Broadway Bicycle School Classes

Broadway Bicycle School is offering two sections of its Basic class starting in February. The Basic class is part lecture and part hands-on work on your own bike. The five classes cover- fixing a flat, front hub adjustment, brake adjustment, chain replacement and rear derailleur adjustment.

February/March Schedule:
Tuesdays, 6:30 – 8:30pm, February 17th – March 17th. Cost $120
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30pm, February 18th – March 18th. Cost: $120.

Click here for more information or call 617 868 3392 to sign up

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Broadway Bicycle School New Classes

Broadway Bicycle School is offering two sections of its Basic class starting in February. The Basic class is part lecture and part hands-on work on your own bike. The five classes cover- fixing a flat, front hub adjustment, brake adjustment, chain replacement and rear derailleur adjustment.

February/March Schedule:
Tuesdays, 6:30 – 8:30pm, February 17th – March 17th. Cost $120
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30pm, February 18th – March 18th. Cost: $120.

Click here for more information or call 617 868 3392 to sign up

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Geekhouse Hitting The Big Time!

Marty over at Geekhouse Bikes has been doing some AMAZING stuff lately (here and here). I am not just talking about his amazing bike, seems he is getting his business side of things moving as well.

From the geekhouse website. (I know this is mad late in posting this, but I thought it was such a cool development that I couldn’t let it pass)

So I got an email on Sunday night saying that Mayor Menino was going to mention Geekhouse in his annual State of the City address which took place last night (I’m at the 8:27 section). At first I didn’t really know much about it. But then Monday I found out that the whole event would be broadcast live on Chanel 5 Boston, and that I had a reserved seat in one of the front rows at the event, which would be held in prestigious Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston.

If I haven’t mentioned this before in December I got a loan from the City of Boston to help purchase some necessary manufacturing equipment, and also provide the ability to hire 1-2 employees to help out with fabrication. This whole process involved a lot of time and effort. I sought out help from Score a division of the Boston SBA in reviewing a detailed business plan I wrote myself. And of course I had a lot of support from my amazing lawyer Joel Kinney of Goldstein and Herndon in Chestnut Hill. So after about 6 months of planning and effort I was finally approved for the loan. Also, a big thanks to Bill Nickerson and everyone from the BLDC for all their help with getting that done!

So back to the event last night. I ended up bringing my girlfriend Andrea, my Mom and two sisters Corie and Katty, and also Josh from Open Bicycle. I was told we had reserved seating, but when we walked in there were two levels, and upper and lower. The security guard blocked us when I tried to walk into the lower section, and I told him the I was Marty Walsh and we had reserved seating. His response was, “Oh yes Mr. Walsh, someone will show you to your seats.” Now, there’s also a state rep named Marty Walsh, so my response to him was “No, I’m the other Marty Walsh, not the State Rep Marty Walsh.” And he then said. “Oh no, we know who your are, I’ll have someone show you to your seats.”

The whole thing was pretty surreal. We had 4 seats which all had Marty Walsh written of them in the front row of the right side of the room. Then there were two seats for me and Andrea only a few rows back from the front row, which included Gov Deval Patrick, and the Mayor’s wife. My thoughts through the whole thing were; holy crap why the hell am I here with all these important people? Sitting right next to me was a guy who was first on the scene to the firefighter accident last week, I believe he actually saved one of the firefighters lives. And on the other side was a guy giving away like a million dollars to the Boston public schools. So out of all the people in the city who did amazing things this past year, we were the three that the Mayor mentioned. I still feel that I don’t deserve that kind of attention, and this isn’t something that I sought out. But hey I’ll take the free press, haha!

After the event my sister Corie made me go get a picture with the Mayor, and I told him thank you. I then met the Allston Rep, who went and introduced me to the State Rep Marty Walsh. I also shook hands with Secretary Galvin and a few other respectable Bostonians. The whole thing was really pretty amazing but also a little ridiculous. A few Boston firefighters shook my hand and said nice job and thank you. My response no them was “No, thank you guys, your awesome!” haha, like I said the whole thing was just pretty surreal.

