The Saddle Library Has Launched
And welcome to it! Our library catalog contains 28 unique saddles, in the interest of you discovering a great match for your own individual ischial tuberosities, or “sit bones,” as we like to say. We have super wide, super soft saddles. We have Ti rail racing saddles. We have the Brooks Cambium. We have comfy MTB saddles. We have ergonomic commuter saddles. We have lots of saddles for you to try.
We can use the Ergon Sit Bone Width Measurement device for a painless and accurate gauge of that distance, which gives us a great starting point. I’ll help you navigate some options, you’ll pick one, put down a $30 deposit, and off you go, riding a new saddle for a week before you either come down to say “yep, that’s about perfect” or swap it out for another one, for another week.
And so on! This is gonna be great.
An ode to the humble price gun
….starring Zach from 2004. Twenty years ago, I landed my dream job at Stop&Shop Grocery at 501 State Street. It was an awesome summer. Look at those cig prices! When I wasn’t behind the counter I donned my stocker hat and made sure our SoBe, Progresso, and Reeses Swoops were full and faced and ready to go. And I stickered those products with deftness and accuracy. Specifically I remember the Gatorade. If you haven’t seen the back end of a convenience or grocery store you might not know that Gatorade bottles come in cardboard crates sturdy enough to withstand a nuclear blast. I’d rip those suckers open and stare at 12 orange suns (those are the caps, see?) and let loose with the pricing gun, as fast as I possibly could go. BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP!
Opening the bike shop, I purchased a special high-tech UPC sticker printer as part of my million dollar point-of-sale investment. Because, I had to, right? I thought I needed to. Turns out it’s super inconvenient and I don’t love the results, and scanning product hasn’t turned out to be that swift when folks are actually buying the things. I was about to go Office Space on my sticker printer.
So I took a deep breath and bought a used Monarch PAXAR 1131. Goddamn this thing’s a joy to use.
Next time you come in you’ll see a bunch of happy little orange rectangles smiling at you: those are the price stickers from the PAXAR. If you don’t see one, look for a boring white thing with a barcode and a few different fonts, and that’ll be one of the remaining tags from the printer. Or there won’t be anything and you can say, “I think you didn’t put a price on this one….?”
Next issue: Tern just announced a two-passenger (or one adult passenger) version of their Quick Haul. Stoked! Plus let’s start meeting and greeting some of these saddles, shall we?
Come visit! See you soon :)
