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!

Maze Race and Magicshine Recall

Firstly, a new fun event is happening Saturday. I know, this is last minute notice, but don't pretend like you are so organized that you already knew what you where doing Saturday anyway.

We don't know exactly how it's going to be run, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be fun.

Secondly, many of you have heard by now, but there is a recall of the infamous Magicshine light battery, check out details here:

Magicshine Recall Link, Apparently they were too good to be true after all.

I find this kind of satisfying, as the Magicshine has irritated me since the day I heard about them. Blatant rip-off of the Lupine Tesla light, the Magicshine promised unbelievable lumen output for hundreds less than their competitors.
At 24 Hours of Old Pueblo last year, I started hearing rumors of the chargers and batteries not being UL rated, and of things catching on fire while charging. This all came from a sales rep for another light company, so I didn't think too much of it, but found the info entertaining.
Well, 8 months later, I guess some other people have had similar problems:

What should I do with my battery now?
We recommend that you store them outside in a safe, protected place. Your recall notice will give more information.

Outside in a safe, protected place?  Are things exploding? Spontaneous combustion?
The thing that bothered me most about the Magicshine was their astronomically false claims about lumen output.  Our un-scientific tests comparing the Magicshine to similarly rated lights from Lupine and Light and Motion, in the shop bathroom, led us to believe that outputs were exaggerated by at least double, if not triple the actual amount.

So, while your Magicshine battery sits in your back yard, in a cement bunker, come on by and check out some of the lights we have from Light n Motion.  Made in the good ol' USA, passing all sorts of pesky safety regulations, subject to irritating EPA regulations, these things are extremely reliable, have extremely bright output, and are a good value to boot.
How about 25% off any Light and Motion light if you trade in your Magicshine. We'll take all the batteries, pile them in one place, and see if anything burns down or explodes.

That's all, I'm done gloating about the Magicshine. 

Lastly, we're working on a regular night ride again, now that it's getting properly cold. Tuesday night seems to be the best night for many.  We leave from the shop as early as possible, usually that means at the trailhead by 6:45 or so.  Hopefully we will be out this coming Tuesday, probably north foothills from Ebudito trailhead, so keep it in mind, and I'll let you all know if we're gonna make it or not soon.

Awesome, thanks for reading, and thanks for coming into our shop and buying stuff and letting us fix your bikes and allowing us to live the dream and play with bikes for a living.

SMOOCH!

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!

Giant Cypher 1 Womens Bike

I just built up a Giant Cypher, woman specific 5" travel bike, and it looks good:

This particular one is an Extra Small, Giant suggests that is fits gals from 5'2" to 5'4".  

This is the same basic frame as the Trance X, and on both models Giant has made some very nice upgrades for 2011, such as: Post mount rear brake

And press fit BB96 Bottom bracket

And tapered 1.5 to 1.125 headset and steerer tube:

Giant didn't seem to hype up the changes they made to the Trance/Cypher much for 2011, but they are nice changes and the bikes look great.
We also have this model in size small showing up in the next couple of days.

At least we have a good looking jersey....

Yesterday Danny and I (Lucero)  participated in the Day of The Tread century, on our new tandem.  I was on the back.  The bike is a bit small for a 6 foot tall stoker, so I had a face full of Danny's bony back for the entire 100 miles... at least we have a good looking jersey.

We approached the ride with some trepidation, having both raced ourselves into the ground on Saturday's cross races, and also due to the fact that we had logged about 30 minutes on the bike so far.  But everything went better than we could have hoped for, the weather was great, we had a big tailwind on the long climb up to Placitas, and the bike worked flawlessly.

The bike we rode is a San Rensho tandem, a beautiful and rare bicycle that received many complements along the ride.  It was the first time I had spend more than a couple of minutes on the back of a tandem, and although the experience was intense at times, I'm happy to have done it, and I'm sure we'll be out terrorizing another century sooner than later.

The ride took us four and a half hours. We rode the whole time with our friends John and Brad, who were also on a tandem, and looking suave with matching Bikeworks jerseys (thanks guys).

Beyond that, we've just been knee deep in Cross season.  Getting out to as many of the New Mexico Cross series races as we can.  The races have been an absolute blast, well organized, fun courses, great atmosphere, what more can you ask for (except maybe free beer at the finish, but that probably won't happen until Bikeworks organizes a cross race).  I encourage everybody to come and check it out.

I leave you with this, which was obviously written about our dear Swinton: