Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Dinner with an American Bike Frame Builder

This past Monday started off as ordinary a Monday can be. I had just come off a great weekend (selling lots of good stuff at the Time Tunnel Toy Show in San Jose, CA) and started my normal Monday routine. Go through the special orders, meet with Edgar, our senior mechanic, and go over his service area needs, and general catching up on what I missed over the weekend. Like I said, it started off normal, but then I found out my friend, Christian Del Rosario, dropped off his bike again.
Now, Christian has a lot of bikes and bike stuff, and that is an understatement. This time, Christian brought his latest addition, a Canfield Brothers, the One, mountain bike. An interesting 7-8 inch travel frame that climbs like an XC bike, but can handle the big stuff when your on the way down. Christians bike is well set up, with an X-Fusion front fork and an Elka rear shock along with a nice spec of Shimano and SRAM components as well as a killer set of Canfield wheels.
The question you might have is, why is the bike in the shop. What's going on. Well, unfortunately, when the bike is built up, the fork will hit the down tube. Christian gave us an Acros Blocklock headset that is, in theory, designed to keep the fork from hitting the frame. However, Edgar found this to be different. The fork would still hit the frame. Edgar, like many Sr. mechanics I know, pulled out his Re-Engineering Hat, put it on and went to work. As simple as this sounds, Edgar added a few bearings and made it work. This is where it gets a little more fun.
The insecure side of me came out and decided to call Canfield Brothers direct. I ended up getting Chris Canfield, the owner of the company and explained the situation, and asked him about our solution. I would say Chris approved, saying that this is a normal issue with the frame, but that normally people would stuff extra bumbers in the headset if available, but Edgar's solution sounded pretty spot on. The interesting part of this conversation was, that Chris happened to be in town and so I told him that I thought Christian would get a kick out of meeting him and possibly be able to get a ride in or two. I proceeded to hook him up with Christians contact info (something I never do, but felt that I could make an exception) and left it at that.
A little later in the day, Christian calls and asks if I am available for dinner. Really. One phone call, a problem fixed, and I get dinner. No, Chris was coming down with some friends and, Christian, our friend Napoleon, and myself were going out to eat. I suggested the Tied House in Mountain View and off we went.
Dinner was awesome and so was the beer, but the real kick, was to talk to a couple of pro hill downhill riders (Did I mention Chris brought some friends) and just take in the knowledge of someone who has ridden, liked, disliked, and loved mountain biking so much, that he had a clear picture of how a mountain bike should not only ride, but handle. Discussing the in's and out's of suspension and suspension frame designs, keying in on the riding features of frames that I had had also ridden in the past and why his bike rocks. Of course, I will need to ride the bike for myself to be sure.
It was a fun night, and everyone did have a good time. Chris could not have been more pleasant as well as his two friends, Kristin and Mollie. I will have to rank this as a real cool moment in time, for so much to happen because of a bike and one phone call. Bikes bring people from all over, together, either for a ride, to swap stories, or just to hang out and drink beer. Support your local bike shop. You never know who you might run into.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Cognition Cyclery's Thanksgiving Weekend Sale

Cognition Cyclery, Mountain Views premiere bike store, is celebrating the Thanksgiving weekend with out biggest sale ever!

We are offering a buy one get one 50% off of all clothing and accessories in the store of equal or lesser value

Come in Friday through Sunday to take advantage of this crazy pricing as well as BIKE SALE PRICES!

Happy Turkey Day!!

Cognition Cyclery is a locally owned bicycle store, located in downtown Mountain View, CA. We are an authorized Specialized and Felt dealer and we carry accessories, clothing and parts from Pearl Izumi, Hydrapak, Camelbak, Shimano, SRAM and more.

We offer lifetime recalibration service on all bikes sold at Cognition Cyclery. We also offer a low price guarantee on all parts, accessories and bikes. Come by and check us out....



Cognition Cyclery
903 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
(650) 386-1955
Hours: 10:00am - 7pm M-F
10:00am - 6pm Sat.
11:00am - 5pm Sun.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Time Tunnel Toy Show

On December 4th, friends of mine and I will be getting together for the Christmas edition of the Time Tunnel Toy Show.
Located at the Santa Clara fairgrounds, we will have toys and collectibles, featuring Star Wars, Star Trek, Hot Wheels, Marvel, Marvel Legends, G.I. Joe, DC Universe and more. After nearly two years of my friend Rik Argel asking me to be part of his group, I finally joined and now I will be participating in my third show.
Although this has been away of making room in my collection, this has been a great and unique opportunity to meet and see new and old collectors. If your reading this and will be attending the show, please let me know what your looking for and email me your want list. If I have it, I will bring it. Hope to see you there! Cheers!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Daughter Get's New Braces

Wasn't real sure where to start, so I figure I might as well start with my daughter, Miranda, and her new tinsel jewelry.
Miranda is my teenage daughter we was blessed with, as I called them, ingrown teeth (teeth that grew behind her other adult teeth. One would think that a child who is always talking, always opinionated and well smiling, would have enough room in there for all of her adult teeth.
Well, it was not to be and over the last three weeks, she had four teeth removed over a two week period (deeeeeep roots) and spacers put in last week. Today was the day the she was welcomed to the world of those that got their teeth straightened. Here's to the next two years of tinseled pleasure. Oh, and her bands are pink.