Welcome to the Neighborhood

So in an effort to keep our tile as the 29erest shop in town, we are welcome Titus Cycles to the stable of brands. Titus is know for their excellent 29er and their full suspension design and as an added benefit we will be offering a free pair of Crank Brothers Candy SL’s or Shimano PD-770 XT pedals for every complete 2008 Titus Racer X and Motolite sold during the months April and May. These pedals represent a $120 value. STop by and talk to Chrisp for details!

Oven Baked and Ready to Ride!

Check out this video and then make an appointment to get baked (and no, not that kind of baked)!

A Major Achivement!

So John Majors calls up and says what I have been waiting for... "I made a decision." John opted to go with a Paragon as opposed to waiting for the Superfly to come in. John then says, "I want to change some stuff..." He rattles off a list of carbon goodies that should lighten everything up and make a comfortable ride for his 100 mile races.

John also swaped out the juicey brakes for mechanical BB7's because they are easier to fix out on the trail. John's focus was to reduce the rotating weight on the bike. He went with the race x lite wheels and tubeless tires. He also went after the stock crankset with an intelligent flair upgrading to the xxx lite cranks with the adjustable crank length.


The last area needing attention was the comfort contact points so Carbon riser bar and a carbon post was added to cut the edge off of spending 10 hours in the saddle.



Good luck John, I hope the bike helps you go faster!

Trek of Pittsburgh Commerical

Enjoy our latest masterpiece...

PBR and CMT are a bad combination

So as a growing company, we have bigger needs...what that means to you is that we get to say goodbye to the stalker van as the lease is up and we welcome the MPU to the ToP/TRM family.  The MPU or Mobile Party Unit is a 14 foot box truck that will be cruising the streets of western PA doing Transfers, supporting events, generally causing havoc (especially if Nick is driving).  If you have ever been on vacation, you understand how unnatural it is to transport a bike by car, imagine trying to get 24 of them in a box truck to arrive safely and scratch free at their destination.  Well, four trips to Lowes later and we have the making of a high capacity bicycle transporter or MPU.  We may have watched a little too much Trick my Truck.  Sorry CMT!

Google This

We would like a 'Bike There' feature added to Google Maps - to go with the current 'Drive There' and 'Take Public Transit' options.

The feature would take into account actual bicycle lanes from the locality being mapped, and it would automatically plan a route for a bicyclist, possibly even providing the cyclist options for either the most direct route, or the most bicycle-friendly (safest) route. The Google Maps-based third party site, byCycle.org (http://byCycle.org/), provides these features for two metro areas - Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin, and there are countless other mapping initiatives around the world aimed at accomplishing the same goal. We hope that Google will consider building this feature into the core Google Maps service.

http://www.petitiononline.com/bikether/petition.html

Contest Time!

So in an effort to be more green we will be holding a Contest. The person with the best greenin up the shop idea wins a $50.00 Gift Card good at any of the TRM Cycles/ Trek of Pittsburgh stores. You can enter by commenting on this posting or if it is more involved you can email me directly at mikeh@trekofpgh.com. We are looking for big unique ideas to take our efforts to the next level, and yes, we already do the easy stuff. We recycle tubes, we recycle parts, we use bio-degradable cleaners and lubes, we recycle cardboard, we even re-use our shop rags. But we want to do our part and show the world that not only can you live better thru biking but you can make a difference as well!

So do some research, ask your friends, and post your comments for your chance to win $50.00 of cold hard gift card good for anything we sell or it can be used on labor as well. Win yourself a free tune-up so you can ride more...

Come Check out the NEW Tech Center!

So this winter we were huddled around the pile of burning tires and decided that we needed to renovate something. A few rounds with the oiuji board and the spirits of the mechanics pasted said we needed to improve the look of our Tech Center.
Rick kicked his computer until the intraweb came up and he spent several hours on Ikea's web site.

Decisions were made while caution was thrown to the wind and we now have our new and improved Tech Center.
It features a ton more storage which we desperately needed, shiney birch work surfaces and on top of all that...IT MATCHES our exisiting cabinets! Not bad for a bunch of boys...

So Wrong and yet so Right!

If you haven't noticed, the blogging has been a little sporatic as of late. I get these great ideas about posts but then never get any time to get them on the site. So I store them up and post them when I can. I have asked a few people to join me to keep the reading fun and more frequent. I will keep you posted.

On to the business at hand. All good bike geeks are familar with the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. It is a collection of the smaller custom builders. They roll into Portland with guns blazing trying to outdo each other. This year newcomer and show-stopper was Naked Bicycles from Canada.



Now if you look closely, you will see several features that are made of wood. Now look even closer and you will notice the headset is ringed in Oak. As it turns out the Oak is actually lighter and just as strong as Carbon and Aluminum. Next they will be telling that Steel in the material of the future.

Ah...full circle...how nice for a biker...

The power of bicycles

World Bicycle Relief aspires to provide people in developing nations and disaster relief situations with a bicycle for access to health care, education and economic development as well as improving the lives of people in those countries.

If you are interested in helping out, each bicycle costs $109.00 and contributions can be made via credit card. visit www.worldbicyclerelief.com for more information.

Welcome to the Family!

I am pleased to announce that long time friend and local fixture, John Majors has chose to join the TRM Cycles/ Trek of Pittsburgh family! John has a long history of racing and ridng and will be a huge addition to the T.o.P. team in the Ultra Endurance series.

John will be racing on a 29er this year and I am looking forward to some of his tips and reviews of 29er equipment. I will keep yinz posted as John finalizes his bike spec and set-up...