Friday plans

So,
top of montgomery, 9am at Embudito trailhead. Danny and Tony will be riding. I (Lucero) gave myself a boo boo

We will be opening at noon on Friday.   We will be eating leftovers, drinking our keg of Marble Imperial Red, and watching bike related movies.

In other news, do you like shoes? Because Tony's shoes are awesomer than yours:

Yeah, you cant compete with that.

We have been building some cool bikes lately:

And also my baby is super cute. 

Well,  typing with a cast is totally lame, so I'm out!

Bikeworks Black Friday Non-Sale Event!

We've never been open on Black Friday before (the Friday after Thanksgiving), but we've got plans for this year!

So, meet up in the foothills, top of Montgomery Embudito,  for a morning group mtb ride, 9am.  We'll do a mellow turkey burner ride.

Then, back to the shop to open at noon.  Everybody come on by, bring leftovers, a chair, and of course the beverage of your choice (as long as it's not Fat Tire, Blue Moon or Corona, yeah we're picky bastards).  We are going to have a leftover potluck, watch bike movies of all sorts, drink plenty of beer, and generally try to work as little as possible. 

That's our idea.  So while everybody else is battling to the death for $12 laptops and $18 washing machines, come hide out with us, eat, drink, watch movies, and talk some trash. 

Awesome, hope to see you all here!

Lynskey ProCross! Fork Sale! Giro Helmets 30% Off!

Dang. We just got a Medium Lynskey ProCross frame in the shop!

In case you aren't familiar, the ProCross is wicked awesome. I highly recommend that you come and buy it.  It will make you fast, good looking, witty, it's amazing what this bike will do for you.

Also, we have a pretty large collection of forks on the wall,

We have Fox 40's, new and lightly used, a 2010 Rock Shox Revelation U-Turn Air 20mm Maxle, a 2011 Boxxer Race with custom Giant colors, a Fox 831, a Marzocchi Bomber 44 ATA Micro 15mm thru axle,  and a couple of used Marzocchi 888's.  For you? Very good price!  Come in and talk if you need something to connect your front wheel to your frame that goes boingy boingy, deals will be made.

And, lastly for today, we just got a mountain of 2011 Giro helmets in today, so all our 2010 models are 30% off:

We have about 10 helmets left, random selection, come in and check them out.

If these pictures seem unusually crappy, it's because Swinton bought us a $40 camera, and surprise surprise, it's lousy.  You see, it's the camera's fault that he looks like an angry orangutan.

Bikeworks Socks! Lobo Bottles! 2010 Sale!

We got some new Bikeworks ABQ socks in the shop last week.  Here are some pics of me modeling them, for your viewing pleasure:

I know what you are thinking, and you are right, I am too sexy for my socks.

We also are selling bottles to help the Lobo Cycling team:

They are Specialized bottles (which are the best), and they are good looking, and they support your local collegiate cycling team, and they are $8.99.

And lastly, I've put some sale stickers on our 2010 bikes that we have still.  20% Off, we have a couple of Giant Trance X1's (med and large) a Giant Trance X2 (large) and a couple of Giant Seek 2's.

Yesterday Giant shipped us 13 bikes off our 2011 order, including a couple of Cross Bikes, the TCX 1, just in time for cross season, as well as some Glory 0's and Glory 1's, which are always fun to have.

We also have a 2011 Trance X2 in the shop, which I built up yesterday.  With Shimano 10 speed drivetrain, a new tapered steerer fork, and extremely color coordinated, it is a very nice looking bike.

That's all. Hopefully it'll be less than a month before next post.

Closed! Aug 10th and 11th!

WE WILL BE CLOSED TUESDAY AUG. 10TH AND WEDNESDAY AUG. 11TH!


So, don't come to the shop those days!  Tony and Danny will be in Washington riding bikes and partying with Transition Bicycle Company, which should be good times.

If you don't know about Transition, you should, check em out:  Transition Bikes

Thanks!

New Customer Appreciation Policy

Here at Bikeworks we love our customers.  In order to show our customers how much we appreciate them, we are implementing a new policy as of tomorrow.

Bikeworks ABQ Customer Appreciation Policy:
   When you leave our store, at least one owner of Bikeworks ABQ will say / yell "Thanks for coming by, Love you!" on your way out.  It will be our way of letting you know that we indeed love you, our customer.
   If you manage to leave Bikeworks without receiving a hearty "love you!" from Dan and/or Dan and/or Tony (and/or sometimes Charlie, maybe), upon your next visit you will be entitled to a "wicked high-five" and a Free Beer! (Must be of legal drinking age.  Under-age customers who do not receive a hearty "love you" upon departure will be entitled to two "wicked high fives," or one "up high - down low while walking past each other high five" a-la Top Gun.)

