We just returned from our train trip, and found that Greg had the store in good order. Most of all, we have a lot of new products on the floor. We’ll be expanding the website a bit to go into more detail, but here is a brief rundown:

• Bicycle cargo trailers from Bob and Burley, to carry groceries, camping gear, hardware, whatever... we have both kinds of trailers in stock as of today, and if there is demand, we will be getting more.

• Lots and lots of bicycles from Marin Bikes in california. We are especially focusing on their commuting and city bikes. The Muir Woods is a great, inexpensive steel framed urban assuault vehicle (pictured below, $455 MSRP, with our in store price lower). The Novato is a slightly more expensive aluminum version of the same ($570 MSRP). And the Belvidere and Corte Madera are very nice 700C wheel commuter bikes, purpose built with fenders, racks, and all the fittings, at very affordable prices, $635 MSRP for the Corte Madera, and $530 MSRP for the Belvidere (our in store prices are often a bit lower for items in stock). Last but not least are the more style and comfort oriented bikes, including the Euro-stye step through frames on the San Rafael (pictured below) and the Stintson.

• We have the comfort/semi-recumbent bikes from Day 6 in stock. We carry both the Dream and the Journey models. We’ll post a picture soon!

• We have started carrying frames from Soma Fabrications. We can build a complete bike for you, or just sell you the frame. These are high quality, very nice steel frames using Tange Prestige chromoly, the best in the business. They make a nice 29er (Juice), a hardtail mountain bike, a cyclocross frame, a track bike, and a road bike model. Morgan is building up a Juicy 29er that will be available for demo rides (when she doesn’t have it out on the trail). We are also happy to build a custom electric ride that combines the frame, parts, and electric kit of your choosing.

• We now, finally, have some of the eZee kits in stock again. Hurray for that. Get your order in early, these premium electric bike kits are going fast. The price is still $1250, and you can buy one in the shop, or order online through our web store.

• We have an order of Crystalyte gear and NiCad batteries arriving very soon.

• We have a bunch of accessories in stock, and we are way overstocked on tubes and lights, so that stuff is on sale. Drop by, make us an offer we can’t refuse, and we won’t!

• Sadly, the cargo bikes and accessories are out of stock for now. The Xtracycles are all sold out through at least mid August. We have one Yuba Mundo left in stock, but we have a customer who says he’s going to buy that one. Those won’t be back in stock until August at soonest, either. The Big Dummy is very backordered, and though we’ll do our best, the soonest we can hope for is August.

• In better news, our Cycle 9 Dolores bicycles are on their way, and should be arriving in a few weeks. Hurray for that, it has been a long wait! The waiting list is growing, and there are only a few of these that aren’t already spoken for. So get your order in early.

• The BionX electric wheel kits will start arriving in the second week of July. However, most of those are spoken for, we already have a waiting list. Please drop us a line or give us a call if you want one, we’ll do what we can to get you one as soon as possible.

• Last, but not least, we have some other great things brewing. Keep your eyes open here, and we’ll announce them as soon as we can.

Tags: bikes,retail

Here I am in Montana near Glacier National Park, riding on one of the more fuel-efficient modes of transportation: the train. While gliding along and looking at the spectacular scenery, I couldn't help but run some numbers through my head about the efficiency of this mode of transit.

This train is carrying 340 +/- 20 people from Chicago to Seattle, Portland, and points between. So due to my compulsive quantitative bent, I had to figure out how many miles per gallon per person this represents.

My estimate of the fuel usage is about 2,000 gallons, plus or minus 1,000. I got that estimate because I found out the Diesel tanks in the engine are 2,500 gallons, and they topped them off once for the trip (but they certainly weren't empty). Since the train travels a total of about 2,000 miles on its journey, this represents approximately 1 gallon per mile (or mile per gallon for those who like it like that!). After I calculated that number, I talked to one of the personnel, and he said that sounded about right for fuel efficiency.

Ok, so let's say we're in the ballpark. In fact, let's imagine that the fuel usage is twice what I estimated, just to be safe. If the train uses 2 gallons per mile, the math is easy. That means it gets 170 miles per gallon per passenger.

Let's figure out how else we could get that kind of mileage. A bicycle would do it, but then, pedaling from Chicago to Washington state takes a while - a lot longer than the train. But the cool thing is, I have my bike with me (a folding bike that I can just carry onto the train free of charge). So I can be fuel efficient for the whole trip.

What about a Prius, the gold standard for green transportation? There are only two ways a Prius could match that mileage. One: drive really slow, like 40 miles per hour, so that the Prius gets 50-60 mpg, and carry 3 passengers and their gear. Well, you could do that, but it would take a lot longer than the train, and be a whole lot less comfortable. The other way is to carry more passengers and drive faster. Driving the prius 70 mph, a loaded prius with bikes on the roof gets at best 35 mpg (I owned one and did cross country trips with it). So, it would require carrying 5 passengers and their gear. Nope, no folding bikes are going to fit in that prius.