Anyway, after all that I couldn’t sleep last night and I got in the shop a little after 7am this morning and I’m anxious to just get back to business as usual. Now I just have to see if my fat head still fits in my welding helmet. Anyway, thanks for listening!

-Marty Walsh (not the State Rep)

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Turning An Old Tri Spoke Into A Work Of Art

Tristan over at BostonFixed has created this amazing guide to turning an old carbon trispoke into a work of art! The below guide was written by him, and reprinted with permission.

—–

So I painted my trispoke and made it look all mad phat dope shitzzle, and made a little guide in a bunch of images/how to guide.

Your materials are as follows:

One can of Spray primer
One can of preferred paint (I ended up using Duplicolor Metal Specks, after the can of Metal Effects shown completely fucked up and was sputtering)
Clear coat (Not shown, use an Acrylic)
Multi pack sandpaper (for sanding stuff down)
Cleaning wipe that clears all the shit off
A good x-acto knife for cutting the tape/stickers (also not shown)
Newspapers for spraying
A sponge for wiping
A pail for wet sanding
Stickers
A weekend worth of time.

So yeah, my HED trispoke was about 10 years old and in rough shape, I highly recommend if you want it to look really pretty, to reprime/fill any knicks in the surface, as they’re quite common on the older wheels. Give it a good cloth wipe to prepare the surface for roughing up.

Note: I did this with the tire on, but it’s better to take the tubular off, I just didn’t feel like dismounting and remounting a tubular.

This is how the wheel should look after roughing it up with some 400 grit wet sand paper. THERE IS NO CLEAR COAT on HED/Specialized trispoke wheels. It’s the actual epoxy so DO NOT GO TOO FAR OR USE BELOW 400 GRIT!! You will eat the carbon!

Wipe it down with a slightly damp sponge, then wipe off the water/dust with an old clean t-shirt.

Mask off everything and then start to hate yourself if you want to use the braking surface as it’s a very unfun job coming up…

Taking your knife, follow the brake surface all around the wheel and carefully not fuck up like this. This will make your wheel look like shit. Put more tape on and then recut.

This is a (blurry) shot of how it SHOULD look.

After you do all that, rewipe the wheel down with the prep cloth, and we can start spraying primer.

Go with a few light coats of primer until it looks solid enough. What blows is you now will know exactly how bad the surface of your wheel is pitted (if used). You can use some filler but I didn’t bother. L A Z Y. The primer dries quickly (within an hour).

Wet sand the primer with 400 grit sandpaper. Get it nice and smooooth. Dry it off again and paint some more.

Now I fucked up on this part and there’s no pictures after my spray can decided to fuck up on me and made me resurface and redo everything. That green tape helps out so much as its very waterproof. Just spray maybe two or three coats of your base color, let that dry properly, wipe it down again with the clean t-shirt, and then spray two or three coats of clear on it. It won’t take very long for everything to cure/dry if you’re light enough with your coats.

Applying vinyl graphics. You will learn how much of a pain in the ass lattice work like this is.

Some windex, luck, a credit card, and patience lets you apply the graphics well. Cutting around the braking surface again.

Awrite! All done! Simple enough, but most people can’t/aren’t willing to put in the effort. It’s all about prep time/effort….

More info here

He also did this bit of amazing art work.

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City Releases Annual Bike Report

Got this in the email today.

Mayor Menino kicked off Boston Bikes a year ago with a strong commitment to transform bicycling in Boston. Since then, Boston Bikes has installed 250 racks, added several miles of bike lanes, started a bicyclist advisory board, worked with nearly 500 youth, and engaged over 7,000 cyclists in a variety of programs, both old and new. Hub On Wheels, Bike Friday, Bay State Bike Week, and Rock Roll & Ride were just some of the fantastic cycling events enjoyed by the Boston cycling public this year.

To learn more about the Mayor’s initiatives thus far and to find out what is in store for 2009, we invite you to join us for a public presentation sponsored by the Livable Streets Alliance. The presentation will take place on January 29th at the Boston Public Library Rabb Lecture Hall at 7:00 PM.

We also invite you to take the time to read the Boston Bikes Annual Summary. View the report.

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