🎙️ “Shop Talk Tuesday.”
As the bicycle industry navigates a dynamic landscape, understanding the 2025-2026 forecast is crucial for businesses and enthusiasts alike. Expect continued evolution in e-bike technology, with advancements in battery life, motor integration, and innovative features driving significant growth. We’ll likely see a strong emphasis on sustainability in manufacturing, from recycled materials to more localized production. The demand for gravel bikes and versatile urban models is projected to remain robust, reflecting changing rider preferences for multi-surface capability and practical commuting. Furthermore, the market will likely see ongoing innovation in connected cycling experiences, including GPS, fitness tracking, and integrated safety features. Staying informed on these key bicycle industry trends will be vital for anticipating consumer needs and strategic planning in the coming years.
Last week’s episode:
🚴♀️ Looking to upgrade your ride? The quickest way to enhance performance has always been with new wheels and an upgraded chain for crisper shifting. Plus, don’t forget an excellent protected polish!
🛠 NEW (Affiliate):
Trusted Partners on my Website, updated daily (most days) lol
✅ https://iknowaguybicycles.com/partners/
Featured Products and Services:
🛠 Shop Tools to Parts That I Use in the “Garage Shop”: (Amazon Store) https://www.amazon.com/shop/iknowaguybicycles
Build your shop up with tools and supplies from JensonUSA.
🛠 JensonsUSA (Parts & Bikes): https://alnk.to/1C8Tws2
Either you’re doing an event out of state or selling your bike stuff!
✈️ Bike Flight (Best Shipping Cost on Bikes and Parts!): https://alnk.to/6bWB1Jy
🚿 “The Guy’s” Enhance Your New Ride with our essential New Bike Package.
https://iknowaguybicycles.com/services/
✅ Upgrade your ride with the best Bicycle Chains on the market.
Connex German Steel with WAX Options:
https://iknowaguybicycles.com/product-category/accessories/chains/
Check out these selected trusted partners:
✅ Bicycle Wheels Warehouse
Custom Wheels for Rim Brakes: bicyclewheelwarehouse.com
The Guys’ Discount: 20% off purchases of $99 or more, site-wide.
🚨 Code: IKAG20
Expires 12-31-25
🚿 15% Off Lithium Products (Coupon Code: TheGuy):
🚨 https://lithiumautocare.com/?ref=IKnowAGuyBicycles
👕 “The Guy’s” T-Shirts: https://i-know-a-guy-bicycles.myspreadshop.com/
🛠️ Check some of Mendham’s Deals: https://mendhambikes.com/
🚨 15% Coupon Code: YOUGOTTAKNOW
Where to find me:
🩷 Website: https://iknowaguybicycles.com
❤️ “The Guy’s” T-Shirts: https://i-know-a-guy-bicycles.myspreadshop.com/
🧡 Bikes: https://iknowaguybicycles.com/product-category/bikes/
💛 Parts: https://iknowaguybicycles.com/product-category/accessories/
💚 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IKnowAGuyBicycles
🩵 E-Mail: justin@iknowaguybicycles.com
💙 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iknowaguy_bicycles/
📬 Attention Companies: If you are interested in working with me, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me here at justin@iknowaguybicycles.com
Menntions:
@jensonusabicycles
@Bikeflights
@This_Old_Bike
#bike #bicycle #sports
🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5845673356951552
Hey, welcome to Shop Talk Tuesday. And guess what? We got a special guest right over here in another state, another state of mind. True. Lower altitude. Oh, yeah. You can you can breathe a little bit better after your excursion up here. It was it was quite the adventure. Awesome. Awesome. Well, cool. We have uh Mr. Bradley here. We’ll do an introduction of him here shortly in a second. Let me just do my little pitch. If you’re watching this on the replay, please put comments below. Um yeah, this is if it’s Tuesday in your neck of the woods, it’s shop talk Tuesday. And if you want to watch this ad free for the most part, um watch it live 10 o’clock mountain at um on Shop Talk Tuesday on Tuesday. So yeah, if you’re watching this on the replay, I do apologize. The ads just kind of put in I try to thin them out so they’re not too disruptive of what you’re watching. But I figured this would be a great topic to add, Mr. Bradley, since um if you’ve not known or heard of him and you haven’t seen any of my content with him in it, he is a a stable of icon in our cycling industry. He’s been in the bike shops since 50 years and it’s been or pretty close, not to age you too much, but um we’re looking at a individual here that’s worked in shops, has worked in the cycling industry from the wholesale level um and pretty much touched upon a lot of different perspectives. And I figured today’s topic would be really nice to loop him in uh from this. But starting off uh probably this week which I’ve noticed from last week there’s a couple things I want to mention that I found are kind of interesting. Um there’s a new platform that came out. It’s called uh I think it’s industry grease. Yeah, industry grease. I mentioned it last last week and it’s something that it’s brand new. Um this is not a plug for them or any means. Um I have a little bit of communications with him. uh that’s running this website. But those who are watching that are in the industry or bike shops or what have you, it it’s kind of going to be or I think it’s going to be a safe space umish for those um that are just in the industry in itself. It is a there is a payw wall to it to start communicating through this uh as it’s being set up. But it’s interesting because I know this falls within the same kind of tone or industry jibberjabber that I do to some level. So I’ll hope to have Trey on the show here at some point and he can further explain the launch of this and how he foresees it and his vision where it’s supposed to go. He’s not on YouTube that I can tell. most likely or most of it is at um LinkedIn and as as Facebook as you see here. So anyway, if you’re in industry, kind of check it out. I’m not telling you to subscribe or anything. I have subscribed myself. Um there’s not a lot of content yet, but I think it’s some it might be a nice platform for all of us to uh kind of be a part of and have more freewheel conversations um without being too worried about um losing vendors or what have you. just kind of kind of the state of the state and more of a a free form platform for somebody where I can see I wouldn’t say replaced but maybe enhanced with um the IB was what was it the bicycle industry uh type platforms out there like the P2 groups and so forth. Have you seen this John? Have you seen it yet? I I’m aware of it. I saw the announcement in bicycle retailer but uh I haven’t visited it yet. Okay. Yeah, I kind of jumped on it and um I did pay for like the year subscription. It’s pretty inexpensive and I figured and lo and behold there was like not much. So at first I was like ah bummer it’s not been built up yet. But in the flip side though he did send out emails like oh welcome we’re just starting that kind of thing. It’s like okay I get it. It’s like you got to start somewhere and um you know this might be a great opportunity for o others within the industry to kind of just dive into that and be a part of that community and maybe we can tie in both communities and that kind of thing because there’s a lot going on out there. But any case you were um about ready to well couple things I’m working on this week. Got myself a lighteed crossike 1999. um is this is the second one I’ve gotten um in my shop and interesting enough prices on used is dropped so dramatically that you can buy these pretty inexpensively now. Um I mean you can get yourself a titanium bike for under a,000 bucks and blow enough that you can put stuff into it and still be under $1,000 which is kind of crazy. Any guys, um, so going the field of steel, the other one I have here, um, is a traditional green bianke. And this one has a campy on it and it’s a the steel frame. So that’s going to be a fun one to take apart, put together for somebody. Yeah. So that that color’s name for that color is Celeste. Yeah. There was Yeah, there was a funny uh they had a marketing campaign because some people love Celeste, some people hate it. I mean, I think that generally it’s it’s well regarded and liked just because it’s it goes all the way back in the history of my which they’re one of the oldest existing bike brands on the planet. Um but they had this campaign that they were going to get rid of Celeste and it was all kind of a ruse, but it stirred up a lot of in uh attention. This would probably would have been back in the 90s, but uh that’s that’s kind of if you go back into history, if you see that color, you know, more often than not, that is a bianke. Yeah. The the bianke. Some people, you know, say it’s like a a bluish color. Had a little bit little bit of blue. Yeah. Yeah. In my eyes, it’s more more of a green. Um which is, you know, Yeah, that’s that’s just me. Now, let me bring the camera over so you can see it a little bit better. So, oh yeah, there’s another uh little featured wall art here. Um I don’t know if you can see it through the frames, but uh John gave me this poster from Schwin. And uh it’s good old uh Frank Sinatra. What do you What do you How did you acquire that, by the way? Well, I you know, I mean, I was at Schwin shortly after that campaign. So, that was a resurrected image. Uh Schwin actually uh was trying to attract adult customers back in the 30s, I believe that was, or maybe early 40s. Um, and get away from just being a kids bike thing. It was their idea. So Schwin, the founder of Schwen was from Europe and he was kind of hoping to get adults riding bikes in the States like they do in Europe. So they had people like Bing Crosby, I think there were other Hollywood stars, maybe Bob Hope and some other people. But uh that’s a whole campaign. But this the the whole thing with the second century was after Schwin had passed its 100th anniversary and it was this kind of attempt at a relaunch. Um so that was um a little bit prior to my time at Schwen, but it was it was fun to have. So, yeah. Yeah, that was pretty cool. And I didn’t realize it was a newer poster of a old picture a newer poster of an older marketing campaign. Yeah. Yeah. It when you gave it to me, you were blowing out of here so fast because you had to get back on the road or what have you. And I didn’t really give it a good look until I hung it up and I’m like something’s not it’s pretty good shape for how old it was supposed to be. I was like should be you be giving me this. I mean but yeah it’s more well still 20 years old now which is kind of hard to imagine how time flies. So I’ve worked on a few Bianke. I brought in a few for either refurbish to sell as a complete bike or just the frames. And um like you’re saying, they were um wellestablished name, wellestablished color. Every time I see one of these, I I always want to jump on it regardless if whatever the material is made out of because it’s just kind of a cool um bike and the history of it. Um, this one has the it’s a steel frame, doublebuted, uh, light steel, chromoli, heat treated, bianke engineered. It doesn’t have like a stamp like the Reynolds or Columbus, I don’t think. Um, I’m not seeing any other stickers that relate to the actual Yeah, if it would have been Columbus, uh, they would have been bragging about it. So, okay. So, it’s some some other brand Yeah. of uh steel and the model the blowce has been around for ever. Yeah. Did you work any shops at the spoke carry Bianke back in the day? No, I never worked at a uh at a Bianke dealership. U there was although I do remember seeing I went into when I was a track rep. I was calling on one of my accounts and it was a place called a bike place in southeast Denver just off of Hampton and uh you know very Italian vibe in there but they were a truck dealer but they had uh the kind of another bike brand was celebrating their 100th anniversary and had a bike called I think it was called the Centinario. So it was black chrome with those uh the all the lettering was in Celeste. It was absolutely beautiful. if you can find one of those. That’s it’s just a gorgeous bike. But no, I never never worked at a Bianke dealership, but nice bikes, great history. Yeah. Um very intriguing. We went to the bike when we had the bike show or went to the bike show in Vegas. Um but the Bianke rep approached me like in the waiting to go in and we’re all just standing there listening to the Elvis impersonator doing his thing, which was kind of fun. Um, and you know, I mean, going back to the Schwin story, um, back when Schwin, I think it was the first or the second investment company, that was the 50y year anniversary of Schwin. It’s like 98 or something like that. Oh, yeah. And um they had the big promotion was they had um 50 Elvises and um and free, you know, it was like a band, free food, and unfortunately open bar um because I pretty much drank way too much in my 20s and um pretty much had to cancel all my appointments the second day. So, do apologize to any reps that were waiting for me. I was like, uh, yeah, I was too destroyed. But any case, um, yeah, that was that was like uh, ever since we’ve been going to Vegas the last few years, been having a hard time finding or not, not actively looking, but I haven’t been seeing a lot of um, Elvis first nators. It’s been kind of strange. It’s like a a dying breed. There’s a few live there still, but used to be like everywhere go out. Yeah. Yeah. Times are changing just uh you know a lot of