We began experimenting with the new policy in the store today, and for the most part had very positive results.  We received at least one "love you" in return,  a "good to know", a few silent responses, but no angry responses or threats to cause bodily harm to us.

We are currently considering expanding this policy to include phone calls as well.  For example, when leaving a message about a bike repair, you would get something such as:

Hey this is Dan from Bikeworks. Just calling to let you know we got your bike all tuned up and everything looked good.  You can come pick it up whenever is convenient, we are open ten to six Tuesday thru Saturday and our number is eight eight four oh three four one if you have any questions Love you bye.


Obviously this is something we are doing for you, the customer, and therefore we are very interested in hearing what you think about our new policy.  Please feel free to comment directly on this site, or email us if you feel you have more to say than what will fit in a comment, or call us if you feel that typing out everything that you have to say will take forever and it would be best if you just told us on the phone.

Thanks for reading.
Love you bye.

Just Kidding! We Are Open Tomorrow!

We Lied!
We will be open tomorrow, Saturday the 12th, for normal hours.
Danny became unexpectedly ill on Tuesday night, was out of work for Wednesday and Thursday, but is back and better than ever today.
However, he has no intention of racing Saturday, so we are going to work instead (yaaayyy).

So, come on by. We'll be trying to play catchup on repairs from the week, watching some Soccer, and sipping on the keg of Marble IPA that I tapped 5 minutes ago.

Also, Tony will be up at Pajarito for the Punishment, so if you want to watch some Downhill racing, or volunteer to help with the race, or help him drink the keg of IPA that Marble donated, go check it out.  It will also likely be much cooler up there than here in the 'Burque.

Thanks for everybody's patience this week, it's been a crazy week for us, we've been a little behind on repairs and what not, but it's all coming together.

Shop Closure: Saturday June 12th for the 2010 Pajarito Punishment

We will be closed Saturday June 12th so we can promote/participate at the Pajarito Punishment.

We are again helping with the promotion and sponsorship of the downhill race this year, which will take place on Sunday (the XC race will be Saturday). 

Check it out:

http://nmmtb.org/

Also, don't forget that this weekend (June 5th and 6th) is the Chile Challenge in Angel Fire:

http://www.racemsc.com/events/chilechallenge.html

With Cross Country, Downhill, Four Cross, and Super D events, the Chile Challenge is always a great race and a blast for spectators. 
The Dan's will not be racing this year, but Tony will be there along with a whole bunch of other Bikeworks racers to represent for the shop.

Thanks
Dan L

It's been two weeks since I last posted... and I still don't have much to say.

So, for anybody who hasn't heard yet, I have a baby arriving imminently (this is Lucero by the way, no babies for Swinton or Tony... yet, bwahahahaha).  Due date is Sunday May 2nd.

I expect to have very little time and/or motivation to be "blogging" much for a while after baby is here and pooping (and crying, and sleeping, and then of course pooping some more).

Speaking of having a new baby next week, I haven't been riding bikes a whole lot lately.  Swinton and Tony have though.  Swinton has been a busy little racer bee, taking 2nd place Cat 1 30-39 at Socorro, and racing again on Sunday at the Roadrunner road race in the Pro 1 2 race with a whole bunch of Pro team hot shots.  I have only received the briefest of race reports so far, but sounds like things went reasonably well, i.e. he finished the race, didn't get lapped and pulled from the race, but finished with a flat tire.
 
Tony spent the weekend building some enormous dirt jumps.  The scoop is that the owner of Sandia Motor Speedway is an old friend of Tony's, and a downhiller from "back in the day".  And he has a big ol chunk of land next to the speedway, that is being turned into a massive set of dirt jumps.  These will be a pay to play spot, with a nominal admission rate (think $5 range), and I hear annual passes available for regulars.  The best part about this is that these jumps are on a piece of land that belongs to somebody who wants them, and everybody is welome.  No more of these sagas of awesome jumps getting built in places they aren't supposed to be, and then getting plowed right when they are getting really sweet. 
So, if you want more info on that, give Tony a call.

Well, that's about it for now.  Thanks for reading.

HABS: Help a Bike Shop blowout sale

So a couple weeks ago I heard about a website called HABS; Help a bike shop.
Essentially, it's a mailing list that bike shops can sign up for, and publish anything they are looking to clear out of the shop.  Then consumers can sign up, get emailed lists every so often, and get help finding sweet deals on stuff.

Check out the site:  http://helpabikeshop.com/

Although I recommend never buying anything from anybody other than Bikeworks, no matter what, ever, It's a pretty cool idea, and mutually beneficial for cyclists to get hooked up and bike shops to move some stagnant inventory without dealing with the Ebay option. 

