Continental Bike Shop presents the Spoken Wrench vol4 no1

Continental Bike Shop presents the Spoken Wrench vol4 no1
January, It’s a New Year! Edition

This edition of the Spoken Wrench is brought to you by the letter “P,” for past editions of the Spoken Wrench. There’s a lot of important, useable, and otherwise cool information that ends up in the Spoken Wrench, but it’s been hard to find a way to archive it online. But, I had an epiphany a while ago, and now issues of the Spoken Wrench going back to May 2007 (vol3 no3) are available on our website. So if there’s something you missed, or a Tip of the Month that you’d like to go back and reread, you’ll find most of 2007 online. AS 2008 and volume 4 of the Spoken Wrench get on their way, you’ll find the current edition of the Spoken Wrench there too.

Spin Classes?
We’ve had some interest in spin classes, but we don’t run them, Team in Training does. To participate in spinning classes at Continental you need to be signed up for Team in Training. To do this, you can check out the Michigan Chapter of Team in Training’s Website here.
Dates for spin classes are:
Wednesday February 13th
Saturday February 16th
Wednesday February 27th
Saturday March 1st
Wednesday March 12th
Saturday March 15th
Wednesday March 26th
Saturday March 29th
Spinning classes in March are weather dependent, so if its nice out, rides will be outside. Otherwise we’ll be keeping company with Team in Training through the end of March.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
If you’ve been into the shop recently, you’ve seen our new chalkboards, with most of our repair prices on them. If you haven’t, come on by and take a look at the new chalkboards. They’re fun and we think it’s a good idea that you can see right away what your repair might cost, and have an idea of how your estimate breaks down. The menu boards fit with the eclectic feel of the back room, with the bar and the coffee (if you missed it, we’ve now got coffee, hot chocolate and a variety of teas), for a fun ‘Come on in, have a seat, stay a while’ kind of feel.

Up and Coming Happenings at Continental Bike Shop
We’ve got two slide shows happening in the next month. First, Beth Brandvain will be showing off her new Cannondale Rush and the workout it got recently in Copper Canyon Mexico, February 6th at 7PM. Four times the size of the Grand Canyon, Copper Canyon covers 25,000 square miles. (That’s a lot to ride!) With some very cool looking photos, and a whole lot to talk about, it looks like one very interesting night!

Second, on February 22nd, Dave will be presenting his photos from the L’Eroica Ride in Tuscany. In case you’ve never heard of the L’Eroic ride, Brooks England, the leather saddle people, say this about it in their 2006 ‘Book for Cyclists’:

As can be read from one of our old catalogues, Brooks saddles were once the choice of all participants at the Tour de France. Of course, time and technology has moved on, but the atmosphere of that bygone era can still be experienced at L’Eroica, the world’s most grueling daily cycle tour.

At the end of each summer the village of Gaiole in Tuscany, Italy, plays host to a community of cyclists determined to keep the spirit of that era alive. The don period clothing and ride vintage bikes which, given the course, can only be described as truly heroic. A set of dirt courses ranging from the easy 40km to the hardest 200km tour await the participants who ride L’Eroica.

As usual, we will provide refreshments and food. Tell your neighbors, bring friends! And we hope to see you there!

Attitude and Cynicism, Bike Shop Style.
We’re a pretty opinionated bunch around here. Same goes for, well all the riders, shop employees, and to some extent, the industry people we’ve ever come in contact with. We all know what’s right and best, despite what everyone else thinks is right and best. Every once and a while, someone comes along and does ‘right and best’ better, and with way more attitude than even we’ve got, and we have to tip our heads to them, even if we don’t always agree with their interpretation of ‘right and best.’ So, if you like reading blogs, or you might like to start, we recommend Bike Snob NYC. Like I mentioned earlier, we don’t agree with everything he says, but we enjoy reading it and laughing uproariously.