people who are growing up now have no idea who Elvis was. So well that’s true too. They may have heard the songs or remake of the songs but they have definitely not. Um, I’m sure there’s probably a picture of Elvis on a Schwin or something too somewhere. Interesting. I don’t know. I haven’t seen one, but yeah. Yeah, one would think, right? Um, considering Sorry, I’m rearranging. We have um extremely high due points here for Colorado and we’re not usually used to that. It’s uh I think Denver recorded 66 degree due point. Yeah. So, it’s super thick because if you don’t know, Colorado climate is very aid. It’s dry. Um when it gets like this and we’re not used to just sweating for no reason. Um, it’s not really all that, you know, still low70s here, but it feels I was tooling around earlier working on stuff and I was like, why am I just sweating? This is super thick. But any case, but yeah. Um, other things I’ve noticed within the last week or so since I was on, this is an interesting tidbit. Um it’s uh kind of rel well it’s not related specifically to uh cycling but is rel related to uh a sales portal uh that a lot of shops bike shops use and including people that are just trying to uh move product and or just try to get stuff out of their garage like this. And uh you know I leveraged eBay for a long time almost at its infasy uh back in like 2002 2003 that’s when I started doing my eBay uh selling parts and stuff like that and shipping and I never had any problems shipping and it’s still today a very strong platform for me to move a lot of my um inventory and a lot of bike shops use that too because they can leverage it on their used stuff even some new because the contracts now kind of um you know the companies are no longer caring as long as you’re buying the stuff and selling it. So back in the day they wouldn’t let want you to put it on eBay or anything like that. Well, also leverage Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Marketplace um is good for local sales, but they also have their sales portal where you can ship and so forth, too. Lo and behold, this week, um, and I’m on this like daily, every other hour, looking for products to purchase, also to list to sell, mainly the Facebook marketplace. And I noticed a few of pictures, listings of my product on Facebook Marketplace, but now when you click on it, it has a sales portal straight into eBay. So now eBay and Facebook or CL you know I don’t know what the contractual deal who’s getting what or how they’re doing the percentage but it’s interesting now you’re seeing a lot of eBay products being filtered in Facebook marketplace um which you know obviously Meta is huge and a lot of people leverage that and also eBay is like mega huge um for me I’m like, well, now I only have to list on eBay and I take care of two platforms and I have to worry about listing on Facebook Marketplace anymore. So, I found that kind of interesting. Um, so if you’re in business of selling used products, you’re going to be noticing that your products are going to be if you leverage eBay going to be filtered in into um Facebook Marketplace, which actually even gives you a broader audience. Um, you know, unfortunately, um, there’s a huge commission pay out through eBay where that’s why I have my own website and all my stuff. I list on both places, my website as well as eBay. But that does really kind of funnel my sales portals. So, it’s less work for me and it be less work for those bike shops that are considering selling used frames, used parts, all that. is quite honestly right now since the bike prices have dropped. I was telling John before we jumped on is the industry and the used market is dropped so low in at least my neck of the woods, you can pick up bikes at the fraction of the cost you were during COVID and in addition to a lot of them are in still really good condition and or maybe a little bit of work if you want to do a complete bike yourself or if you’re a business that’s buying and cleaning parts and either refurbishing the bike completely are selling the complete bike. Well, I found selling the parts off the bike and the frame and fork separately, which number one, the unit’s been selling a little bit faster in our current market. And second, I’m basically doubling the money that I invested into that bike. So, if I bought a bike for 200, I’m making at least two to 300 on that investment versus if I bought that bike, put money into it, and fix it up and try to sell it. it’s if and when it does sell, which is a lot longer, I’m making less of a margin on the full complete bike. So, it’s kind of an interesting shift in in our industry, in the used market. And um you mentioned here when you’re out here a couple weeks ago, Bradley, that the the tariffs once they start being implemented, you were hearing some chatter that new products are going to was it like double almost triple in cost? Yeah, that was that was one estimate I saw that they you know which is you know would be catastrophic for the bike business. Um certainly the new bike business. Um but I mean I hope that’s not true but I did see that. Yeah. Well, which has been interesting is a lot of these companies they reacted to the tariffs although the tariffs were not being collected yet. I I don’t know. I mean, I’m not I’m too busy working on bikes and stuff to really put, you know, dive into all the articles and what’s actually been happening, but it kind of sounds like that they have not been collecting or even the platform hasn’t been adjusted at the ports to collect all those tariffs. So, I don’t know. It’s like maybe they write I owe you, give me a give me a statement later on and we’ll pay for it and we just need to take the product now or it’s just interesting. Yeah, it’s uh the whole thing in terms of the bike industry. I mean there really hasn’t been a a US bike industry since Schwin left Chicago pretty much. Um I mean there’s a lot of US brands. Uh actually I should I should throw Trek in there. uh TRE and TRE continued on after Schwin had left the United States but uh um you know and most of I think what’s going on now at Tre from my understanding I I’ve been back for a while but it’s pretty much upper end product so you know it’s stuff that’s you know two three $4,000 or more um there really isn’t much US industry to protect and know this is one of these products where it’s an industry who long ago had moved offshore and it’s gone and resurrecting it is not going to be easy. Um, and you know, there’s other industries, light industries like bicycles, furniture, clothing, all these kinds of things that they’re gone and it’s, you know, I don’t know if they’ll ever really come back here. So, well, yeah, it’s just I don’t know. I mean, not to get into too deep of the political portion of it, but it’s the companies like truck. I mean, we were a truck dealer back in the ‘9s, and you worked at Tre in the ‘9s, and it seemed to be a huge push to try to get a good chunk of the bikes built in the United States. And that you know the last two decades majority of those companies realized they couldn’t keep keep competing and they had to keep the prices lower where the other big fish in their markets and this is probably related to all retail that they had to move their productions to different countries. And I found, you know, this is interesting to me. It’s like even though Taiwan and China was like the big go-to two decades ago, um where, you know, I get some tracks in, they say made in China. I’m like, whoa, this is kind of crazy. I don’t remember them shifting to China from Taiwan and then all of a sudden you’re seeing, you know, like trucks are being in majority of them are being made in Cambodia and Specializ is being made in Vietnam. So it’s even then it’s like they got priced out of it priced out of Taiwan and China and now they’re even going to cheaper places to build them. Well, what what happened with you know some of those moves out of out of Taiwan Taiwan to China was just a fact that uh you know like the the almost all Taiwanese bicycle companies realized that if they wanted to be able to build bikes for you know at a more competitive price they needed to be in China. So that is a two there’s a twofold part to that because not only do they want to get bikes that they could export out of China to either Europe or the states or wherever but they also wanted access to the Chinese market and China itself was saying you’ve got a bill here. The next thing that was happening, you know, in terms of protectionist things, uh, you know, the US has been making noise for years about raising the the tariffs on goods from China andor Taiwan. So, that led to going to Cambodia, Vietnam, other places like that. So, it’s it’s it’s an interesting complicated process, but that’s kind of some of the back. Hope I explain that somewhat understandably. Yeah. Yeah, you did. I mean, it’s just it’s it it’s a constant shift and it’s like a moving target. So, when you’re you know, as the government just does these blanket tariffs like, you know, obviously the China one, China is going to be exorbitantly high because they really are attacking them. And other countries, even though um they’re less, they’re still more than they were. Um and and the the what we’ve been seeing so far, what I’ve been seeing at the front lines here of the retail front, um a lot of the stuff is still on sale. So I think we still have a quite a bit backstock from producing too much in warehouses still inside the states, but there’s other products that are popular where I’m assuming they already sold through and now we’re paying a higher premium on them. A Continental is a just to not to pick on Continental, but Continental tires. For example, I have a customer that wants a specific Continental tire tubeless road. And you know, a year ago, he was able to buy a set of them for like $119 bucks, and it came with tubes. And now they’re like 80 to$90 per tire. Um, so it’s it’s increased quite a bit. And you know, for those who and that’s a consumable part on a bike. So when you’re looking at paying extra for tires and chains and all those bar tape and all it I think it’s going to be like a a not going to notice that like all sudden prices have increased which you’ve seen some companies do that. I mean Trek announced an increase on prices on some stuff and same as Specializ or Specializ was doing a light item like a a tariff tax line item. So, however the company’s looking at, but you look at um umh what was it? [Music] The Metum company that uh Kent International that was the one when they first re I mean all their stuff is made in China and they have a couple different brands underneath their umbrella which is Univa and a few others and I know all their stuff’s made in China. When their first announcements came out, their $300 bike turned into a $600 bike overnight. I mean, it was like they just turned everything up. But interestingly though, I’ve checked recently and the prices have gone back down. Um, so either they’re trying to prepare for it and obviously the sales are slowing and and here’s the here’s the painful part of the whole cycling industry. Nothing’s selling. Doesn’t matter what price you have. It’s just unless it’s on a superale units are not as moving as fast as they were. I mean, they’re still selling a few bikes, of course, but it’s not at any level to sustain. Even if they raise their price or lower their price, it doesn’t seem like the market is really um doing any purchasing right now. So, I think that uh like your neck of the woods where you’re refurbishing bikes and that I consistently hear that the service and refurbishment of of existing bicycles is going well. You’ve talked about that quite a bit on your your show and I I hear that, you know, around the country. I hear it here in Minneapolis. Um so I think there are some elements that are surviving. I think what’s happening on the new bike side is yeah, you know, one is we don’t have one of these kind of headline products when you think about, you know, like the things that you and I have seen, you know, starting with me, but you know, it was like stingrays were the hot thing when I was a kid and then it was uh, you know, we got to 10 speeds that was the hot thing and, you know, a big boom there. uh you know kind of these headliner things. Then it was followed by I guess BMX bikes were hotter than a fire you know cheap pistol there for a while and then you got into mountain bikes which was amazing because mountain bikes sort of democratize you know high-end bicycles where anybody could buy a bike and you know they felt cool and they didn’t have to dress up in their Halloween outfits to go ride their their road bikes. So, you know, you look at it and we don’t have that kind of headline or product driving the marketplace, that new thing. And the bike industry, you know, we’ve always been more opportunistic and, you know, you don’t see a lot of national ads for cycling in general. I mean, part of that is the industry is so much smaller than a lot of other consumer industries, but generally, we’re always waiting for the next boom. And there really isn’t much of one other than, you know, the closest thing we’ve had is ebikes and those have gone everywhere. But the other thing that’s done, you don’t have to be one of the traditional bike companies or brands to succeed in the ebike business. That’s that’s, you know, so it’s this whole kind of uh