So, below you will find several posts listing individual items for sale at cheap prices (there is one post per item, as requested by the HABS proprietor).  Obviously, if you are local, just come on by, the prices apply in store as well.

Awesome, thanks for buying stuff.  Hopefully we will have some success with this, and it will become a recurring theme on this here internet web log website.

Thanks
-Lucero

Longest week ever!

Well, it's been a long week.
Last Thursday we boxed up the entire store, and moved everything from the east half of the store onto the west half of the store.

It was less than fun.

Then the contractor and crew moved in at 7am Friday and started working.  Our friend Greg Joseph, of Joseph Homes did the work for us.  We have been nothing short of absolutely impressed with his work.  We gave him vague instructions like " a wall over there, a shelf over here", and what we got came out looking far better than we had been imagining.  And also he is a mountain biker, so you know he's cool.   Check out his website:

http://www.josephhomes.com/

The last of the construction crew was out of the shop by Tuesday morning.  And then we began re-assembling the store.

 
Tuesday was a long day. Tony picked me up at 6:30am at my house, and dropped me off that night at 10:30pm.
We are thrilled with how the shop is looking though.   The last picture above is from Tuesday night. I don't have any from yesterday or today, but things just keep looking better.
We have drastically increased our storage space, and are making much better use of the little space we have.

Stop by and check it out when you get a moment. Hopefully tomorrow we will have the last of the boxes off the sales floor.  Then I'll take some more pictures and post them.

Thanks everybody for being so patient with yet another weird weekend closure for us, and the longer delay in repair turnaround etc.

We're Getting A Facelift!

Attention:
We will be closed this Friday and Saturday (Feb. 26 and 27th) in addition to our regular closed days of Sunday and Monday.
In other words, we will be closed Friday February 26th through Monday March 1st, Reopening on Tuesday March 2nd at 10 AM.

There, now you can't come by on Friday, acting all surprised and stuff. It's on the interweb, so you know it's true.

So, now that I have your attention, I bet you are wondering why we are closing this time?  Well, we've got a construction project going on this weekend.  We've been talking about it for quite some time now, and it's finally happening.  The meat and potatoes of it consists of a large shelf above our slat-wall, and a new storage area and wall in the back of the shop.
It's going to be a big chunk of work, but it's going to be sweet when we are finished.  

Fortunately we were smart enough to outsource for this project, rather than undertake it ourselves.  Unfortunately, we still have to dismantle the majority of the shop to prepare it for construction, and then reassemble the shop when construction is finished. So we will be open this Thursday, but we will be pulling the shop apart while we are open.  And the following Tuesday, we will be open for business, but the store is guaranteed to be a big mess. 

So, if you were thinking about dropping a bike off for service, it would probably be best just to hold onto the bike for this week.  We will be happy to make an appointment for you though.  We will be scheduling a couple of repairs for the end of next week (March 5th and 6th), and into the following week (March 9th through 13th) during the next few days.

As always, thanks for your patience with our relentlessly weird hours and closures.  I hope that our newly beautified store will make it all worthwhile for everyone.

Super Secret Sunday Hours!

HEY!
We will be open tomorrow, Sunday the 20th, for a few hours, from 8am to 12pm, or so.
In addition to our regular awesome inventory, Tony's special lady friend will be here with a plethora of gift-tastic homemade artsy goods. If you didn't know, Tony's special lady friend has the skills to pay the bills when it comes to making artsy stuff, like light switch covers with pin-up girls on them, rad jewelery pieces of all sorts, etc.
Furthermore, there will be other handmade items from local artisan friends.

If you have ever felt inclined to bring the wife / girlfriend, this would be the day!

Salsa Big Mama Demo!

Salsa has graciously lent us a Big Mama, for our demo amusement. Interested?

http://www.salsacycles.com/bigmamaComp08.html

It's a 4" travel full suspension 29er. It's the only full suspension 29er that we have access to that I'm interested in, and I'd like to get some feedback from our customers.

So, if you think you might like to check it out, swing by and pick it up for a ride or two. It's a size large, and it will be available first come first serve. I'll have it until January 8th. There will be no fee for demoing it.

Bikeworks Holiday Hours

Never one to pass up an opportunity to not work.....

We will be closed:

Thanksgiving (Thursday) November 26

Friday November 27

Saturday November 28

and Sunday / Monday, the 29th & 30th (as usual).

That would be five days off in a row, HA!

I will be checking email periodically while we are closed, in an attempt to be somewhat helpful to our customers while slacking for 5 days.