Well, for an airplane, fuel efficiency is right out the door. I've seen various estimates, but 30 MPG per passenger would be generous.

Why don't more people use the train in the USA? Well, a couple reasons. The first is that people don't know about it. I told several people that my family and I were doing a train trip who had no idea that there was a train to take a trip in. I guess Amtrak doesn't advertise much.

The second is the train is perceived as slow. Well, it is slower than an airplane. But it is a whole lot more comfortable, you get to see a lot of great scenery, and enjoy the travel. But the real issue is that the US has not invested in high-speed rail like many other countries. If we had a 200mph bullet train like Europe and Japan, it would be possible to go from coast to coast within 12 hours. I've seen people on the internet claim that the US is too spread out for useful train service, except population dense centers. I don't buy that. There are many large cities spread out throughout the US. If connected by high speed rail, these corridors would be used. If we just had three major east-west routes (North, middle, south) and 4-5 North-South routes, it would cover a large portion of the US, with busses acting as the local links to these stops.

While I still use airplane travel for many business trips, if practical train service were available to get me to the destination, I would use that. I like the comfort, the scenery, the ability to relax, and the fuel efficiency of the train. I just wish the US would get its act together and start building a real, large-scale rail system that shows we can once again be leaders in transportation and innovation.

Tags: politics,environment

We are very low on stock of the electric bike products - apparently there was some pent up demand around this area.

However, we have a number of things on the way within the next few weeks, and most should be arriving by mid to late June, with some stragglers showing up in July. This includes Crystalyte kits, eZee kits, NiCad batteries, more LiFEPO4 batteries, and some custom Cycle 9 kits for electrifying your bike.

Unfortunately, the stock situation isn’t looking so good on the Xtracycle front. In the past week, we’ve sold all the stock we had of Xtracycle kits, including our demo! Not to fear, if you want to try an Xtracycle-equipped bike, we will have one of our personal bikes available in the store for test rides. However, the kits themselves aren’t expected to arrive until August at the earliest. The same is true for the Yuba Mundo (we have only 2 left, and they are sold out from the distributor until August), and the Big Dummy. Longtail bikes must be the rage. We do have waiting lists for all these items (except Yuba, since it is not sold out yet), so just drop us a line if you want to get on the list.

Tags: electric,bikes,xtracycle

Cycle 9 was written up in the Durham/Chapel Hill/Raleigh Herald Sun today. It was a nice article about our reason for being.

We want to thank everyone who read the article and came out to visit us. We apologize for being so low on stock of the electric bicycles. Whenever we get them in, they keep flying out the door. But, we do expect more electric motor kits in the next few weeks, so we can get some people up and running.

Also, there was a recent press release about Cycle 9 on PRLog. We thank them for helping get the word out.

If any reader notices another article about us that we haven't mentioned on this blog, the first person to email us about it will receive a $25 gift certificate.

Tags: publicity,bikes

We love to hear about local folks who promote alternative transportation, particularly if it involves bicycles. We recently had a visitor in our Chapel Hill shop from High Point, NC, who is one of the most enthusiastic bicycle proponents we've met in a while. He has been working to organize a group of riders in High Point who use bikes as every day alternatives to cars. He's started a blog, Revolution Cycling, that is doing a great job of raising awareness of bicycles as alternatives to cars. We hope that he and people like him can really help promote bicycles as one alternative to the US oil addiction.

This same fellow was really enthusiastic about RANS bicycles, which use the "Crank Forward" design. The idea behind crank forward is to have a more relaxed riding position that is closer to the ground, so that when you stop, both feet can be placed firmly on the ground. While bikes like the Electra Townie have advertised this feature heavily, there have been a number of companies who were doing this long before, including RANS, and more recently Day6.

We think this is an interesting concept. While we don't personally own any crankforward bikes ourselves, we certainly see the potential benefits for those riders looking for a more relaxed and comfortable arrangement.

So, we've decided to test the waters by bringing in some of the Day 6 bicycles first, to see how that goes. These are designed for the utmost in comfort at a very reasonable price, and are particularly focused on the female riders and over 50 crowd. If designs like this encourage more people to ride a bike in their daily lives, we're all for it. So, as of next week, we'll have two of the Day 6 bikes in the shop for test rides, the 7 speed internally geared Journey, and the 21 speed Dream. There are also a few different seat options, one with a backrest and one that looks like a normal bicycle seat, but has some very thick padding. If you've been looking for a more comfortable and safe way to ride a bicycle, stop by sometime and check one out.

If this market goes well for us, we may explore additional options like the RANS bikes.

Tags: links,local,blog,bikes