different environment, different u how bikes are sold, you know, there’s all sorts of battles. You and I talked a little bit about classifications of different types of ebikes. Um there’s a lot going on, but there isn’t that single driving factor. That’s a cool thing. I’m going to go into my local bike shop to check that out. We don’t have that right now. Yeah, I mean I I think there still is I mean ebikes are still selling to some some degree. Um still pretty popular, but I think they’re starting to lose a little bit of steam. And then it got flooded by various other companies just jumping on the bandwagon. I I can’t tell you how many times I get pinged a week by some ebike company from overseas trying to have me show their bike or whatever it is. And I don’t do ebikes. They’re just they’re just flooding every influencer out there and see if anybody will buy. um in which I’ve seen other people like they don’t do anything with bikes at all and all of a sudden they’re featuring a Chinaade or other kind of ebike thing out there. Um and I I I I understand there’s a I really appreciate the ebike because that really helps a lot of people get into cycling. So for there is a place for it and there is culture for that as well. Um, but it’s one of those things where there was so much put out at once. Again, got too much product and a lot of inexpensive, unregulated batteries, motors, and all that stuff is kind of scary as well. Um, and then there’s a it’s like a whole it’s not it’s not a bike shop that does ebikes. I mean, you have you have shops are becoming that way like my buddy um in Fort Collins, Precision Ebike, Josh there. That’s all he does. He’s been doing ebikes for over 20 plus years. The guy is like super on point and that’s that’s his niche. And that’s where I think you’re going to see a lot of shops, you know, either they’ll go that direction or they stay away from it and do something completely different. But when I when I was in like in the Tre store, they’re like, well, they’ll take care of their own, but they do push a lot of ebike business his direction because they’re they’re not set up to work on various other brands that are not the their own brand. Um, even though they’re trying like everybody right now is trying to grab as much service as possible because that’s the only thing that’s people are paying for. Um, like you were mentioning before, service is huge. Uh, and everybody’s really leveraging that and the used market is as well. Like, you know, come on. If you can get yourself a titanium frame for under a grand, it might be older, but hey, you know, or, you know, like a Bianke at fraction of their price and have a cool ride. Um and that there alludes that we have been buying and the markets have been you know selling and buying so many bikes for so many decades now that we have like a huge use surplus. Therefore, even if we got no bikes coming in, we still have plenty of inventory in the used market to keep us going for a while. Um, so it’s just because we’re a consumer society. I mean, we just constantly got to buy the new thing and the old thing is just collecting our garage and there’s a lot all these little gold mines of garages all across the country holding our inventory for us. Um, and then we’re going to be paying pennies on a dollar and it’s like um I picked up a beautiful Klein. Unfortunately, I didn’t pull it down. I should have. I’m going to be doing a detailing on it. It has like that green to blue bass boat to it. And this lady bought it original owner and she thought she was gonna get into mountain biking with her husband and mint condition. I don’t there’s a couple scuffs on it. It’s going to be awesome to feature as a detailing to restore that um at least the frame and fork, but yeah, it’s 20 plus years old, but it’s basically new. So, you’re going to see a, you know, all those old bikes that have been just sitting that people bought, never used, or what have you, become now a very remarkable product for shops to take advantage of because those individuals, not not to say to anybody that’s a cyclist out there that has their own stuff, I’m not saying this in a bad way, uh, for individuals, but most individuals that have bikes and so forth or in their garage, they look at it as a pain in the butt because they need to get the thing out of there because it’s in their way and they’ve been tripping over it all this time. They’re not really thinking of getting the value out of it. They’re thinking of just getting it out of their garage. So therefore, it’s providing a huge opportunity for like me or anybody that’s doing what I’m doing that take advantage of those or those shops like Will and Sprocket are doing tradein events like crazy as well as um Wheatidge in Denver. I’ve been seeing a lot of ads there. They’re trying to grab as much used product as possible to push their inventory forward to, you know, invest there. Um, I don’t know more so, well, more so than before, but not as much to replace all their bikes. But in a sense, though, they know that’s regardless of tariffs and however their inventory is going to come in or not, um, they can still rely on that as a steady income. Plus, they could bring a lower price point to bring in customers, too. So, big push. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, couple things that come to mind as you’re talking about that the, you know, the the idea about getting the value out of it. And to paraphrase the the statement, value is in the eye of the beholder. Basically, it’s um if you’ve stopped riding for whatever reason, which could be age, some sort of infirmity, you know, whatever it is, or maybe that bike, like I I look at pictures of me, what the bikes that I started racing on, and I don’t think I could ride that bike anymore, you know, based on the relationship between the stem and handlebars. My bike, my back doesn’t bend like that anymore. So there’s there’s a variety. kind of what’s happening I think a lot of the what you’re accessing is all these bikes were bought in the 80s 70s 80s 90s 2000s and now people are you know a lot of that market is actually buying ebikes or they’re buying you know before the ebike we were selling comfort bikes which was the more upright riding style just you know kind of a ride as you are bike not not a not a racing bike where you had to get dressed up to go ride so part it is that you know the aging of our population. So all of a sudden you have this you know a lot of people getting rid of their conventional you know bikes that for whatever reason they don’t work for the people now. Um but I think you know also you know every bike company has to have an electric component now in terms of like the traditional ones because that’s too important a part of the market right now and it’s it’s it is the most dynamic thing that’s happening right now in bicycles that you know is electrification good or bad. Um, you know, you got to be there. But, uh, it’s it’s really really interesting times right now and and very hard to predict where it’s going to go. You know, what what’s the next wave? We’re like surfers out there looking for that next cool bike to come. What is it going to be? And that wave could be a ways off. So, well, I think we’re in the wave and we’re not n realizing of the used product. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s fun though. I mean I I think you know as I the various things that I’ve gotten involved refurbishing some of the bicycles you do you do come up with some things like typically when I look at like that Raleigh supercourse I was I think I sent you a photograph of you know things you know I immediately go to is wow I’d like to put uh lower gears and and also wider tires you know to make it more comfortable and just easier to ride in and uh you know those are some things sometimes it’s kind of hard to parts that will work on the older bike to to make it work on, you know, for what people want to ride the bike like today. Uh, fortunately, there’s companies like we were talking a little bit about the Vel Orange, which makes updated components and accessories for, you know, older, you know, bikes that you’re refurbishing out. Uh, you know, really fun company to work with. So, interesting. Yeah, I I I think there’s a huge um I mean going back to the point of there’s a lot of people transition and a lot of them transitioned from different bikes to to even before the ebike craze or the aged out portion. They’re just like this this lady in this point with a client. It’s like she never rode it. She never she rides bikes. It’s like she rides like all these other bikes, but it’s just one of those that just never got used. And you know, you have that and then you have people that transition to different types of riding, gravel, comfort. And the the majority of the market, um, you know, how I see it is at least 90 if not more percentage higher. Most of those people are just recreational riders. um even though they might be want to be a little sporty, but at the end of the day, they’re still just recreational riders and you know that kind of thing. And that’s where the gravel bikes, the more comfort bikes, the the the comeback of the cruisers like the Nerve and the Electras and you know those brands, you know, the fat, you know, the uh fat bikes have kind of came back too just like cycling is fun. Um, you know, I remember riding my first fat bike, you know, the one with the eight inch wide tires and you’re like, this is I mean, I ain’t go anywhere fast, but it’s fun, you know. So, that’s, you know, that’s where cycling is supposed to be fun. That’s where all you know, for what it is today, that’s what we all do. Um, or most of us. And yeah, we use some events to train for like the bike MS or they do local races like the triathlons or what have you and that kind of thing. Um, and here even in Colorado there’s a pretty decent race circuit, but that still is a small percentage to the avid cyclists. And you know what we’re seeing up to this point and what I’ve seen ramping in the last year and a half is a lot of service, a lot of used now, a lot of used parts and bikes and frames because people want to kit stuff out like you’re saying on yours like, “Hey, I got this. I want different gearing.” I’ve had several comments on my channel and some of my videos like, “Yeah, I bought this bike. I’m upgrading to 11 speed.” You know, that kind of thing. And you know those we have so many good bike frames that really not obsolete like they market it to be obsolete but they really hold up to today’s riding styles especially if you do just a couple modifications with stem bars and seat and then you all of a sudden you have a brand new to you bike that is super comfortable um and fits your style of riding. Yeah. I mean, I think you touch on one thing. I think I mean, one of the core strengths of cycling is that if you can get somebody comfortable on a bike and they start to ride it, they’ll go, “Wow, I forgot how much fun this is.” You just, you know, I get on a bike, if I’m having a bad day, my wife will chase me out of the house. Go ride your bike. Because she knows that’ll make me feel better. Um, and, uh, I think that’s one of the things we’ve kind of missed. I mean, you know, even the whole um to use a I usually try not to mention his name, but you know, the through the whole the Armstrong years that was all about, God, he’s going so fast and look at how he can suffer and oh my god, he’s so strong. And that was very inspirational for a lot of people. Yet at the same time, it turns a lot of people off. You know, I don’t want to I don’t want to have to suffer to ride a bicycle. I want to enjoy riding a bicycle. Um, and you know, it’s like the it’s funny because as I talk about that, I remember there’s been a number of ads, you know, where somebody is sore or beat up and it’s, you know, there’s some TV ad and it’s as a result of riding a bicycle. You know, it’s like so a number of other industries have used bicycles as inherently uncomfortable. And there are some really good things about cycling that I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job about promoting, you know, in terms of just the joy of riding a bike. And part of that is finding the one that works for your style of you know what you’re looking for. So yeah, exactly. So you take all I mean regardless of the companies are listening or not, but the people are t talking. They’re they’re they’re voting they’re voting by buying used bikes. are voting by having service done and you know Trek specifically but as well as um I was going to say as well as Specializ and um Pine Holdings which owns uh Mike’s bikes you know they have retail fronts now so they’re actually getting the Kool-Aid or getting the information directly from the customer and they’re not getting it metal down from their their dealers what have you. They’re and they’re faced with it. It’s like that’s what they’re that’s what the the people are saying. This is what we want the comfort bike, the recreational bike, the the price points to be lower. um in this volatile like you know if you could put your put your Schwin or Trek corporate hat back on and not freak out and uh just um like in our scenario where do you think if any is there any opportunities or any way to keep the company maybe rebranding to some level to or pipeline the inventory to different price points or what do you think what do you think they