Miscellaneous

Wrapping up 2016 brings me to a thankful place. A year ago the shop was getting close to a name change that left a lot of unknowns and concerns about the upcoming season at Perennial Cycle. No matter how sure I was about the name change being the right thing to do, it's hard to whack nearly 25 years of branding off the shelf and not have some concerns about the transition.

Well, the new sign went up last week and this nearly finalizes the transition away from Calhoun Cycle and onto our newer, better Perennial Cycle. All I can say is Thank You!! The transition has gone very well and the grumbling trolls moved on quickly while the supporters of the name change continue to show their support by joining our customer base. We all really appreciate the support. It's a fun place to work and thanks to our customers, we get to keep our jobs : )

You have all shown me that hope is a reasonable feeling to have. I cannot thank you enough for that.

Recently I met with David of Carradice and got a look at some new Limited Edition saddlebags. These lovely British bags have integrated a Scottish twist by adding Harris wool tweed to the top of their ever-beloved waterproof cotton duck.
We have received the Harris Tweed Barley Saddlebag as well as the Harris Tweed Zipped Roll Saddlebag and we will be keeping our eyes open for any other Limited Edition bags from Carradice.

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Two years ago Nutcase showed a new style of commuter helmet at the cycling trade show (Interbike). The Metroride was a lighter-weight, sleeker commuter helmet than their hugely popular Street Series. The design was a mix of retro-rad with the updating of Nutcase’s beloved graphic styling. I thought it would look great on the shelves at Perennial Cycle and I loved that it would push what people considered a commuter helmet. Sadly Nutcase had difficulty getting it into production and the Metroride never made it to market.

That year the Giro Reverb came along with a very similar look, feel and purpose. We like the Reverb and sell many of them. While they lacked the stylized graphics, they pushed the envelope in regards to identifying what a commuter helmet was.

A couple of weeks ago I was being shown the 2015 Nutcase lineup at Interbike and the Metroride helmet is back and looking great. This time nutcase is confident about it’s production. That is fantastic news to us!
Nutcase is also adding a Baby Nutty which will fit down to 47cm for the one year olds searching out a fun helmet that could match their bigger brothers and sisters.

We are big fans of Nutcase helmets at Perennial Cycle and are happy to see them developing new, great products.

I received a note and a few pics from Mark, one of our Brompton US Championship 2012 Racers. Mark and his partner Deb were riding on Vancouver Island and had a flat on the rear of Deb's Brompton. Mark decided to try and patch the flat without removing the wheel. This seemed like great info to pass on as it's a nice trick that could work on any bike.

Thanks Mark!

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Hey Perennial Cycle-ites,

Just thought I’d share this with you. Deb and I were on a little tour of Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia via Bromptons when Deb encountered a flat on her rear tire. All of the gearing and whatnot on the rear wheel can be a bit intimidating so thought I’d try a quick patch job without removing the rear wheel. I was able to pop the tire bead off and expose the tube and locate the metal staple in the tire pretty easily and made a pretty quick repair of the flat in about 10 minutes. One thing I’d do differently is pop the bead off the non drive side. Wouldn’t recommend this for all flat repairs, but this one proved to be easy to find the leak and the Park glueless patch held on the first try.

This may be old news, but I had not done this before. I actually saw them doing this on the Amazing Race in Africa, as one of the challenges, where the street mechanics often don’t have the proper wrench to remove the wheel or the axle is actually welded to the frame.

I have since watched the YouTube video from Brompton on the repair and now know that removing the tire wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but this sure seemed quicker and cleaner, without having to remove and readjust everything.

Have got about 25,000 flight miles on the Brompton's B&W case and have been amazed at how well it’s held up. I use the Brompton in our tradeshow display and to get around while traveling. Did have a wheel housing crack due to some rough luggage handling and a drop onto the wheel, but it was easily replaceable with pop rivets and a lightning fast wheel assembly replacement from Perennial and Brompton.

Thanks Perennial staff and Brompton for all your help.

Cheers!

Mark and Deb

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Here are a few pictures. Two are from their ride and the others are Mark at BUSC • 2012
You can see from the great duct tape Union Jack helmet to the custom spray painted sport jacket that he's an awesomely creative guy.

I'd guess that Mark had all the tools he needed to make the repair, but for what he specifically did I'm thinking he used a tire lever (we like this one from PDW for the Brompton as well, the included wrench will remove the wheel) and a glueless patch. It's also possible Mark didn't have a tire lever; the Brompton tires can be wrestled off without one if absolutely necessary.

If you haven't seen the technical videos that Brompton has available (Mark mentions one in the note), you should check them out here.