Labor Day Ride/Picnic

You're all invited!

On Labor Day (Monday, Sep. 5), meet us here at the shop for a ride and post-ride grill-out. We'll ride at 9:00 a.m. sharp, and be back about lunchtime to enjoy some fajitas at the shop.

Let us know what you can bring. Got a killer recipe for beans or rice? Bring it. Make a mean red salsa (that's right, Hasty, I'm talkin to you...)? Definitely bring that. Don't know your way around the kitchen? Then just bring lots of beer, or plates and plasticware, or a cash donation to help defray the cost of the food.

Bring your party chairs too for sitting in and around the shop. Music will be played, Frisbees will be thrown. A good time will be had by all.

Let us know if you're coming and what you want to bring. See you all there.

Sunday ride report

The earlier 8:00 meet time for the Sunday ride was a success. It wasn't as hot a ride as last Sunday. I had two rear punctures, the first of which I'm fixing in the above photo. You'd never know from the photo that I'm right in the middle of the Metroplex, somewhere along the border between Fort Worth and Arlington.

After I fixed the flat Rick, who joined us for the first time yesterday, broke his chain about 27 miles out, so he and Stephen were picked up by Stephen's wife. Then on the way home, I had my second puncture. Rear tire again, but a different puncture.

Total distance was almost 90K (50ish miles) again.

Sunday and Monday Rides

For those of you who either aren't going to the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred, or won't be too worn out after riding it, we will be having our sunday and monday rides.

I'm making an executive decision about the Sunday ride: until the weather cools a bit, we'll be meeting at 8 a.m. instead of 9. Last Sunday, we didn't get back until 2, and it was brutally hot. I'd like to not run out of water this week, so the earlier start should do the trick. When the heat backs off a bit, we can go back to 9 a.m. meet times.

Monday night ride will leave the shop at 6:30 p.m., as always. It's getting dark a little earlier, so if you have lights for your bike bring them. If not, buy one from us; we've got lots.

New SRAM prototype!

Good news for the road bike market: American component giant SRAM is finally preparing to release a road bike component group to compete with high-end offerings from Shimano and Campagnolo.

A close examination of the spy photo above gets me pretty excited about the possibilities. SRAM has chosen Campagnolo's more comfortable (to me anyway) flat-topped hood design. The brake lever has an obvious pivot bolt, so I don't think it can shift sideways like shimano. But there's no release lever on the inside of the hood like Campy, either. My guess is that the shift lever moves both directions! Push it inward to shift up, outward to shift down. This would take some getting used to, but the simplicity of the lever would be worth it. SRAM's mountain bike shifters and components, which have gained favor over Shimano for lots of off-road riders, are famous for their simplicity and reliability. I hope we can say the same for their road group. The group will come out sometime in late '06, and include shifters, front and rear derailleurs, bottom bracket, crankset, 10-speed chain and cassette, and BRAKES!

click the link to go to Velonews' scoop on the new prototype

Supercommuter!

Check out this bicycle conversion we did for a customer:



A better look at the Nitto North Road handlebars:



Before, this was a knobby-tired, front-suspension, aggressive-handling mountain bike. Now it's a super-hip, incredibly comfortable, city-cruising cafe racer. And the cost was far less than buying a new city bike, too. We did a bike like this for this customer's mom, and he liked so much that he brought his own bike in for us to convert.

Got an old mountain bike wasting space in the garage or your living room? Bring it in and ask us to give it the treatment!

Why?

In today's world of threadless steerer tubes and their accompanying flippable stems, the reversible stem logo is pretty much the norm. But why would a bike manufacturer (like the Fuji stem in the photo) put a flip-flop logo on a quill stem that can't be inverted? They could have put a 50% larger and easier-to-read logo on the stem. Kind of makes you wonder about their attention to design detail on the rest of the bike.

Tour de France director: Armstrong 'fooled' sports world

Link below to a story about the latest doping allegations against Lance Armstrong. Most of you know how I feel about this subject, so I won't go into that here. But this is a very interesting development to say the least. No way would the director of the largest sporting event in the world tarnish the reputation of his own race unless he was pretty convinced of what he was saying. Wow.

Sunday Morning Ride Stats & Report

Meet time: 9 am
rolled out: 9:30
number of riders: 3
got back: 2 pm
Heat index at 2 pm: 112 degrees
Kilometers ridden: 92
Miles ridden, for ye of little faith in the metric system: 55.2
Kilometers per hour average: 24.8 (14.8 mph )
Slices of pizza eaten at halfway point: 3 (1 cheese, 2 stuffed spinach)
Number of times "Go Lance!" was yelled at us from a passing car: 1
Roadkill armadillos passed: 3
Roadkill armadillos bunnyhopped by Zac: 1
red lights run by Roxanne: lost count
Beers consumed upon return: 10-ish

A good time was had. Naps were needed afterward.

Six new power plants proposed

Six new fossil-fuel-burning power plants have been
proposed just south of Panther City. This would be
catastrophic to our air quality. Want to help? Contact
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton to voice your displeasure.
Read the entire story in the Star-Telegram (link below).

Vote for us!

We need everyone's help. The Fort Worth Weekly is currently accepting ballots for "Best of" Fort Worth, and there are categories for best bike shop and best environmentally friendly business.



The "Best of" issue comes out on Sept. 21, which just happens to be my birthday. I could think of no better birthday present than for Panther City Bicycles to be named best bike shop. So please please PLEASE (I'm not above begging) grab a ballot and vote. And make sure all of your cyclo-friends vote. But don't stuff the ballot box, 'cause that'll get us disqualified.

New Website Launched

Hit the link below to check out Panther City Bicycles' new website, just launched tonight! Tell us what you think!

New Masi Bikes

We sold our first of the new 2006 Masi bikes recently, and here it is, all built up and ready to ride. Chris, the proud owner of this new bike, also had us custom build some special super-durable wheels for his bike. Our hand-built wheels are guaranteed forever against spoke fatigue.

Sunday Morning Ride

Roxanne, Steven, and I are going to ride Sunday morning at 9, meeting here in front of the shop. We'll ride road bikes, but we'll wait to determine the route/distance until whe see who all rides.

See you Sunday,

Bernie

Taking one for the team...

For those of you who didn't make it to our ride last night, you missed a dramatic one. Well, it was for me, anyway. I got shot by some kids with a paintball gun out of a car near Benbrook Lake last night. The shot came from less than 10 yards away and hit me right in the side, so it hurt. I turned around and tried to chase the car down to get the license, but they were too far ahead of me. Luckily, other cyclists had also been shot at, got the plates, and called the police, who pulled the car over almost immediately.

So, to make a long story short, a 12- and a 13-year-old boy got taken to jail last night because their sleazy uncle wouldn't admit that he knew the boys were shooting at people. This morning, when I made my written statement to the Benbrook Police, they told me they were going to try to get a warrant issued for the driver. I was very pleased, and hopefully we can get this kind of activity out at the lake nipped in the bud. Safe rides are fun rides.

Shop Jerseys

Below is a tentative design for our shop jerseys. It will take us about 10 weeks to get these. They'll be priced at $70 each, but you can pre-purchase yours for just $60. We'll take pre-orders right up until the day we finalize the design with the manufacturer. Support your neighborhood bike shop!