can do and are willing to do at this point? You know, first of all, it’s it’s really hard to generalize, you know, as you look at one brand over another over another, you know, like you can’t necessarily group them all together. You got uh Trek and Specialized in particular who have invested in retail stores and you know as we were talking about the the you know the repair and the used bike thing I I’m kind of curious I wonder how much Trek andor Specialized has responded to that you know through their retail stores. You know are they trying to take advantage of that or are they just trying to you know leverage that you know getting more people buying bikes? Um it’s it’s really difficult right now. I mean we’re we’re in a very unstable period um in terms of the bike industry. We don’t have the the driving trend, you know, like we were talking about, you know, Stingrays, try bikes, BMX, you know, mountain bikes, all those things. Uh there’s not a single driving trend. um you know the stores or the brands that I think have invested in retail now I kind of wonder if that’s a little bit of a a a drag on their financial success just the way people are buying bikes you know like you can you know get a really nice bike over the internet right now that is ridden in a tour to France you know years ago not too long ago there was no way you could get that Um, you know, the crystal ball is pretty cloudy right now, Justin. Um, I mean, I I do have I do have an inherent faith in the bicycle, you know, that you know, we’re going to survive. Um, in terms of, you know, who the winners and losers are, it’s too soon to tell. I mean, you know, who’s who’s strong enough financially to to get through, you know, is is this climate right now with all these uh you know, higher import, you know, costs and and also the weakening dollar is also going to hit pricing. So, we have this double whammy right now. Okay, we’re we’re paying more for imported product and our dollars are buying less of that imported product. So, you’re paying it’s just it’s it’s tough. I mean, you can see I’m sort of rambling here as I want to do. Um, but um I I mean, I know the industry will survive, but we’re it’s a period of I don’t know, tectonic change or something. It’s there’s, you know, I guess I feel it’s too soon to tell to cut long story short. Well, I mean, they’ve been doing this already. They’ve been closing some stores in the markets that are not performing. That’s just business 101 for corporate and you coming from big five sporting goods the big chain same thing I mean it’s like you don’t have a a store that’s kind of contributing to the bottom line after x amount of years that that location gets let go um but you know it’s not to say that they don’t want to support the the community or any of that just they have to I mean if those stores are not performing or to be able to support the staff financially they just can’t have a location. So, I know there’s been a lot of shrinkage of those locations. Um, and that, you know, whatever else they can do as each individual company has its own dynamics. That leads to a great point. You can’t just put them all in the same boat because they’re all in their own little boat. And they all have their own little investments. And I wouldn’t say little, but they’re all they’re they’ve woven their companies into all these different markets. And Pond Holdings is a great example is they had over 50 different bike companies as well as car industry and other different industries. So, you know, they’re they’re huge. So, one comment was like, well, is Canada as in much trouble as Specialized? And it’s like, well, no, they’re in a different trouble, you know. Um, and they they may be a little bit well with Pond, they actually started cutting some of their lines that were not performing like GT got cut and who you know they’re going to trim their fat in their way as well. Although they did take not seize an opportunity in Boulder to buy full cycles uh to make it a Mike’s bikes which they kicked out Specializ and brought in Sllo and Canadell and Santa Cruz and the other brands that they have. So Specializ lost a big dealer out of Boulder which Boulder and if you don’t know Boulder, Boulder is like one of the epicenter of cycling in Colorado. It’s like it’s there’s a bike shop in every corner and literally there is um you know to some degree and that’s you know for the Colorado market that’s where a lot of them like if you can do well in Fort Colins you can do pretty okay everywhere else that kind of thing. Um but yeah that you know that’s where you know Pond Holdings has its own ecosystem. Uh Specializ has theirs has theirs as well. is completely different and where they’re going to have to leverage and manipulate to stay afloat, kick the can down the road on their loans or whatever the case may be. I think they’ll still be around. Um but what that looks like is going to be a little different. Um and maybe the retail locations might look a little bit different, too. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s funny as we we’ve been talking and I uh Dick Burke, who was the uh now now gone, Dick was the founder of TRE um and the father of the current head of TRE, John Burke, but uh I remember him talking he was saying for years that there’s consolidation coming. So, this this dates all the way back to the the 80s um talking and you’ve seen that. I mean, you know, brands when I was grow growing up, the biggest brand certainly United States was Schwin. The biggest brand in the world, I think at that point was Raleigh. And you look at those two brands right there. What’s happened to them? They’re both almost afterthoughts of these larger companies. Um, you know, Schwin is now a discount brand when it used to be the the Rich Kids brand when I was a kid. Um the other thing you’ll see too when these companies start to collect all these different brands. So each one if you have all these separate brands you have to make a decision. It’s like do we support uh all the R&D and marketing and everything that it goes through to bring a bike to market under that particular brand. And all of a sudden you got your little accountants and people like that saying gee whiz if we you know we’ve already bought that brand so we own that market share. maybe we need to, you know, basically let that one die on the vine and promote our main brand, you know, whatever that might be. Um, so, you know, you look at I would imagine there might be a lot of nervous people at Pawn these days, you know, if they’re for some of the smaller brands, you know, because through tough economic times, they’ll get cut loose. Um, it’s it’s uh it’s really interesting and kind of frightening at the same time, you know, because, you know, I I look at all the different brands that I’ve worked with over the years and, you know, some have survived and and a lot have not. Um and then you know also the the other thing I that comes to mind too is when there’s all this corporate ownerships uh you know if they bought uh local stores you know locally owned stores and all of a sudden become a owned by a particular brand there may be a little bit less of a local commitment because if you’re a member of that community you don’t want to shut your bike shop down. you want to find somebody to sell it to where some of these corporate stores, they may go, “Wow, we, you know, we need to cut our costs here and these underperforming stores has got to go.” And sometimes that doesn’t allow time to find new local ownership or something like that. So, um, very very dynamic time in industry and there’s some good and there’s some bad. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, that’s that’s where where I see where um the TRE had it lined up um as opportunity to do used. Uh they came out with actually they I made a video about this. It was a couple years ago. I mean, it was more trying to make fun of it, but they did the re red barn refresh. And Red Barn is the original barn where they built tracks back in the 70s, right? 80s and um they’re using that as a marketing piece which you know most people that bought a truck had no idea what the red barn was. But any case is a red barn refresh. And at first I was like oh crap they’re going to be cutting into my market. And lo and behold no not not even remotely close because they were doing only track bikes which is fine. Um but they weren’t they’re all still extremely upper end. same the same model if anything as the pros closet which I still today even though they’ve re reborned as pros closet I still I think they’re still following the bad part of what they’re it’s you know their prices are too high then they’re still competing against new well the part of the issue there is what’s the business model you know does does the business model allow you to like you your overhead is way lower than the pros closet. Um, and you know, you can you can kind of bob and weave where you know, they’re looking around and it’s still I don’t think it’s as big as it once was, but they still have a lot of employees and all that. So, each bike has to bring in a certain amount of money, you know, or whatever they’re they’re selling there. So, um, you know, that business model may not support, you know, the market that you’re serving, you know, because you you have more flexibility up and down the range. You can, you know, you’re a great place to go whether somebody needs a bike to ride around the neighborhood or go do triple bypass or rag bry or something like that. You can you can service both those. That’s not the case with what Pros Closet is doing from my understanding. I haven’t I haven’t seen what the new organization is doing, but it sounds upper end to me. Yeah, I I poke on their side periodically and see and it it seems like the same kind of product mix as it was before they went under. Um and you know, I mean maybe they’ll adapt, maybe they’ll start bringing in because they put limitations as well as the TRE did. They put limitations like we won’t buy anything over a certain amount of age and you know they’re they’re really limiting themselves and I get that to some level because like full suspension bikes the tech on on that changes so fast and you may not have a mechanic that knows how to work on that shock that’s even five years old um because it’s just been going so fast. So I I get that, but you know, there’s an opportunity where like uh Wheat Ridge and Will and Sprocket have seen with a lot of independent bike shops, they’re they’re they’re not they don’t have they’re there’s no limitation. There’s no they there’s no barriers. They’ll take it. They they may not give you a very good price, but they’ll still take that product and still do something with it. And I think with Czech with having all their stores, what they could do, um, is really open that up, like really do a lot more tradeins because I’ve had customers of mine that said they bought a new bike and they would not take their older their track, which was only two years old. I mean it was like or they were not going to give them hardly anything for it or they weren’t interested of trading those in. I don’t know if it’s because it’s too much for the staff to do the process or what have you, but there is barriers there. But um but what they’re doing that as to my knowledge they would do these limited tradeins and they’d be shipped to the Red Barn and then fixed up and then sold out online. And now as they’re basically they’re baby stepping into direct to consumer sales because they weren’t selling bikes direct to consumers yet and they use that as kind of like a a baby step of getting the process down which was brilliant idea. It’s like if we can do it here then we can do our whole product line but they can actually reverse that take in more tradeins and put them in the stores side by side with a new product. You know, the challenge for that is I It’s funny because this touches on a number of points of our conversation today. Like you’re talking about how you’re finding like, you know, say that uh that red lemon hanging behind you rather than build it up and selling it as a complete bike. You’re able to take the parts off of that because the market for those parts, if you start to think about it, everybody’s refurbishing things. Everybody could use those. You know, a lot of people could use those brakes or derailers or the wheels or, you know, all these different parts. You don’t have to worry about is it the right size, you know, is it men’s versus women’s, all those types of things where, you know, somebody like Trek, it’s hard because all of a sudden you you have a much more complicated. They’re a lot more variable selling used bikes, you know, like are can you reliably go and find a particular size that somebody wants? If if you have with me, you know what I’m talking about here. There’s a, you know, a good market for all these replacement parts, but not necessarily for the complete bike. