2008 Rans Bikes have arrived!

Our first shipment of the latest Rans Recumbent and Crank Forward Bicycles has arrived. The bikes on this shipment include the Stratus and V-Rex Le, the Stratus XP with the small frame, various Dynamic and Fusion Crank Forward bicycles, and one Dynamic Duo tandem for the rental fleet. We are very excited to get these in now so that we can get them all ready for the spring rush. I am also very excited that seven of these bikes are going into the rental fleet. Please come by and try some of these bikes out for yourself.

Rental Fleet Expansion!

We have now more than doubled the size and greatly expanded the variety of our rental fleet. We offer two long wheel base recumbent bicycles, two short wheel base recumbent bicycles, four crank forward bicycles, two tadpole tricycles, one delta trike and one crank forward tandem. Our rental fleet gives people a good opportunity to try out something before they decide if they like it enough to buy it. We now have enough so that we should have better availability when it gets busy.

Shop Makeover!

This past fall, I had grand plans for knocking down walls and putting up a staircase to an expanded mezzanine. But then I came to my senses and decided to invest the money in expanding our inventory instead. The remodeling we did made the best of what we have as cheaply as possible and it's turned out much better than I ever expected. By doing things ourselves and using free paint, courtesy of Kelly-Moore Paint, we were able to double the amount of space for accessories and increase the floor space for more bicycles and tricycles without making it feel cluttered. In fact, it looks better than it ever has. 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 00 12 23

Rides and Events for 2008.

This year I would like to see rides leaving from the shop twice a week. I was thinking of a Saturday morning and a Wednesday afternoon ride. I could lead some of these rides and put together some suggested route maps. It would be more successful, however, if other people got involved in leading and organizing these rides. If that means forming a club to organize things, I would be glad to help out with that. Many rides that leave from shops are fairly spontaneous and are not led by a certain person. Riders show up and decide where to go. Since this may be too intimidating for some, we could have one ride be a bit more organized. Maybe we could have one ride a month be organized and the rest be more informal. People riding could make this happen by exchanging numbers and showing up. The shop is here to provide a place to park, change clothes, get a drink, use the restroom and get technical help. On Saturdays, I am willing to provide snacks such as bagels and O.J. If you have any suggestions or want to participate, please email me your ideas. If there are enough of you, we can meet and get organized. I think that this has potential to be lots of fun.

Technical Tip:

Remember to change the batteries in your LED tail blinkers. This may seem to be a silly thing to mention except that I quite often see riders out at night with dull blinkers. Even though LED lights don't need much electricity to blink, they need strong batteries to be most effective. I recommend changing your batteries before you need to. If you have a technical question, please email it to us. John or I will address it in our next newsletter. No question is too dumb. Thanks.

• Technical tip on derailleur adjustment.
• Review and comparison of the Fusion and Dynamic crank forward bicycles.
• A ride schedule.
• Mystery topic.