You and your family look great. I loved your story that kicked this off and you seem to have hit a heartstring among our folks that ride the bikes we do and their bike shop experiences. My daughter got into this thing with a Ruby and burned out after about three years. She has been eying my Samuel Hillborne and wondering "What's going on with dad riding a bike with a basket and a canvas shopping bag?".
I have the proverbial carbon fiber road bike (Roubaix) and way over engineered 29er (Epic). I ride them and like them. But the Sam broke through a boundary and made me ride a lot more. Long rides and short rides. A spin around the neighborhood in flip flops. A long reach and stopping to fix something to eat and reading a book. It's all good. Going to the Wholefoods store and taking Sam into the store with me to do my shopping, depositing things into his basket and bag, and checking out is just cool. Coastal San Diego is pretty saturated with high end bike shops. Trek Superstore, B&L, Nytro, Revolution, HiTech. They are all quite optimized for triathlon bikes and cater to the tris. I am in good shape and have some great bikes, but I get ignored for being somewhat older and not splurging on things like an aerodynamic seatpost. I will set aside Pacific Cycles and my dear friend, Chuck Hoefer, who I have known since he emerged from the North county Masi operation and started a bike shop. He built my first Salsa and I still have it and ride that bike today. He is in Oceanside and I can't always get up there. Now would you believe the best "goto" folks for getting things done nearby is the Performance Bicycle Shop in Sorrento Valley. They have their own "brands" but they sell a lot of other stuff at good prices. I have spent a lifetime accumulating various Park tools for maintenance. It has been good to learn how to use them. But, if there is something I can't handle, or the cost of the next tool is more than the maintenance, I go to them. They are very good. Never condescending. And they can usually do things in the moment rather than tag your bike and get it back to you at some time later. They have been very respectful of my eclectic collection of bikes. despite the fact they did not sell them to me. Best regards, Tom On Thursday, August 1, 2013 11:30:57 AM UTC-7, LeahFoy wrote: > > Really? That's horrid! Maybe that was our problem! Attached is a photo of > my two sisters and me, and my two sons. I'm in white, my sister (with the > Schwinn) is in yellow. Maybe we aren't much to look at, but Lincoln is the > most darling baby ever! > > On Thursday, August 1, 2013 11:17:24 AM UTC-7, Steve Palincsar wrote: >> >> On 08/01/2013 02:07 PM, LeahFoy wrote: >> > I wheeled the little 16 in Trek Jet to the counter and waited. There >> > was one other customer in the whole store and 3-4 employees working. I >> > stood at that counter for almost 20 minutes. They joked with each >> > other, and paid attention to the lycra-clad male customer in the >> > store, but they ignored me, my 4 year old Lincoln and our little bike. >> > I could have called someone over, but since I was standing in plain >> > sight and knew they had seen me, I didn't. Finally, I slowly wheeled >> > the little bike back and left the store. No one said a word to me. I >> > drove straight to the Specialized store, where they greeted us warmly, >> > and purchased the Lincoln's Hotrock for more money. >> >> >> Sometimes shops like that are snobby about the bikes; sometimes they're >> snobby about the looks of the customers. There used to be this boutique >> shop near where I live that would ignore anyone in the queue that wasn't >> either a hot looking young woman or a buff young man. You could be >> there with $12,000 worth of bikes, but if you were middle aged and a bit >> on the pudgy side they would look right through you and never wait on >> you. They're gone now, but not on account of their attitude; the owner >> learned one day he had cancer, and died the following day, with no >> succession plan in place. I couldn't help but thinking "Good riddance!" >> when I learned of it. >> >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