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, well, I mean, you work for a corporate, it’s about it’s about volume. You have one thing and you make hundreds of them and you sell them through and you have a percentage of nutrition that doesn’t hold up or return, but overall, you need to make your money out of it. Well, and that that’s the true is it’s whether it’s you working out of your garage or trek working out of, you know, global headquarters in beautiful Waterl, Wisconsin. You got to cover your costs and you you hopefully you’re going to have a profit there that you can run a good business and pay your people well. All that type of thing that you know comes along with it. So, um you know, it’s it’s challenging. The other the other thing too with I think the corporate model is you know is finding that crew of people who can refurbish existing bicycles like you were talking about. Do they do they know how to fix a maybe a a particular shock or shifter or something that you know from the 80s or 90s or even the 70s uh for that matter. Um, and that’s, you know, there’s been a lot of institutional knowledge that just is gone, either retired, died off, or whatever for those kinds of bicycles. But, um, I think there there’s, you know, the the difficulty with used bikes, I mean, for at the corporate level is one, you don’t you don’t want to add cost. So, if you have to ship that thing back to Waterlue from Loveland, uh, that’s that’s adding cost. And shipping, as you well know, has gone through the roof. Um, you know, and then you’re going to have to ship it back somewhere. It’s it’s a challenging prospect. And yeah, we could we could go on. There’s a lot of different, you know, directions this whole thing could take. But, uh, I I think I think that bike shops, you know, independent bike dealers are well situated right now to react, whether it’s, you know, Wheel and Sprocket in in the, you know, in Wisconsin or, you know, you there. I mean, you’re you’re in a it’s a great time for you to do what you’re doing. maybe better than Oh, yeah. It’s It’s amazing um what opportunity there is for somebody that knows how to like you you touched on it’s like you got to know how to work on it. And you know, fortunate for me, I’ve been doing it off and on for 35 years that in the field of actually working on stuff and in the newer stuff, yeah, may I may have to train up on a little bit when I get something newer in my shop. But the the at least they have the core basic knowledge how the design worked over the decades. This is where they got to it. You know, it’s like I know the B string spring and you know, screw and all that upper and lower and all that good stuff. And you know, um, that’s where I appla, you know, there’s there’s a few of you that watch this and you’re in shops or working on bikes as a part-time or been or used to work in the cycling industry. It’s like I I implore all of them to do their own YouTube channel of some various level of sharing that knowledge or you come across something weird like you know like I need to take apart this Fox fork you know it’s like and this is how you do it that kind of thing if you have the like solid knowledge and that information anything that predates the YouTube coming out it’s it’s beneficial um it’s huge because you know I’ve even seen it with some of my videos. Like there’s one that’s just like adjusting a barrel barrel adjuster on a rear derailer. That’s my the highest shorts view. I mean, and I still get like several hundred of them like every 48 hours. It’s like it’s just crazy. But it’s it’s helps people out. That’s what’s really awesome. So, you’re building helping that community where now a lot of people I just had a video come out that do the ABCs, right? check your air, your chain, and your brakes. And got a little more in depth with each one of those because there is a lot more depth than just checking your air. You want to double check your tire and all those things, too. But not going into the weeds of that too much. But if you do the little the extended version of that, you’re pretty much almost doing a minor tuneup on your bike in a sense. And that’s where I was alluding to is like you can do this yourself and it doesn’t take very long. And it’s good to know your own bike anyway because if you ever get in a situation you have a chance to fix it. And then if you get a more complicated tuneup and so forth, then you can pay for the more expensive tuneup. Because if you’re quite honestly unless you’re short on time, which a lot of us are, or just don’t want to deal with it, which is fine too. That’s why us mechanics are still here. Go ahead and do that lower level tune. But if you want to save yourself a little bit of money, do the lower level tune. Don’t don’t buy into the $75 or $100 tuneup. Go ahead and wait till that bike needs the $150 tuneup or the $200 tuneup where it needs more technical tooling to fix like ultrasonic cleaners and everything else that goes with it. Um, but you know, case in point, that’s where the the used market where you can take I’ about I’d still say about twothirds of the bikes that I pick up, which is almost on purpose, need a lot more work. Um, because they’re at a lower price. But if you’re willing to spend a little bit more money on a little bit nicer used bike that has less miles, you may only need to do the ABCs and bam, you’re good to ride for a couple years. Yeah. I mean, I think the danger for one one thought that just popped into my head, the danger for, you know, the non-bike mechanic crowd out there and there’s there’s people thankfully and thank you for all watching us. Um, you know, with used bikes, there’s some things that we look for, you know, that we have the eyes. Like, you know, I can go on eBay or Craigslist here in the Twin Cities, and all of a sudden, you look at a bike and go, “Wow, that’s a good deal, but yikes, that front fork is bent back a little bit.” And that’s something a lot of people won’t see, you know, where where’s some of the damage or or like, you know, wow, that drivetrain has seen way better times, you know? So that that’s sort of you know knowing your limitations. Some people just flat don’t want to work on their bike. So like I love the bike but I’m happy to pay you which is a beautiful thing. You know that’s why you’re here. Yeah. Exactly. But you know also having a little bit of knowledge is power. Um you know if they know about it then you know maybe they can make a more informed decision. But uh you know that’s that’s part of the other thing is you know as you buy used bikes you know every every used bike that I’ve bought and I’m somewhat addicted to it. I think I told you my one friend Mike refers to my garage as a home for wayward bicycles but uh they are always an adventure. There is always something oh dang either I didn’t think about that or yikes I didn’t see that until you start to pull some of that you know pull it apart and start to work on it. Um but anyway, um I think used bikes are a great thing. I mean, you know, another it’s something so interesting. We can go so many different directions. One thing that pops into my head is the companies who are existing as a result of what we’re talking about here, you know, working on used bikes. You know, where can I get 10-speed drivetrain parts like a brand new 10-speed drop bar shifter? And there is a few people out there. There’s some really high-end stuff, but there’s also like Micro Shift, I think, has some more affordable things where you can’t buy I don’t know if you can buy like a performance shifter from Shimano anymore, a mechanical, you know, 10-speed shifter, um, barring having to go find a, you know, a lightly used one or something. Uh, so there’s there are these new parts of the industry. you know, there’s not only people like you working on bikes, but there’s also people Microshift, Vevel Orange, um, Grant Peterson’s Rivendell, um, that are, you know, sort of coming up with with parts that can work on an old bike. Yeah, I think the other thing I’ve noticed is riding some of my uh used bikes kind of fun because invariable rarely is the time when I’m out riding like my my Schwin sports tour which is a beautiful old bike that somebody doesn’t go wow cool bike. I’m like that’s right. Um you know it’s kind of fun you know and it’s not you know not something I spent thousands of dollars um you know just is this kind of neat old bike. It rides great and it’s it’s a cool old bike. Uh, so there there’s this kind of fun factor to it as well. You know, you if you’re reviving a grand old brand or grand old bike, it’s it’s a cool thing. Kind of rambling again. Sorry. Oh, yeah. No, no, you great great points there and great experience. I mean, there’s I mean, I most of my bikes are now getting up to 20 plus years old and, you know, I have a great I have a big smile on my face, you know, when I ride them. And and yeah, all to your point, if you’re buying used, if you any bike shop will do a safety inspection. I mean, they’ll they’ll run through it and with their eyes, they may be able to identify some serious scaries. So, want to throw that as a disclaimer. Like, definitely if any doubt to have a double checked out, like, you know, it’s always even for myself like to double check it. I mean, if I get something weird and funky, I go to that brand store and go, “Hey, have you seen this?” and they’ll either tell me like, “Oh, it’s okay.” Or like, “That might be something we need to, you know, take a look at.” Because, you know, you never know. And cycling is already dangerous as it is. You don’t want to, you want to limit. It’s all about reducing the risk. And as bike mechanics, our pride and joy for most of us is trying to provide a good safe ride regardless if we’re tuning it up or providing a used bikes. That’s the underlying core is make sure it’s safe. And again, I mean, you know, over nothing replaces the experience on that of seeing weird things over the years, like, oh, I’ve seen that split. I’ve seen that, you know, that tire flare out. Or, you know, it’s like even it’s just the basic stuff where, you know, cross-checking on the side of the tire, it’s like, well, the glue is starting to break down. That tire is going to blow out. You definitely do not want to have that thing blow out when you’re bombing down 30 miles per hour down a hill, right? you know, so you know, those are, you know, it’s all about safety when it comes to but but the experience and I shouldn’t I mean, you know, it’s just as dangerous riding the, you know, the newer bikes, too. So, you know, there’s still some risk there as well. But, um, but, you know, that you can find some really cool classics and do some modifications and make them ride just as good as the newer ones, but the fraction of the cost. and the market’s already been kind of treading that way where I kind of see that to allude to you know 2026 of more of that because I’m I’m assuming this is a big assumption in opinion of course but this disruption we have with companies have been basically paralyzed to function as normal of doing projections and having product built and broadends is the consistencies since that is no longer there for now. It’s going to be kind of more of the same going into 26 and 27 because they just can’t, you know, it’s like prices on new stuff is probably going to go higher um regardless because they’re not going to be able to make and sell through the volume that they need to, right? Yeah. I mean well I think the the big the big drivers on pricing is you know it’s tariffs and and the value of the dollar I mean it’s th those you know those will have huge impact on it you know just it’s it probably well I would say in these uncertain times I would kind of be surprised if all there’s going to be some some damage I think to the industry in terms of some brands will have a real hard time surviving or or brands andor companies. Um we’ll see. Uh but you know thankfully there’s ways to get around that. You know like you know look at the used bike market. You know that’s a great place to buy a bike. So yeah and service is huge. Well shifting gears to community. Um, I I’ve seen a lot more community engagement from bike shops this year, more so than last year. Um, case in point is BikeMS MS is one of the charity rides I’m been involved with and family’s been involved with for 35 years now. Yeah. And, um, this was one of the first years that they had a commitment from bike shops to fill in every rest stop. Well, like if you’re not knowledge of that, it’s like rest stop between 10 to 20 mile difference for a gap. And in this particular ride amongst a lot of them out there, they’re not high-end racers. They don’t have all the high-end stuff, even though they may have nice bikes, what have you, there’s a huge range, and you’re pulling a huge range of people, athletic level, and all that, and also equipment. And you know, bikes you if they’re tuned up, they all do the preparation. and they try to get them to do the tune-ups and all that and all but people don’t. Some people just do the event and they’re like, “Oh, I borrowed this yesterday. I’m riding today to train for tomorrow.” I mean, you have those. So, having mechanical support out there is number one huge. and to help people, you know, keep going, you know, doing these rides and um and having that kind of commitment from bike shops locally and even further away from the event themselves, seeing the benefit for their either their shop or exposure or branding to do that commitment. And you’re talking the commitment is at the last weekend of June like a lot of these rides are and of course because it’s in the nice you know nice part of the summer or the weather and you’re the busiest as a shop and to be able to carve out a pe your staff’s time to commit to doing something like this is usually a pretty I mean they see it as a deficit but this