onto fall until spring arrives.

Eventually the sun started to get low, the temperature began to drop (surprisingly quickly), and the crowd started to thin. We had a wonderful sunset to pack up with, and before I knew it, everything was loaded up and the day was over.


It was a fantastic day. It was really satisfying for us to have so many of our friends, family, and customers come out to congratulate us on getting through the first year of a new business.
At one point during the day Cindy told me that it was really cool how much family there was hanging out. I said something like "yeah, those are my parents over here, and Tony's parents over there..." and she said "no, I mean everybody. All these people love you guys, they're all like family." I thought that was pretty cool.

Thanks everybody for coming out and helping us celebrate.

keep buggering on... foothills party tomorrow!

hey people, against some odds and all evens (much respect to phil collins yeah i said it) bikeworks has been in business for a year to the day... we done did it, hoooo ahh!!!! kbo was a favorite catch phrase of winston churchill in case you were wondering and i thought it applied nicely to us today, anywho what i'm really supposed to be talking about is the time and exact location of our party-slash-giant brand bicycle demo this sunday the 16th of november. realistically we should be up and rolling by ten a.m. at the top of simms park road (elena gallegos picnic grounds). Simms park road is off of tramway just north of academy and we'll be there til the sun goes down. there will be food and beverages as well as bikes to ride, so come by and let us say thanks for letting us live the dream... later skaters, and thanks again for the support

More Europe Pics: Day 4

I was just remembering the week of riding in France and Switzerland I did a couple of months ago. Mmmm, sunshine and the alps.



After riding up the most ridiculously steep dirt road I have ever seen, for what seemed an eternity, we were rewarded with views.


Views and unbelievable singletrack that snaked along the ridge for quite a ways. If you look closely in this pic, you can see some of the other riders on one of the ridges.



You just won't find anything like this in New Mexico.



You probably won't find anything quite like this either. This was just a small section of the many incredibly rooted trails we would ride during the week. Fortunately for me it was generally dry, because coming from the desert, wet roots like this would have destroyed me.


At the bottom of all that singletrack was a picturesque valley, with a refuge and a fantastic restaurant in it. I ate the biggest, heaviest, cheesiest, hammiest plate they had, along with some beer, against my better judgment, as I knew it was all up from there.


I wish every epic day had a gourmet meal and a grassy nap in the middle of it. The locals didn't even really ride with food, because if you got hungry there was always a little village and a restaurant close by.


When its time to climb in the Alps though, its really time to climb. This is the typical view from one of our many several thousand vertical foot slogs of the week.


This was a seriously steep road, the third major climb of such magnitude for the day if I remember correctly. At least there was plenty of scenery to keep my mind off my legs.

Thanks for reading.

Some random pics.

Sometimes you just have to take a hammer drill to some XTR cranks and show them who's boss.


Tony is too sexy for his hair.


My new cruiser is hotter than your new cruiser. '84 Stumpjumper with custom paint job and the baddest tires ever. It rides smooooth.

Get Your .000000003%

Been hearing about this for a little while now:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outdoors/2008270252_nwwbikesubsidy16.html

It's really not much, at all, but it's a step in the right direction.

$20 is 0.000000003% of the bailout money, if my math is correct.

Party Flyer

Hot Hot trike!

There was a request for pics of Julian's 'Lil Giant Trike that he just got. So here:




Unfortunately for him, he had to put it together himself first:

don't you just love daylight savings?

honestly we're all getting up in the dark to go to work anyway, right? why take away what little nighttime fun we can muster with a clock change.... is the man really trying to squash the collective joe six-pack spirit that much? sigh, this candle in the wind will be aided by some serious l.e.d. wattage come december i'll tell you that much hombres... anywho, republicrat or demoblican bikeworks strongly urges all listeners to exercise their right to vote tomorrow and to use any extra time off work to visit us, complain about voter lines, and buy a bike, heh later skaters

One Year in Business: Suck that Economy!

We officially opened for business on November 15th, 2007. I believe that first day we sold one pair of knee warmers, or maybe some booties, and they might have been returned a couple days later.

But anyways, the fact remains, we've been open nearly a year, and everybody knows that the first year of a new business is extremely difficult, particularly when the world's economic foundations seem to be crumbling under our feet. So, we feel we deserve a celebration, which is planned as follows:

Date: November 16th
Time: From reasonably late in the morning, til the sun goes down
Where: Elena Gallegos Picnic Ground, group shelter
What: Pure amazingness, what else?

Here's the plan, we've rented the group shelter at the Elena Gallegos Picnic ground. We plan on occupying that shelter for the majority of the day. We plan on having copious amounts of food and beverage. Maybe a couch, maybe even a big screen to watch football on, if we can scrounge up a generator. Maybe some big propane heaters if its a cold day. Maybe a 20 piece mariachi band and a line of chorus girls, and a blimp flying overhead with a Bikeworks banner, and some circus elephants giving rides around the parking lot. Definitely free food and drinks though.

Furthermore, our lovely new Giant rep will be present with her demo fleet of 2009 Giants, for the people to enjoy. So you can cruise up, hop on a shiny new bike of your liking, take it for a spin of your preference, come back, and chillax with us, and start thinking about how you are going to trick your wife into letting you buy yet another bike.

So basically, you would be foolish not to come.

In other Giant Demo bike related news, we've got some Giant demo bikes in the shop these days. I've been meaning to put up a post all week with lots of fun pictures of all our new Giants that arrived, both for sale and demo, but it just doesn't seem to have happened. But they are there, pictures or not, and they are glorious.

Tomorrow, Tony will be riding the backside DH trails on our new Giant Glory DH demo. This bike is, how do you say, ah yes, bad to the bone, and I suggest you ride it. I know this may be short notice, as it's Saturday night, and he'll be up there starting Sunday morning, but maybe this can be a lesson to you that it's always a good idea to check this website each night before you go to bed, because sometimes really seriously awesome things go on that you need to know about.

Also, my lovely wife would like you to know that we scored some rad baby shoes at Savers today for $3.99, and basically, things are good. But don't go getting all greedy and buying up all the baby shoes at Savers, because that wouldn't be nice for the rest of us.

Our other Giant demos for the shop include a Large Reign 0, which is a 6" travel model, and soon we'll have a Med Trance X1, which is a 5" travel model, and Julian said if you ask nicely he will let you try out his Lil' Giant, which is the dopest tricycle you have ever seen.

Now I got to go. Stay cool.