some Christmas love from Austin:

This is a Christmas self-portrait by our photo-artist buddy Kenneth... can you feel the bicycle love? If you can't, you better check your pulse.

If you like this photo, and want to see more bicycle art, you're in luck. We're going to try to get involved with Fort Worth South's ArtsGoggle this year, with Kenneth as our featured artist.

Merry Christmas!

We wish everyone a happy holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, or Festivus, or anything else for that matter!

Here it is, the big announcement:

As all you blog readers know, we're a small shop. We like being small, because we think it allows us to take better care of our customers. But small shops like us just can't afford to keep a huge inventory in the store at all times. You can't come in and browse fancy suspension forks, pro-team kit, or 13 varieties of carbon fiber widget.

For that reason, we know lots of folks do some of their shopping online. So we've decided, with the help of our biggest parts and accessories distributor, to add an online catalog, dubbed the SmartShop, to our website. The SmartShop is open 24/7, and is chock full of bicycle frames, parts, and accessories from brands like Surly, Salsa, Pedro's, Park, and just about anybody else you can think of.

The catalog has over 16,000 items in it, and is updated hourly so you'll never order something that's not in stock. Our prices will be competitive with other online retailers. You can pay securely online with your major credit card, and the best part: if you pick it up here in the shop, your shipping is free! (We will ship to your house if absolutely necessary, but it will take longer and cost more. We'd prefer for 90% or more of our online orders to be picked up in-store.)

Check out the SmartShop at shop.panthercitybicycles.com, and let me know what you think!

Big announcement coming...

Stay tuned for a BIG announcement in the next few days. I think we may just be poised to change the way local bike shops do business. I can't let the cat any further out of the bag than that, at least until it's a done deal.

Feel free to use the comment thread below to take guesses as to what the announcement will be. I'm not giving partial credit, so you have to guess exactly right. First one to guess right gets a $20 gift certificate. (HASTY and MASIGUY... you guys are DQed, because you obviously have gotten some inside information. Thanks for your input, though!)

See... it looks good at night too!

Random but Funny...

So I've been sitting on this picture for a while. I went to TCU's last home game, and our good customer, riding buddy, and TCU Alum Mark met me there. Mark's the funkiest guitar player in Fort Worth, so I wasn't to surprised when he said he was going to sit in with his buddies in the band. But then he sat in at Saxophone... I asked him, "Do you play Sax?" "No," was his only reply. We left it at that...

It's a sign!

Finally, after too many months of sitting on a sign because we couldn't get a permit, we had it installed today. Hopefully we're a little more visible now, especially after dark since it's internally lit.



Here are some pictures of the fine folks at Advance Sign Company (they get a plug because the came and did the work a day ahead of schedule) in action:

While I'm on the subject of beautiful Masis...

Look at Paul's new Masi:


Paul said, "Bernie, my whole life I've wanted a compact oversized-aluminum carbon-stayed road bike."
I said, " your whole life?"
Paul said, "Yeah, even when I was a little kid, I didn't even know what one was, but I wanted one."
I said, "They didn't even make such a thing when you were a kid."

Here's a picture of the proud new owner:


And here's our [admittedly lame] attempt at making it look like the Oakley girl's head is on Paul's body:

Wowee wow wow.

A very, very limited edition frameset Masi will be making available soon. Rumor has it that this bike is built with the same lugs used by Faliero Masi himself. Not reproduction lugs, but actual vintage lugs found in the Masi workshop! If you want one of these you'd better let me know quick; I'd need to order it the day it became available. These are not gonna last long!

Diggin the "Arctic Blast"

I have to say the best thing about riding to work on a morning when everything is closed because of Icy Roads is the "That Guy is Nuts" look you get from strangers.



I couldn't order the studded tires in time for this morning's iciness, so I went the homemade route, using a couple of old knobbies I had lying around. They worked great. I found this morning I could have used 20 or so more studs per tire, but they gripped well enough to keep me from falling. I fell crossing icy streets twice while walking my dog this morning. But riding my bike to work, didn't fall once!

One funny thing about having the business ends of 50 stainless sheet metal screws sticking out of your tire is that they tend to spear debris and keep it sticking to your tire. I mostly just picked up leaves this morning, but I made a mental note not to ride over any litter like fast food cups and crap. Picking something like that up could stop you pretty abruptly if it got stuck somewhere it shouldn't be...

Hey Hardcore Bicycle Commuters:

In light of our first winter cold snap, I'm getting ready to order myself some innova studded tires, and thought I'd offer to split an order with my fellow commies...

Innova Studded tires are $35 ea, and come in 26x2.1, 26x1.9, 700x35, and 700x45 sizes. You really just need a front tire to avoid crashing, but with studded tires front and rear you can turn just a bit quicker. The studs get worn down riding on non-icy pavement, but they are replaceable, so I figure tires should last 3 or 4 winters (seeing as how we'll probably only use them once or twice per winter).

Let me know if you want me to order you a pair.