year I think they saw it as a benefit and realizing that they need to really work towards building that community up again. We’re not just here to open the door and sell stuff. We’re actually here to be a part of it. And that includes a couple corporate stores actually got more involved, which was fantastic. Um because that’s that’s telling you it’s it’s shifted to the point where they they need to do this. Well, and going on a little story rant here of how we got involved with BikeMS was my dad just opened up the shop bike shop in Parker in ‘ 87 and the worst time to open right at the end of the season, right? So, you have like good six months of no revenue and trying to figure out what the heck you’re doing. And they didn’t own a bike shop before. Never worked in a bike shop before. this is what they wanted to do. And um my dad was like, “We need to do the Bike MS,” which back then it was the MS-150. And it it was a two-day event in a gym. My mom was pissed. It was like, “We should not be doing this. We haven’t been open a year, you know, why are we pulling us out of the bike shop for two days in the middle of the summer and that kind of” and she was mad. And she was telling me recently, she was mad. she still was mad and started doing this and um and back then you had to pay to be a part of it which really blows my mind. It’s like you actually had to put up money to show up because that was a way of like really exposing you to all these writers about your shop. So that’s where the concept came from. And fast forward today that they had, you know, last two decades a lot of hard time getting these shots to commit. And there’s plus a ton of different rides of various races to everything else going on during the season. It’s just amplified that where a lot of shops can’t, you know, split so many events. Even including myself, I can’t do event every weekend. It’s just impossible. Um, but to do these bigger events and there’s a more of a fill rate of these mechanics really kind of shows to me that the community portion of the cycling culture is being by local bike shops being more invested into and seeing the value of that. and the director at the MS uh for this chapter used my words to help convince others like yeah the you know like a Parker like a shop and Parker which is 50 miles away from the event like they’re not even close but they’re saying people in your neck of the woods are riding this event so you should be out there even though you need to drive over there to go do it it’s not in your backyard it’s still very important to number one do and it’s the right thing to do But yet you’re still touching base with cyclists that are coming from all across the whole front range. Which case on point, there’s one cyclist I met this year and last year and she does multiple MS rides across the nation, which blew my mind. I’m like, “Oh, you’re going to do this torture again in two weeks?” I mean, in a different state. But apparently they have like this um pass or you you raise a certain amount of money and you get into this pass and then you can do multiple events across the nation doing the MS ride. So it’s it’s just you know the the reach is just you know phenomenal where I see like I mentioned this before like we’re we’re going back to grassroots. We’re going back to like how shops were kind of functioning as community centers for cycling like it was in the ‘9s and now instead of, you know, to combat the direct consumer sales and all that. I mean, I’m not mad if somebody buys parts from online because everybody buys stuff from online, including myself. So, it’s kind of like back in the 90s, we were like angered that you bought that chain from Performance. Now, it’s like, “Oh, cool. You bought that chain. I don’t have to go order it for you. um you know that kind of thing because you’re still there for the service aspect of it. Um but I mean it’s a completely different you know environment minefield if you will of what’s ahead but I’m seeing going forward you know my prediction if I will is like going to be a lot more service a lot more used and a lot more community events um are going to be going forward which includes you actually riding the triple bypass. I mean, you drove how many states to get to do the bypass? A lot. A lot. Yeah, it was uh it was an adventure. I mean, how how was it? I mean, I know I worked on your bike and did a little um finagling some Shady Tree. Uh yeah, do do I say not what I do mechanic on your derailer. Did it hold up for you? Uh it was it was uh I did find out that the lowest gear did grind a little bit with the cog on the jockey wheel sort of thing. Yeah. But it definitely helped that uh there were there were some things I mean in retrospect I you know there’s a lot for me personally a lot of could have would a should have. Uh, I could have and probably would, you know, in retrospect now would have stayed closer to the event, but we ended up driving down from Fort Collins to Evergreen uh the morning of the event, which meant yours truly got up at like 3:40 in the morning and that was that was kind of tough. You know, I got there had a little bit of a headache, you know, real pause. I mean, it is just such a beautiful ride. I mean, everything is beautiful. Um, but it was it was challenging. I I entered I you know, in retrospect, I should have had more miles than I did. Um, I might actually have switched bikes. I might have gone with the Focus instead of the the fastback. Uh, the braking coming down uh some of the passes was kind of exciting. Um, that’s a good way of putting it. This is more exciting than it should have been. Actually, I did have a bit of speed wobble coming down um coming down from Juniper. Um which I think part of that was I got cold and when you get cold your upper body’s tense and that can a lot of times lead to speedball, but uh fortunately I survived that. Um I had forgotten how flipping hard Lovelin Pass is. Oh my god, it was uh it was, you know, really tough getting up there. But got up there and there, one of the fun things, we got up there and I was riding with three or four other guys, which was fun and a good thing. Um, but we got up the top and there was a bag piper at the top of Lovelin Pass. Oh yeah. Which is hard enough to breathe on top of Lovelin Pass, let alone ride a bike. But I bag piping must be challenging. Uh, but they had this little kind of, you know, traditional Scottish music at the top which makes you smile, you know, kind of lightens the load a little bit. Um, bombed down Lovelin, uh, got to Copper and we were kind of trying to regroup. We thought we’d we dropped we had dropped somebody off the back and we were waiting for him and waited and waited and went and were wondering where he was. Finally, we were able to get him on the phone and we said, “Where are you?” So, we’re at Copper Mountain. Meanwhile, it had started to rain and hail on us a little bit and we get a hold of him. My other friend John got a hold of him. He says, “I’m almost at the top of Veil Pass.” We’re like, “Oh.” So, we’re down at the at Copper. We got to climb. And at that point, I got really cold. And honest, I’m I’m shagrin to say that I pulled out at Copper Mountain just because I was so cold and and stopped enjoying the ride at that point. But, um, it was it was a good thing to do. And um my my friends had a great time. You know, that everybody else finished, so that was great. Um it’s from an ego perspective, it’s a little hard for me to admit that honestly. I’m just like, dang it. I kind of wish I would have gone all the way, but um I’ve done it twice before and completed it. So um but it’s it’s it’s interesting. One of the things I was thinking about is going up the first pass out of Evergreen. You’re going up Juniper Pass and there is quite a bit of chatting uh going on amongst the different groups of cyclists. Some of it interesting, some of it annoying. Like we were following this one group of guys and they were talking about how to successfully launder money, which is like I’m not joking. Whoa. Yeah. I I really didn’t learn. But the funny thing is, you know, you go over that pass and you start to climb Leland, it was much quieter. I mean, everybody’s much more focused on I’ve got to get up this blankety blank mountain, you know, and climb to 11,300 ft. Um, that was kind of, you know, there’s just some interesting observations. Um, there was a guy on a fat bike and he finished. I saw him roll by in Veil when we were there. Um, and he rolled by. I mean, the stuff that people ride is is pretty amazing. Um, it and there were 4,000 people that did it. It’s it’s it’s crazy. Yeah. But, uh, it it it is a great event, you know. So, yeah, it’s it’s one of the icons. If you haven’t heard, if you’re watching this, like, what what are you talking about? And the triple bypass is going over three passes in Colorado. Um I think doesn’t all three of them go over treeline or at least one level is tree line. No, they’re all they’re all they’re all over Timberline. Yeah, because Yeah. Oh, Timberline. Yeah. So the lowest one is Juniper. So it’s Juniper. The Whopper is Leland. And yeah, the middle middle bear is uh Veil. Yeah. So, it’s it’s been going on I don’t know how many years have been been doing this event or the events over 20 I think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I I think I wrote it the first time in 2005. I wrote it again in 2008. Um it’s been going it’s it’s one of the rides and people from all over the world if not all over the country do it. Yeah, I think it actually I think it got a burst of um attendance increase when the ride of Rockies stopped because they were competing anyway um because they’re within like a week of each other if not overlap sometimes. So, um, there alludes there it’s it’s like event event event event and even though you may not be in all these events, but as you’re in the cycling community, um, yeah, I had a whole bunch of people get ready for the bike MS and shortly after it’s the triple and then the Ragbr even though Ragbr is not here miles away, but there’s a lot of people, my customers included, prep their bikes, get ready to do that ride. Oh, it’s it’s Have you Have you ever been out to it? I have never been, but you were you were alluding a couple interesting stories of the event. Yeah, the just even a drive from Colorado is kind of interesting because you get to Ragbran, a number of people have purchased uh school buses that have been decommissioned and they turn them into campers or, you know, support vehicles or whatever. Yeah. And you know, as you’re riding across it, there was one there. I think I’m not sure if it’s still around, but somebody in Fort Collins had one of the short buses and they painted it to match the Gulf Porsche colors from the 70s, which was a kind of a baby blue with a a a blaze orange racing stripe down the middle, which is kind of funny because this thing is antithetical of a uh a Ford GT. You know, that was the Ford GT colors from the Ford versus Ferrari uh movie. But, uh, you know, people will do things just silly paint jobs. Some of them are just, you know, bucket of bolts. Some of them are completely customized. I saw one with a a rod iron spiral steel staircase on the back of it with a rod iron deck on top of the bus. But the closer you get to Iowa, the more broken down old school buses you see. The second time that I literally saw one, there were flames shooting out of the hood. That was kind of exciting. But uh yeah, it’s it’s it’s an amazing it’s it’s almost in fact I saw a really good documentary on Colorado Public Television and it was it was shift a ragbry documentary and it was really really a cool thing. It’s focuses on three separate writers and what their journey why they’re writing rag bry about but it it also gives you a flavor of but that was that was uh broadcast within the past year. I would recommend if you want to learn about ragbrite that’s a good one to to go to. So it’s shift a ragbride documentary. Um but yeah I mean it there are some just absolutely amazing rides. One of the my friends from uh farmstead bicycles here in uh farmstead bike shop here in the Twin Cities. He is doing the the dam ride. Uh, I think so. It’s Damn, the bad damn damn right. Damn. Oh, I’ve got to got to come up with what the acronym is. But they’re literally getting up at O dark 30 and you have to finish within 24 hours running horizontally across Minnesota. Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s that’s more of one of these uh it’s nowhere near the level. I mean, it’s a kind of a a freeling, you know, not super organized. There’s rules, but it’s it’s not tightly organized or anything like ride the Rockies or triple bypass or, you know, so there’s all there’s every type of ride out there. Yeah. Good ones. Oh, yeah. There’s like one in Michigan. It was like hotter to hotter than hell ride. It was like in July and it was going to a town called Hell. Well, actually I there’s the hotter and hell 100 down in Texas and that was to c the reason it started was to celebrate the 100th anniversary. I’m trying to remember it’s outside of Fort Dallas Fort Worth. Anyway, the town they were celebrating our 100th anniversary. We thought, gee whiz, it’d be a great thing to celebrate with a century ride, a 100 mile ride to celebrate our 100th anniversary in temperatures going over 100 degrees, which I I I have helped on that one. And I I remember I was talking to somebody about WD40 bike products and the guy started to faint in front of me like, “Dude, why don’t you sit down? We’ll get you something to drink.” So, you you can find you don’t have to do these big rides, but a lot of them are really fun. But, uh, yeah. Yeah. I encourage, you know, if anybody has never done one, just do the small local ones. Um, you know, I don’t know what it was last Sunday. Um I have a short of Maddie riding with Maddie and uh that I released but before that um we were riding out towards Boyd and there’s all these cyclists like it it seemed group organized like going the other direction and I think it was like tour of Colorado or something was the day that they were doing and um all various ages and types of bikes and all that but everybody looked like they were having a great time and they were like smiling at Maddie and she was She’s too tall for a 20-inch wheel, but she’s not ready to get into the bigger size. So, she’s just like pumping her little heart out and she will not shift for any reason. But she’s like cooking and uh and people are just like smiling and encouraging her and it was just really cool. And um just, you know, that’s the point being is just getting out there and doing some of these even the smaller events or just the local no drop local rides. It’s just a great way to get um ingrained to a new group of friends. Um you know, and you’ll find those buddies to be the buddies for life because they all have a common common uh theme on that. And one local legend, um Kurt, I just worked on his bike recently and the guy, he wants to ride his age. He’s just turned 71. So he’s wants to do a 70 mile 71 mile ride. He did it last year when he turned 70. And the booger had a heart attack on St. Patrick’s Day this year. Oh. And but you know, he survived it. They put a stent in and his recovery has been very minimal. He’s tracking really well. They had no limitations for him to riding. And they they basically said between listening to your body and identifying you’re having issues and got in early enough was one, but second since he’s been riding these um last five or six years pretty consistently, they said since he was cycling so much that the damage that occurred was very minimal. So, he was out there plugging away and obviously he’s not too happy about the medication and dietary change in his life, but you know, it’s better than an alternative. And I had, you know, I did a tuneup on his bike to get him ready to do some more riding. And, you know, he has his own little potsy group of friends that rides with him now. And they’re just and they’re all younger. I mean, he’s 71. They’re all in their 20s. They’re like, “Oh man, this guy is so encouraging.” And he told me, which was very interesting, is like he never ever once told any of them that you should go do this. Never. They just saw him roll in constantly riding. They asked him like, “What are you doing, you know, and that was inspirational enough for them to all go out, buy bikes, and start riding.” So, yeah. Yeah. I would say if you’re if you’re looking for a group ride, it’s a good thing to do. you definitely want to know how to ride safely within a group versus riding by yourself. And there’s there’s, you know, we could have a whole show about that. But, um, but yeah, I mean, it’s a I I I really miss the community of people that I ride with out in Fort Collins when I’m there, uh, that does the TFR rides. I mean, it’s just a, you know, a good group of people. You make friends, you learn things about people. In fact, one of them I think actually reached out to me this morning and I wasn’t able to ride but he was here in the Twin Cities was asking about where to ride and I wasn’t able to reach out to him. But um you know just it’s just a good thing to do and it’s you know it also gets you out the door like some days maybe you’re not quite as motivated and you know no but my my friends are out there you know so it’s it’s a good thing to go out and ride and it’s it’s usually a good time. So I would highly recommend it. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, the the fun of riding bikes. I mean, that’s that’s the the fun part for sure. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s um Yeah. Oh, I’m glad you survived your uh triple bypass. And you didn’t respond right away, so I was like, “Oh, God, what happened to him?” I honestly there was a certain amount of a little bit upset with myself about it. But, uh Oh, generally it was good. I mean, the it was funny that the the crew I was, you know, out there with, they were all from all from out here in Minnesota, and I think all of them went to St. John’s uh up in South Central uh Minnesota here. And they’re quite the quite the crew. The Johnny’s uh is the team name. Uh, in fact, they have one of the I think the one of the best uh small college football teams in the country historically. Um, but uh that that was fun, you know, hanging out with those guys and I met some new friends, which is great. You know, it but yeah, I was uh it wasn’t the way I wanted it to to quite go, but I did survive and um learned a lot and relearned a lot and off we go. Well, you know, you you move to a lower altitude and then you drive up and you’re like, “Oh, we can do this.” And you’re like, “Keep going higher and higher.” Your body just does not react well. Yeah. It Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the the funny part of community riding is I just experienced it myself in Las Vegas. Um got a you know, took advantage of the used market. I picked up a a man my size for 100 bucks and did a little tweaking on it and I’m out riding and find lo and behold I found there’s cycling community there is huge um and you know there’s like an older retired group and they’re great to ride with because you know I’m not gonna get dropped and they’re all gonna hang out and they all talk it and it was great is great and uh and the roads out there are really nice um especially in the Summerland area which is a little bit nicer you know more nicer community but other than that though the the variance of weather changes like here in Colorado we have ice and so forth which just totally mess up messes up the roads they don’t have that there so the roads stay nicer longer in paths um so road riding out there is just phenomenal um I’ve done a little bit out there It’s beautiful. So, one of the events I want to do uh for a traveling event is do the one that’s um they shut I think they shut down the Vegas strip and they do a ride through the strip which I thought’ be kind of kind of cool. Uh kind of fun to do. But they have various st I mean they have all sorts of different ride events throughout the year. Um then I interviewed Swany Cycles. Great guys. They’re more towards closer to Henderson and um they’re road specificish shop. They do mountain stuff too, but they’re what they their niche is following more of the road road riders because the the terrain there is not conducive for gravel riding. So, it’s either one or the other, which is I found interesting. Um but they their road community is just huge and the city is split up in two different road communities which is kind of crazy. Um but on the bigger events then those communities kind of bleed bleed over. Um but they have stuff going on year round and they said you know if it gets too hot you just get up earlier. It’s like all right. That reminded me of uh when I was riding a bit in Phoenix and people get up, they all have really good light systems because you can’t wait until the end of the day to ride in Phoenix because it’s well over 100 degrees typically. So yeah, you got to get up when it’s still dark. And it it’s funny, I didn’t have a light system, but I always had to find somebody who had lights that I could ride with them because otherwise I’d get lost in the dark. But uh yeah, that’s Yeah, you poke around. you can usually find a good, you know, good group to ride with. And in fact, the other day I was on the the Midtown Greenway, which is an old rail uh line site that goes across Minneapolis. Really nice place to ride. It’s it’s dead straight and pretty flat, but uh there’s a bike shop along the way. And u I stopped in there the other day and uh met the one of the guys worked there and he was telling me about some some group rides out of there. So, I’m probably going to try and hook up with some of the people there. Yeah, you do a little poking around. You can usually come up with something. Yeah, it’s um Yeah, it’s it’s they’re out there and it’s it’s fun to be a part of it. And I mean, I enjoy riding out here, but you know, I’m in when I’m in Vegas, I’m not working as much. So, and I’m like, I need to stretch my legs out. Yeah. And it’s super easy to pop out the door and hit the road. And now I got more of a lay of the land. And um there’s a shop pretty close to where we’re at and they have group rides. They have um one that’s more aggressive and then they have a no drop ride which is kind of cool. So um but yeah, it’s just, you know, even if you’re just it’s a great way. I have one one of my really good customers, he has one of those clown bikes, the Brontton. Um and him and his wife, they travel the world. Not all the time, but when they do trips, it’s pretty pretty elaborate. And and he takes those guys uh with him. He has a case and all that, you know, and and uh it’s so funny. He loves these things. Like I mean, they’re crazy. They’re a crazy little clown bike, little wheels, and you don’t go they’re I I find them uncomfortable, but whatever um to ride, but he was he enjoys him so much. And I I I looked at him point blank and it’s like, are you sure it’s the bike that makes it enjoyable or is the bike experience that makes it enjoyable when you’re going to do these big trips? Because you get to see a lot of the area that you’re traveling to versus walking or hiking or even in a car. So those experiences of like 10 times the experience of seeing a new location on a bike. You know that it’s interesting you mentioned Brmpton. Um because they’ve built quite a following. There’s a global following. In fact, there is a yearly Brmpton World Championship bike race. Um no kidding. Brmpton specific stores. I’ve not ridden one, but if I was looking for a travel bike, I would probably look at those. my experience with those things, if you can get the bars and saddle and stuff to the right, you know, position to approximate your your regular bike, they do a pretty good job. And the fact that you can um you know, travel with it and sometimes you you don’t have to pay the additional fees. You can just pay a regular bag fee instead of the god I last time I traveled that I checked a bike on a plane, it was over a hundred bucks. I don’t know what it would be now. Um, but th that’s a a pretty interesting bike. And fact, they came out with a new model, I think, because most of the Brmptons, I think, are 16inch wheels, I think. So, yeah. So, there’s a 20-inch wheel now available as well. And that’s supposed to be more of a gravel Brmpton. It’s kind of a cool little community. And you know I I think the other thing that people like about it when you have a bike that’s that different like somebody come up and go dude what’s that and you can talk about your bike you know you don’t have to talk about how fast you were or did did you know you know whatever so it’s just that kind of it starts the conversation off um and there is a bit of a there definitely is a following I’m not sure I would call it a cult but uh Brmpton is a much bigger there actually are Brmpton specific stores and I think in London. Yeah. Maybe New York City as well. So yeah, if you live in a city like New York or any big metropolitan area, space is at a premium. It’s pretty good to have a bike that you can completely collapse and fold up like that. It’s Oh yeah, absolutely. I just I just poke fun because, you know, I mean, you know, these bikes, they are they are fun to ride. Um and I could totally see the point, but yeah, you’re right. You get them into a suitcase, which the the bag checkers don’t even know the difference. It’s it’s the same size as a suitcase and you don’t get those extra charges. The weight part is you they really up go right up to 50. They’re really close. So, you can’t load them up. Um, this customer of mine was like, I’m looking for a titanium one so he can put more stuff in the in his suitcase. Yeah. But uh but yeah, his stories are great because you know he’s going to all these different I think he went to Thailand or Cambodia. Actually it was Camb Cambodia. I think he went to both and you go to places and you can just ride and see all these different things and he clocks like 15 20 miles on these things at a time. I’m like wow that’s that’s pretty impressive. Um, and yeah, I can see where the congest if just dayto-day congested area, it’s you’d be able to get places pretty quick, but for traveling. Absolutely. And he has several of them. Um, I’ve worked on a couple of them. He had me do a a conversion on one, too. He wanted lower gears. Um, I was able to do conversion, but it didn’t have a front derailer. So he has to basically get off the bike and change the derailer to the smaller cog to do some timing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean they’re they’re they’re interesting ride, but again, it’s not really about performance-based. It’s about experience-based. And that’s