Archive for the ‘Everything Else’ Category

Even though we only gave a week and a half of notice, a lot of people still managed to come out to the open house on Sunday. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great time. A special thanks to Alan for leading the group ride around Lincoln, RI in the afternoon. Definitely a great way to spend a summer-ish autumn day.

 
 
 
 


On a separate note, Brent built his bike up today at the shop and it is GORGEOUS! He did a great job selecting the colors. The black components go very well with the orange and blue. I borrowed these pictures from his blog.

And finally, mark your calendar as Circuit BMX is hosting a BMX Swap Meet and Footdown World Championships going down on November 3rd. If you’re a BMX’er of any kind and you miss this, you’re dead to me.

All right, sorry for the late notice but for all interested, Circle A is having an open house on Sunday the 21st. Here are the details from Chris:

“That’s right, it’s been six years in Providence, and after a few months we’re more or less settled at the new space on Charles Street.

Come by on Sunday and we’ll recall fondly our tales of road rash, homicidal drivers, tours de beer, and that time you got your cuff stuck in your crank and it pulled your pants off.

Oh wait that was me.

Garrett will be rocking out the fancy espresso drinks and I’m sure there will be beer and pretzels from Job Lot or something.

2 PM - weather permitting, come early with your bike and we’ll have a nice leasurely ride, maybe to Lincoln Woods or Blackstone or something.

4-7 PM This would be the actual event with the coffee and beer and stuff.

Tell your friends, bring your bike, and especially bring your Circle A if you have one, we’d love to get a good group grope. I mean photo.

523 Charles Street, just south of Branch Ave., walk past the garden and there we are. If you’re driving, park on Charles.

Questions, comments, etc, call us. 401-831-5221.

Thanks! Chris, Brian and Emily will be there too!”

On a separate note, Brent’s frame is done. Just need to add Frame Saver and polish the badge. Here are some pics and if you come to the open house, you can see it in person. More pics can be seen here.

 
 
 

Hannah’s paint is finished and I’ll add pictures to the gallery soon enough. But for now, here’s a sneak peak at the finished product.

 
 

Last September I had built a frame for Dan Langlois but never had the chance to take pictures of it. After a season of cross and doing a bunch of traveling, the well-used frame returned to the shop. so here’s a shot of Dan getting it back together. I painted a stem to match it as well. The cross season technically starts on Sunday for Dan with a race up in Agawam, MA. Good luck, man.

Speaking of bikes returning to the shop, this red star fade bike has been making the rounds. It’s temporary home is for now at the shop. The original owner bent the seat stay and he sold it to a friend who had us replace the stay and repaint it. I should say right now that I will never do a paint job like this again.



Two more cross bikes to do this week including one for Jack at the Hub and one for ME! Yes, me. I will be thoroughly testing one of my fillet brazed cross frames this year. Can’t wait. More pics to come soon.

So Henry’s flatland frame has been painted and shipped. Here are the shots of it before it went off to Cali.

 
 
 

In other news, Hannah’s bike is still coming along nicely. I filed and sanded all the fillets and will hopefully be painting her frame by the end of the week. I also used some layout dye to mark a design in the seat tube extension to match the reinforcements that will be on the headtube.

  
  

I did a bit of painting for John Cully over at Echelon late last week. Here are some close-up shots of that.

 

And lastly, Chris, Emily and I went over to Truro, MA for our friends’ Niki and Brendan’s wedding this past weekend. A few of us rode out there and had an amazing time. Congratulations kids!

  

I should mention that the George Street hill climb happened Sunday in Worcester as it has since 2002. The Major Taylor Association and Barney’s Bicycle have been holding the event to raise money to build a statue downtown to commemorate Major Taylor. The race is only 500 feet long at an 18 percent average grade but it’s a ton of fun. A bunch of us from Providence like to go and ride up on fixed gear bikes hoping that we’ve chosen the perfect gear. There’s always a couple of Circle A’s going up and here are a couple of shots to prove it. More shots can be found here.

  
 

The shop is finally getting to the point of being fully functional now. It’s still a mess but we’re pretty eager to work and get it configured to our liking. It ain’t pretty yet but we’re getting there.

 

I’ve started on my first frame here and it’s a flatland frame for my friend Henry. It’s a bit of a challenge as I’m trying something different for him with a more “traditional” flatland style with a gusseted front end for foot clearance. Check the pics. The brazing should start tomorrow followed by another update.

 

I recently did a little bit of testing of a funky LED bike light system that mounts on the wheels. The engineer who designed them, Dan, wanted to see them on a flatland bike in action. It was a fun evening and it definitely turned a lot of heads. Check out the video (6.8 MB).

http://www.monkeylectric.com/vid_bc1.wmv

We’re finally done moving out of the old space in Carpenter Mills. The new space is looking very promising aside from the fact that you can barely walk around in there.

 

One of the last two bikes to be built in the shop of yesterweek was for Andrea. Here are a couple shots of the post paint action. Kitty approved.

 

 

 

 

Saying thank you is not enough for all the help our friends provided during the big move on Sunday. We owe them big time. Here are some pictures from the event. The new space is still under construction so it will be a little bit before we start building again. I’ll post updates and such as they happen though.

My brother and my niece came by the shop to meet up with Jon and I as we were building up his new Circle A flatland bike. While we were building the bike, my brother was creeping around the shop taking pictures. We don’t have a shop tour on the site yet, so here are the great shots of what my brother saw.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kchapman/tags/circleacycles/show/