Monthly Archives: November 2012

Breakfast Ride (Kevin’s birthday)

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The storms cooperated; as forecast, no rain this morning! In fact, so far, this massive series of storms has been a bit of a disappointment, although that supposedly will be remedied this weekend. We’ll see!

Passing a truck that couldn’t quite make the corner on Kings

Moderate-size group this morning, Kevin, Kevin, Eric, Chris (young guy from our Redwood City store), Jon, Todd & Mark. And me, of course, keeping track of things at the back, making sure Chris is OK. He’s not quite got his climbing legs yet, but they’ll be coming along very quickly.

Making the climb up Kings a bit interesting was the possibility the road was going to be closed (it was) causing us to have to detour up 84 (we didn’t have to; the police were friendly and knew we wouldn’t have an issue getting past the reason for the road closure (a long truck that couldn’t make it through a corner). It’s nice that, after 20+ years of doing this, on an absurdly-rigid schedule, they know us well enough to cut us a bit of slack.

Since yesterday was Kevin’s birthday, we made this one of our every-two-years-or-so “breakfast rides”, where, on our first pass through Sky L’onda, we stop by Alice’s and place our orders for breakfast, which will be ready for us after we do the west-side Old LaHonda loop and return to Sky L’onda 20 minutes later. Unfortunately, most needed to get to work or other commitments (Pilot Kevin claimed his mother was in town???!!!), so it was just myself, “birthday” Kevin (he’s 20, by the way), Eric and Chris.

Health food, of course. French toast & pancakes, coffee & hot chocolate. Breakfast of Champions? Yeah, sure, today we’ll go with that!
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Bike shops get skewered by Engadget blogger (and of course, I respond)

Personal stuff, Shop news, , ,

You can read the full content here, but I’ll post an excerpt to give you an idea of what Joshua Fruhlinger, an influential blogger at Engadget (a website for people who like high-tech toys), thinks of his local bike shops-

This year, I was in the market for a new mountain bike. My first move, of course, was to look online where I found a multitude of great deals, free shipping and, of course, no tax. I then checked online communities like mtbr.com where I was guilted into checking my local bike shop. For not much more money, it was argued, I’d establish a relationship with a local dealer who would also service my bike and hook me up with equipment and accessories over the life of the bike.

This sounded nice. I like relationships. So I set out to visit two of the most reputable bike shops in the area, money at the ready, in the dead of Black Friday.

The first shop was set up for the big day with a clearance tent out front full of last year’s shoes and pedals. I sauntered past into the showroom and over to the mountain bikes. I stood, staring, waiting for help from one of the three unoccupied salespeople. After 10 minutes, not one approached me. Finally, I walked up to the counter to ask a young, Bieber-esque dude if I could get some help. Without leaving the comfort of the counter, he asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but I wanted to check out the Specialized and Yetis you have.”

“What’s your budget?”

“I’m still figuring that out.”

He was still behind the counter. I told him I’d come back when he wasn’t so busy.


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