Bicycle Service to your Door

Those of you who have been with us since the beginning... no the VERY beginning. Remember when we operated out of a small room dubbed "the ugly room" and the entire inventory was stored in a couple of Tupperware containers? Yeah then.

Well those of you who remember that will remember that at that time the logo we had on the business cards was "If you are going out, it should be to ride" At the time the concept was simple. The customers needed parts, I wanted to go for a bike ride, so I would get on my bike and ride the parts to the customers. It was win win.

The problem with all this is that I forgot to take into account one simple truth about cyclists. People who can install their own parts are generally people who like to hang out in bike shops. While they will grumble about wearing out a tire or breaking a spoke, they enjoy going to the shop to look at the new toys and put their hands on parts. What we realized was that we were not saving our customers the chore of going to the bike shop, we were impersonalizing what should have been a fun time out to see the gang at the shop.

So now, a little over a year since, canning the delivery service, we think we have fixed the glitch, and we are bringing back the "to your door" service from Goose Creek. To do this we have had to recognize that not everyone is the die hard, eat, sleep & breath bike stuff fanatics that we are. There is a portion of the population for whom going to the bike shop IS a chore. These are the people trying to shove a bike into their backseat, or borrowing a friends pickup so they can get both of the kids bike in to go get a flat tire changed. For these people we are now offering to your door repair service.

As of this week we are launching our pilot program for Buckner, La Grange, Crestwood, Prospect, Goshen, Skylite and certain Lousville Zip Codes. Basically the east side of Louisville and all the little towns between there and our shop. Customers will be able to contact us either by filling out a form on our website or by just calling the shop. We will set up a time and then come out for their bikes. Simple repairs will be performed on spot, for more complicated or time consuming repairs, we will actually pick up the bike, bring it to the shop, do the repairs, and return the bike when it is done.

There is a small premium, between $5-$15 depending on location, but considering that our normal labor costs are lower than many of our competitors anyway it all comes out in the wash. For instance if you live in St. Matthews, a tune up would be $25 + $15 for the pick up, so your total tune up cost would be $40 which is about what you would pay if you took it into your local shop anyway.

Official advertising for this service will start in the next couple of weeks, and we will have to get the vehicle painted up and some official uniforms for the guys so people won't think we are going to steal their bikes, but a temporary service request page is now up and functional and you can view it here: http://www.goosecreekcycle.com/ServiceForm.htm

I realize that if you are reading this blog you are probably the sort that likes to come into the shop yourself, but spread the word to your friends and neighbors. Thanks and see you out on the road.

Dirt Sweat and Gears.

Ok, so our trip down to Dirt Sweat and Gears last weekend was a bit of a milestone for me. Not necicarily a good milestone, but lets call it unfortunate timing on a change that was three years in the comming.

For a number of years I raced in with the pros in the hyper-endurance events. To me it seemed a bit silly to travel around the continent to compete for a secondary prize like a age group award or an amature tite. On a number of occasions I have sat back and compared lap times to discover that a race that left me back in the double digits somewhere in the elite race would have put me on the podium or winners jersey had I only been competing for one of the lesser prizes.

At the beginning of this month we celebrated my sons 3rd birthday. This marks roughly three years since the last time I went out on a ride that I considered a "training ride". It also marks the first time that I fealt comfortable registering for a race as an amature rather than a pro. Although I have only got about 12 hours of time on the bike logged this year I was still really concerned what might happen if I actually did well in the amature ranks? As I said to one of my friend going down. "I will feel like a schmuck if I do well here"

The ultimate irony is that the training I did for this race was actually better training than most of the seasoned racers who showed up. For those of you who haven't heard the details of the race, the rain started while we were on the start line. Rain made the trails sloppy, but the rain stopped soon after we started. Most of us turned the first lap in about an hour and a half, and then everything turned to peanutbutter. Mud clogged every aspect of the bike every time the wheels turned making almost the entire course unridable. Without a doubt this was the slowest and most demoralizing race I have ever done.

My second lap took around 4 and a half hours. The picture above was taken sortly after I discovered that it was faster to carry the bike than to push. Pushing the bike was nearly impossible because the wheels wouldn't turn, so most people moving forward had their bikes in the air. Sortly after this picture was taken, I walked past my friend who is a much stronger rider than I am. It was then that I realized that my training for this race was better than most. While everyone else had been out riding bikes, I had been carrying a 40 pound toddler around all day. You tell me, if you are going to carry a 50 pound mud coverd bike through the woods, which is better training?

So I walked. Lap two took roughly three hours longer than expected so I was low on fluids, but I took on a lot of energy and fluid in the pits and went on out hoping that it would either start raining again or dry up so the third lap would be more reasonable.

My third lap took 5 hours. At one point I got stuck. I tried to ride down a hill to a gully, and my wheels locked up and I almost made it to the bottom. Three of four steps dragging my bike to the bottom left me in a ditch trying to get out the other side. My bike was so caked with mud that I couldn't lift it and the wheels were so clogged I couldn't push it out the other side. I was stuck. Eventually I took on some fluid and cleaned enough mud off the bike that I could lift the frame and carry it out the other side.

What I didn't realize as I was slogging along was that only two amatures actually went out on the third lap. So with a 2 mile and hour average, I walked my way to the podium. The leading pro did four laps and my three laps would have put me in 4th in the pro catagory.

So while I do feel like a schmuck for taking a podium in the amature I have to think that this race was an outlier. As we return to the racing season I thing the advantage will again return to those who train by riding their bikes.

Don't get a Flat...

Ok, someone forwarded me this picture. There are times when i complain about narrow shoulders here in Kentucky, but my days of complaining are over....