where a lot of cycling um I found the most fun is on the bike. So you’re not going as fast, you’re not as efficient. um all those things. You’re just out there having a good time and they’re comfortable. That’s the bottom line. They’re comfortable and you’re just, you know, it’s you’re, you know, whoever you’re riding with. Um you know, those kinds of things. So, yeah. Absolutely. I’m surprised you never ridden a Brmpton, though. I’ve not ridden one. I mean, the closest I’ve had I think I’ve told you I’ve got a couple Moltens. Yeah. And those So, those also have 16inch wheels. They’re fully suspended. So, front and rear suspension on those. Oh, wow. And a lot of people will look at it and think they’re a folding pipe, but they they aren’t. Although the I think the current moltens are I don’t know that they fold, but you can collapse them down. Like you can they’re they’re pretty amazing bikes. They’re still dual suspension, but they you can break them down and travel with them. Yeah. But yeah, I mean it’s it’s kind of fun having something that you know people, you know, whether you and or other people find interesting. It’s kind of a cool thing. Oh yeah, absolutely. I remember bike Fridays were a big thing back in the 80s and the 90s and in our area in Parker at the time there was a lot of pilots for like United and so forth. So they would have a lot of them would bring them in for us to do work on them to get them going and um they love them because wherever their layover is they can just shoot off and go places and not have to rely on public transportation too much. Yeah. And get some exercise. Yeah. Yep. which is yeah, another benefit of it. Yeah. All good stuff. Well, cool. What your What you got going on coming up in the later part of the summer here? Uh probably be back in beautiful northern Colorado at some point. Um but just trying to keep keep poking along. I’ve got some some projects here. I need Well, I’ve got to get that Raleigh going. I I’ve got the the parts that came in for it. So, um, yeah, you know, just enjoying myself. It’s a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Sounds like you’re adjusting to the northern community there a little bit better. It’s It’s interesting. I mean, I’m definitely finding more people. It’s It’s funny though. It’s like you talk about humidity. I mean, every ride out here involves humidity and uh, you know, like certain elements of clothing that I might be able to ride for two days in a row. out in Colorado, there’s absolutely no way you can do that here in Minnesota. Yeah. So, it it’s different, but uh it it’s good. You know, really good cycling community, a lot of great people out here. Um you know, I love love riding along rivers and, you know, one ride I I can ride from here and end up riding along the Mississippi River, which is absolutely gorgeous. Um, so you know, there’s there’s good rides everywhere if you if you know where to find them. Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean in Colorado, super super lucky. We’ve been the communities here have been building trails for decades now. It’s been it’s like a playground for cycling from all kinds of cycling. So it’s great. And this fall they’re going to have um a connection in Windsor finished. So, the Pter Trail will have its um 50 mile length to it. So, they’re going to go from Windsor to 10th now. Um yeah, they have a section in Windsor that’s you still have to do the side roads, but they’re actually putting a path in and putting a couple bridges. Um I haven’t gotten to write it yet, but apparently this falls the the completion of it. So, for the most part, from Gley to the north side of Fort Collins is 50 miles one way. No, maybe we’ll have to ride the next time I’m out there. Yeah, we’ll have to check it out because right along food it was really nice talking about river riding. You know, I I there was a time in my life when I would poo poo that kind of stuff, but it’s like, you know, you’re out on a nice bike and you you know, you’re on the pter, you see wild turkeys, deer, eagles, you know, meet other people. I mean, it’s don’t have to worry about cars. Yeah, it’s it’s a beautiful thing. I mean, that’s that that is really one of the, you know, the trail system there is magnificent. So, no, I do miss that. That’s just a tip of it, too, because they have all the paths around four columns as well as Loblin which are connected. So, you could pretty much ride like two, three days on paths and not be on the same path twice, right? Almost. It’s good. It’s good. Yeah, it’s good. Say fun rides. Yeah. Well, cool. Thank you for hanging out with us and uh spending some time. Hope you get to get in a ride here soon. I I hope to later today. Awesome. Let me know when you’re back in town and we do some more jibberjabbering in person. Yeah. No, you know, like I say, it should be within the next month or so. I need to get back out there. It’s funny because I keep bringing some things back, taking something, you know, traveling back and forth, but uh yeah, it’s it’s but I’ll be back up. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, we’re um planning to be in Vegas the 6th to the 12th or something like that. So any of those are in the biggest neck of the woods. I’ll be in your uh in your uh hometown. So So I’ll be doing some early riding. But uh yeah, we’re doing a little trip before Maddie goes back to school. So Okay. The last harrah summer break. So yeah. Well, that’s good. But you know, probably the hottest time of the year out there, too. It’ll be great. Yeah, it’s it’s you know, there’s pools, so we enjoy it. I I I highly recommend those Bivo insulated water bottles. It’s that steel. I think I told you about those, didn’t I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those things that is keeps stuff cool for longer than anything I’ve ever used. By far, they’re not they’re not cheap, you know, particularly when you think about a plastic water bottle, but you don’t have to worry about micro plastics and you can put a lot of the parts in a dishwasher, but just the fact that it keeps things cooler. I mean, try to remember which I’d used the polar ones and I’d used um one of the other insulated plastic bottles and they do okay, but not much I mean like not much more than 40 minutes and they’re already getting lukewarm. Okay. Where these the you put ice cold water in it’ll stay for over over five 10 hours. Oh wow. Yeah. In fact, here’s one right here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Since you can’t squeeze it, it’s just like a straw style. It’s It’s actually It’s an interesting I think they claim it was somebody worked for NASA, but it’s it’s got a straw in there. You basically you pull up on this and if I had knocked it back right now, it actually pour out. You you don’t have to suck on it. You can just And in fact, when I first started riding him, I was I was drinking water way too because so much came out. All of a sudden, I was draining the bottle. So, you have to kind of like learn. Okay. Um, but yeah, it’s an interesting design. I think the camel backs have a similar fact. I’ll show you what’s so it has this kind of Oh, okay. inside and that’s part of the part of the mechanism that allows you to have that free flow. Yeah. If you go to the it’s BVO, if you go to their website, you can check out the bottles. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Looks like you just buy you just buy them direct. Yeah. Well, you Well, I think I think maybe REI and some other places you can find them online, but you can buy them direct or um I think RAI’s got it. Yeah, I’ll throw in the chat here the link. I would say that uh that would be a really good thing to have before I’d go to Las Vegas. Yeah, I’ll have to look into that because I got some polar ones and I’ve used them a couple times. I mean, they’re fine. Um, I found them a little more rigid than the camel back, so it was a little harder. Yeah. To get the water out. Um, so you do more of the sucking like a straw to try to get the water out. Um, but yeah, been looking for some different bottle, you know, types and keeping it cold. Yeah, that really helps your body core to stay a little cooler. It’s huge. the the things you’ll find there, you got to be a little concerned. So, they they have some that are See if I’ve got another one here. Yeah. Any of those of you are watching this in the hotter hotter areas, yeah, put it in the chat or the comments below on the replay on what you use to survive the heat while you’re riding would be helpful. Stainless steel, same volume. Uh, this one actually has a silicone kind of color covering a wrap. You can see I was using some aluminum cages and it takes some of it off. My experience with the these are harder to pull out of your cage. Uh, these are much easier to pull in and out because it’s just bare stainless steel. Yeah, you do you do pay a weight penalty, but um, you know, on a hot summer day, there’s nothing better than having cold cold fluid to drink. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, cool. Well, hope to see you here soon. Thank you for spending time with me. Yeah, definitely. It was great catching up. Absolutely. We should uh discuss if if we want to include uh my resurrection of the super course. Uh yeah. Yeah, we can we can uh go over um what entails or we can just do a regular video and I can edit it of what parts you’re gonna put in and we can do kind of like a time lapse and go at the end and like how bad was it? Yeah, I was reorder parts. Yeah, we should uh figure that out because I think I’ve got most of the parts I need. Um I need to pull it down and clean it up. So, I don’t have your fancy stuff out here. I’ve just got regular car wax, but Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we can we can get you some fancy stuff if you want to put some fancy stuff on it. Sure. Sure. Maybe we can use that if you want to help promote those guys. That’d be great. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Um Yeah, that and the orange guys are definitely excited about, you know, being part of that. So yeah, we should uh do some collaboration with them and what parts you got from them and how they worked and maybe uh do a video with them saying this is the bike and these are the parts that we used and yeah kind of their backstory because there’s you know for me it’s really nice to find companies that are still working and making retro which you know sounds old but like older bike stuff so you can keep those bikes going and Um, that’s just awesome. I mean, you know, you know, companies like Bicycle Wheel Bicycle, what’s it? Bicycle wheel warehouse in California. That’s what it is. Touch tongue test. But, um, I have a link below. They have um they do all the custom they custom build wheels still like lace them up to different hubs. So if you have dropouts, not a through axle with a room brake, you want a nicer set or just an expensive set that’ll work, you can still get new there that’s still handbuilt. So or even the nicer and stuff, too. But it’s kind of nice to see companies like that are still exist and actually flourishing in times like this, too. So yeah, doing pretty good. Yeah, it’s fun. Absolutely. All right. Alrighty. Well, thanks again for everybody for hanging out and chatting. Sorry I didn’t really dive into the chat that much. We were just uh kind of catching up with John and alluding what’s going on in the industry going forward. And um yeah, I have other information below um in the description and so forth. And if it’s nice in your neck of the woods, please go for a ride. Community or not, keep going. Yeah, keep going. Yeah, sunny side up and rubber side down. There you go. And until next time, have a wonderful day. Ride your bike.
3 Comments
We'd love to hear about your experience with your shop and cycling communities.
Please like and share your stories in the comments below. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next video.
https://youtube.com/live/qVziSk3yOs8
🚴♀ Would you be interested in upgrading your ride? The quickest way to enhance performance has always been with new wheels and an upgraded chain for crisper shifting.
🛠 NEW (Affiliate):
Trusted Partners on my Website, updated daily (most days) lol
✅ https://iknowaguybicycles.com/partners/
Check out these trusted partners:
✅ Bicycle Wheels Warehouse
Custom Wheels for Rim Brakes: bicyclewheelwarehouse.com
The Guys' Discount: 20% off purchases of $99 or more, site-wide.
🚨 Code: IKAG20
Expires 12-31-25
✅ Upgrade your ride with the best Bicycle Chains on the market.
Connex German Steel with WAX Options:
https://iknowaguybicycles.com/product-category/accessories/chains/
Or Other Brands:
✅ VITAL BIKE CHAINS – WAX BICYCLE CHAIN SERVICE
https://www.vitalbikechains.com/#/
Build your shop up with tools and supplies from JensonUSA.
✅ JensonsUSA (Parts & Bikes): https://alnk.to/1C8Tws2
Appreciate you guys putting out this content. A) it’s a relaxing listen and B) I love the longer vids as I am often on my computer, working in the evening (in the UK) and I can work and watch / listen at the same time
I have the opposite opinion. Been a bike dealer for 49 years, with very little spare time, so I gave you a look. No offense, I'm not listening to an almost 2 hour video. They're too long. Or 1 hour, either. Ive watched a few minutes of several of your videos, but not a complete one. I agree with some of your opinions, but ….