We will return on Tuesday December 1st for normal hours, all full of vim and vigor.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for being our customers!

Closed Saturday

We will be closed Saturday, Sept 12th (this Saturday, the one coming up really soon, like the day after tomorrow).

Senior Swinton is gettin' hitched, so we figured that would be a pretty good excuse to close shop.

Sorry for any inconvenience. We will also be closed on Sunday and Monday, as per our usual hours. So you know what that means..... Three days off in a row for Dan and Tony. HA!

Thanks, I will return with pics of Danny in a tux, which will very likely be the first and last time any of us see Danny in a tux.

Show us some love!

First off, I'm going to ask a little favor here. I'm making an assumption that at least a few people who read this blog are our regular customers, and that since you are a regular customer you actually think we are a good shop, and have positive things to say about us.

So, if you would be so kind, a little review here or there on the ol' Interweb would be a positive thing for us. Particularly, over at Google Maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?cid=1144969029970196991&hl=en&gl=us

Currently, as you will see, we have just one review, from a very irritated(ing) guy name Kelly.
This review was brought to our attention by a couple of customers who told us there was a very nasty review on Google about us, and that the guy sounded like a total A-hole. And they are correct.

I actually wrote a rather long, and in my opinion entertaining, rebuttal to this review, originally intending to post it as a review myself. But I have since decided not to, feeling like it would be satisfying but possibly a bad decision from a business owners standpoint.

A few other places to write an amazingly positive review about how good of work we do, how fast our turnaround is, how we know what we're talking about, and how you get beer when you hang out at the shop, and how when we do occasionally make a mistake we bend over backwards to try and make it right, would be at MTBR:

MTBR Bike shop review link

And now as I put that link up, our good friend Kelly has decided to post the exact same review up at MTBR as well. It seems that he is on a mission. We clearly deeply offended him by hanging out in the shop and drinking wine with cute girls For shame!

I've also been told by a local successful business owner that City Search is a good place to have reviews up:

ABQ Bike Repair on Citysearch

I'm not so sure that is as useful as the others for Bike shops specifically, though.

Anyways, if your so inclined, we'd appreciate it. And if you'd like the full story and want to waste a couple of minutes reading a genuine Lucero rant, shoot me an email at the shop and I'll send you my little love story about sir Kelly.

Well, the kiddo is up, time to play with trains.

Late Breaking News!

In a stunning display of impulsiveness, Bikeworks has decided to move the date of our Monday closings forward from July 20th to Today, July 6th.

Thanks to all our customers in their patience and understanding about our desire to generally work less and ride our bikes more. We assure you all that we will be riding our bikes today (and also drinking beer and watching some Tour de France).

See you soon.

Shop Hours, Closings, and Blabbity blah blah

Okay, we're going to give this closing on Mondays idea a try.

Starting Monday July 20th, Bikeworks will be closed Sundays and Mondays, open from 10 to 6 Tuesday through Saturday.

We'll just see how it goes. Maybe it will stick, maybe we'll be out of business by August. Who knows. It will be a convenient time to start this experiment because Tony Baloney is leaving for an epic Whistler trip sometime shortly before that, and it will just be Danny and I in the shop for a couple of weeks or more.
Yea, I know what your thinking, "Tony gets to go to Whistler for a couple of weeks right in the middle of summer, when a bike shop is busiest?" And yes, we hate him too. But when he looks at you with those puppy dog eyes, you just can't say no. And somehow I'm pretty sure his trip will end up profitable for the shop. I'm not sure how yet, but I have faith in the powers of Tony.

Furthermore, we're going to be closed on the 4th of July, because we love America, and fireworks, and grilling red meat, and coolers full of beer on the patio. And we're also very fond of not working whenever we have a legitimate excuse.

You know when you drink a couple of cups of coffee in the morning without eating anything, and you get that fiery burning pit sensation in the bottom of your stomach? That's where I'm at right now.

I finished building Charlie's Spaverick (limited edition Maverick hardtail 29er, made by Spot) yesterday. Charlie promised to send me pics, since he whisked it away before I had the chance to take any. It's a pretty bike. I'm really excited to see what it rides like off road, because just around the parking lot you could tell it was something special, which I am going to attribute mostly to the wheelset. We love us some fancy wheels. Never underestimate the power of nice wheels.

And I'm out.

Modified Shop Hours

We will be closed Friday Feb. 13 and Saturday Feb. 14. We will re-open for normal business hours Monday Feb. 16th at Noon.
We will be racing the 24 Hours of Old Pueblo (Dan and Dan) and the Mob in Mojave (Tony and Crew).

Hope you have as much fun next weekend as we plan on having. I promise entertaining race reports and pictures when we return.