I was downtown this weekend and spotted this pedaling party on wheels rolling down the street. I fumbled for my camera and got this somewhat blurry shot. This is a new business here in Flagstaff for pedaling parties through the downtown area. Looks like a blast and I think I’m going to have to get the Bike Shop Hub crew a ride one of these nights. Check out the website of this 15-person bike over at AlpinePedaler.com.

We woke up to our first substantial snow fall of the coming winter season this morning here in Flagstaff with about 3″ on the ground. I suited up the Kahlkoff E-Bike that I’ve been testing with my Schwalbe Winter Marathons for the ride into work. I put on rain pants and rain booties to keep the slush off my feet and my Bar Mitts to keep my hands cozy and arrived dry and happy to work.
BTW – We’d love it if you sent in photos of your winter bike commutes!

Its been a tough summer and fall as I’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the finances of our business here at BikeShopHub.com. As I scramble to make ends meet and make some tough choices to get our business plans in line with reality, I’m very glad that I’m doing this for a business that I believe in. Everyday I’m inspired and excited to be working for cyclists trying to do more with their bicycles. I don’t think I could sustain the same stamina if I was trying to repair a business with a primary motivation of accumulating wealth.

While money is a necessary elixir to solve our current financial issues, the accumulation of wealth is not a driving component of what makes this business work unlike many business models. Our financial equation is much more about finding a balance. I believe that this part of our business plan equation is an essential piece of what has allowed this business to grow rapidly over the past 5 years.

It is difficult to know whether growing a business rapidly and collecting debt is the right direction when you are in the middle of the experiment. I’ll need time to know how our rapid growth while building up debt will play out for the long term. But even if our moves forward were off the mark, because wealth accumulation was not the driving force, I’m confident that we are fully capable of handling the issues in our current lack of financial balance. We’ve pushed our growth to the limit and now we are in the tough process of rebalancing. And with our customers motivating us, we are finding our footing and moving forward with steadiness and a new understanding of how to maintain our financial equilibrium.

With our recent move into selling Electric Bikes here at the BikeShopHub.com, we’ve been boning up on both our electric bike skills as well as some of our out dated bike mechanic skills. Those of us handling the bike wrenching around here, Stu and I came into cycling during the 1990′s mountain biking boom when caliper brakes were the standard. Since than, both of us have tended to stick with caliper brakes on our personal bikes while disc brakes have slowly been creeping in as the new norm.

With our electric bike lineup, there was no longer any option to avoid disc brakes. Almost every e-bike that we brought in had them. One day I finally told Stu, that we needed to move beyond our narrow focus on caliper brakes and accept the dominance of rotor stopping power.

So we called up the best bike mechanic in town that we knew CJ of Flagstaff Bike Revolution for some schooling. And he taught us good. Along with being an astounding bike mechanic and shop owner, CJ teaches courses in bike mechanics for the local university.

Facing the Caliper Mounts

This is my “day in the life of” picture of our blogger-in-chief, Ted Johnson most likely clicking and tapping away at a CommuteByBike.com post. So many mouse clicks and keyboard taps………..