Hello spring, I guess! The gears have been turning, drill bits and saw blades spinning. In this issue I’m stoked to get you caught up on developments in the space, and to share more of my vision for Cool Bikes North. Bike orders have made their way into my inventory, and I’m finally ready to share details about the brands I’m bringing to 1861 Northport Drive.

Build-out: the workbench

As a neighborhood shop, my foremost goal is to provide accurate, reliable service to the bikes my customers bring through the door. Appropriately, building my workbench was the first part of constructing my space that I sunk some serious time into.

Flashback to November when I was still working at The Cargo Bike Shop, which happens to be joined at the hip with Madison’s best (and bikiest) coffee shop, Cafe Domestique. Dan, the owner, general awesome guy and serial collaborator, took the opportunity during his Thanksgiving shop closure to fully rebuild the espresso bar; after seven years of service, it was time for more room behind the counter and a new look. Dan knew my plans to open Cool, and asked me if I was interested in the old countertop: a strip of reclaimed bowling alley from somewhere in the Fox Valley. Are you kidding?? Of course I was! He delivered it to the space, and it sat in the back hallway for months as a constant source of motivation. It was the self-evident first project to mount that 700 pounds of glossy, historic wood to an appropriately sturdy chassis. Okay I don’t think it’s actually that heavy, but I was grateful to snag the assistance of my friend Camden to do some final shoring up of the structure, and then the BIG HOIST. Here’s a gif.

What’s a saddle library?

We like to call bike seats “saddles.” That’s fun, right? It’s also accurate, because when you’re perched on your bike you’re doing a lot more than sitting. Saddles allow us to steer the bike. Saddles give us the foundation for the force we push into the pedals. They also support–sometimes dictate–the relationship between our pelvis and the rest of the vehicle.

In November I took a week-long trip to the Philadelphia area for Befitting Bicycle’s “Befitting Biomechanics” bike fitting training. Early in day one, this concept was illuminated for me: The Pelvis Is The Keystone Of The Body. The bike’s saddle supports the rider’s pelvis. And so, finding the right saddle is the ground level of finding comfort on your ride.

Saddles: not cheap. They don’t have to break the bank, either. But how do you know if it’s The One if you don’t get some actual miles on it? And how do you put some miles on a saddle without buying it first? You borrow one. Then, you probably borrow another. And another? But from whom? From where?

From a saddle library. It’s this simple: come take a look at our array of saddles–I’ve got around 30 picked out for starters. We’ll be happy to help you find something that will get you closer to perfect than your current bike seat. Then we take a deposit, get the saddle situated on your bike–or let you do that if you’d like to do that part yourself–and send you out the door. Ride it for a week, come back, and unless you found your Cinderella Slipper saddle in one go, check another one out for no additional money exchanged. Do this as much as you need to (remembering to come back within a week or renew your loan if necessary) until you find the most supportive saddle for your bike and your body. Your deposit goes into the price of the saddle, we charge you for the difference, and voilà: you’ve got perhaps the single most effective upgrade to a bicycle.

I hope you’ll try it out! If nothing else, come measure your own sitbones on our Ergon Digital Sit Bone Measurement Device at our grand opening this spring. You can keep your pants on, just empty your back pockets, sit on the box, and when it beeps turn around and look at your number.

***I first discovered the concept of a saddle library after I had already been a bike nerd for twenty years–it took that long because it seems like almost no shops run this type of program. Gladys Bikes in Portland, OR runs a saddle library, and I’m grateful to them for getting the idea onto my radar. I was sorry to read that Gladys is closing their doors after 10 years. I’ve been significantly influenced by this shop without ever having set foot there. Credit for that partially goes to bike blog The Radavist for profiling them in an inspiring shop visit photo essay. I recently had a great phone conversation with one of the Gladys mechanics, and learned that they even use library software to run the saddle library! We will be doing the same.***

Our bicycle brands

In June of 2022, I finally allowed myself to take my years-long dream of opening a bike shop seriously. Then started the project of finding a bike brand that would support the mission of centering city bikes and the people who ride them. After a lot of pondering, support from industry veterans, a couple false starts, and some lucky discoveries, I’ve arrived at three brands that will comprise our new bicycle offering. I can’t tell you how excited I am for you to see these bikes in person, and hopefully take them for a spin around the neighborhood. (I recommend riding the scant mile to Zippy Lube for a hot & fresh doughnut.)

Tern

I first became familiar with Tern bicycles when I took on the role of service manager at The Cargo Bike Shop. When they came on the scene several years ago, Tern massively influenced the cargo space by ushering in the Compact Cargo category–an animal based around the smaller 20” wheel size seen on kids’ and BMX bikes. It has proven wildly popular, and there is now a heaping handful of compact e-cargo bikes on the market who have followed in these footsteps. We will be carrying two bikes from Tern’s cargo catalog: the non-electric Short Haul, and its ebike cousin, the Quick Haul.

The whole Compact Cargo thing came from Tern’s roots as a folding bike company, and I’m excited to also have their Link family of folding bikes, a version of which was recently heralded by Momentum Mag as one of “The 6 best folding bikes you can buy right now.”

Reid

In my brand hunt, it was a priority for me to offer a low-stepover, lightweight bicycle with an upright posture. This sort of thing lines the walls at big brand bike shops but sometimes gets overlooked by smaller outfits, and I love the idea of providing such an accessible, affordable machine in a store with less than 1,000 square feet of salesfloor.

Reid was founded in Melbourne in 2009 and has seen distribution in the US for about a decade. The company’s catalog features a wide variety of recognizable designs, nearly all of them prioritizing the combination of good function with budget-mindfulness. We’ll have their comfort and hybrid models represented in small, medium, and large.

Bassi

C&L Cycles is a bike shop with two locations in Montreal. For the past 15 years they’ve been designing, refining, and growing their house brand catalog of bicycle frames and components under the name Bassi. The framesets are expertly crafted at the Maxway factory in Taiwan, the same multigenerational company that produces frames for beloved steel brands like Surly and All City. At present, Bassi has spread their distribution to 10 countries outside Canada, always working with small, independent shops. We are delighted to be the latest of their 12 US dealerships.

Bassi will be our steel canvas for custom builds. Their five bike offering runs the gamut from pared-down singlespeed to carry-it-all megatourer, but each one is a swiss army knife in its own right, and each one can be built up countless ways. Wide, comfy tires and provisions for front racks and full fenders are standard fare across the lineup. Think sturdy, nimble city steeds, dedicated basket bikes, double-duty townie/campers, classique tourers, gravel gobblers, kid-haulers, smile-makers.

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Our first Bassi order is currently incoming, and I’ll have a Hog’s Back demo built up and ready to swing a leg over by the time of our grand opening.

In my last email I said I’d include a more up to date picture of myself, so here we go:

Bike shop things have taken a bit of a back seat for the past month as we welcomed our second child into the world. As the gorgeous weather continues to make claims on its permanence, I will be back at it soon, scurrying to get the place ready to party on grand opening day! What day is that? Don’t touch that dial!

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Thanks again for being here with me, and if by chance you received this as a forward from someone who loves you, please subscribe to get future emails! Once a month, tops!

Brands, build-out, and saddle libraries