General notes

July 6, 2009

The Bullmoose bars are selling fast, and Jay here loves them. He and Dave (also here) recently went touring on paved, dirt, and logging roads in the mtns of NorCal, and Jay came back really happy with the bars, especially with a heavy load and on rough roads. No surprise--that is what they were made for. I'm going to put them on my Bombadil.

They stopped by Dave's girlfriend (Marcy's) family reunion, and one of the new pix on the site is Marcy shooting clay birds. We'll get a few more bikey pictures from the tour up there soon, too.

The Vegan bags (Brand V) are due in about ten days; and the orange Sam 56s and 60s will be here then, too.

We're working on sort-of-a-Ramboiullet replacement, but more of a club-riding bike, so even lighter. It will be called one of these: Rodeo...Roadio...Roadeo. And we'll offer it in your choice of threadless (for most club riders) and threaded (for more traditionalists). No rack braze-ons, light tubes, but still our bike thru & thru, with our lugs, our design and choice of tubing, all that. We'll have the prototype by late July, and Mark will build it up and ride it, since he was the impetus behind it.

We're getting in black wool cycling jerseys, from Australia. They'll be here today. Ordinarily, black wouldn't be a superb choice for a cycling jersey, because black on black looks rather dark...but when you're riding with non-black shorts, no problem. And it really makes the reflective triangles pop.

There are several projects going on here. The normal gestation period is about a year for any project. It seems like a long time, doesn't it? But it just takes that much time. Sometimes half a year, but never less than that. We'll have some neat racks, bags, 'skets, and then, in the fall, our riskiest item ever, in terms of "how will it go over?"

Usually we don't consider "how they'll go," because the stuff is made the way we want it to be, since we are users, too. Then we figure that if we like it, you will, too--or a certain number of you will. It works out well that way, and with the sole exception of the wool felt pennants (which continue to be our all-time worst seller), we can usually sell the stuff we like.

But in the Fall we're going to have orange rain pants. We've tried the samples (being sprayed with a garden hose), and they're super. The worst thing about most rain pants is not enough ventilation, and these will have ventilation everywhere you look. Two or three times as much as normal. The second worst thing is the color. Most are dark, because dark is dignified, slimming, and doesn't show grease. Ours will be orange, because when it's raining out and the wipers are flailing away and peripheral vision is reduced, the key thing is to not get hit, and the key thing to that is to be seen.  So we will introduce the most expensive orange cycling rain pants in the world, at around $120. It makes us slightly nervous, but we're firm on the orange (for safety), and the pants have everything we've always wished other rain pants had. So, we'll see how they go.
G