Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Mountain Goat Route 29 #33
Latest and greatest Mountain Goat Route 29. This was our first frame built by Ted Wojcik and it came out great. Powder coat is a candy blue or silver base and it really pops in the sun. A nod to the vintage crowd with the new old stock Rock Shox RS-1 decals on the new Reba. Our second Ted Goat will be arriving any day and then be heading off to Russ Pickett to get a fresh coat of "bamboo". Should be pretty cool.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Greening the shop
We received our latest "services" bill from the City of Statesville and it seemed lower than usual so I went back and looked at the last 15 years worth of bills.....and it was the lowest one yet. The city provides our electricity, sewer, water and trash pickup so it is a decent sized bill. The weather was pretty mild last month so I am sure that helped but we have been slowly working to make the shop "greener" over the past couple of years. I guess it started a couple years back when the city stopped picking up cardboard as part of the trash pickup and installed a couple of centrally located dumpsters. A bike shop does generate quite a bit or cardboard including a large box that encloses each bike. The next step was saving inner tubes for Resource Revival which uses them to make neat items from recycled bike parts. When I was dropping off the cardboard, I noticed a miscellaneous paper receptacle so we set aside a trash can where we put all of our scrap office paper and junk mail. So far we have filled 4 big trash cans full. The restaurant next door has a glass recycling bin so we have a place to put our empty adult beverage containers after a ride. It has taken a couple of years but we have been slowly phasing in compact fluorescent bulbs as the older bulbs burn out. In addition to the bulbs, we started turning off more lights at night and the bathroom light now has a motion sensor on it. The final step was installing a new (non leaky) sink in the bathroom next to the low-flow toilet.
It looks like this has all added up to about $30 a month in savings which will help pay for the improvements.
I almost forgot one of our biggest improvements 5 years or so ago. When we moved into the building, it was still using a cooling tower for air conditioning. This primitive system used a large pump to move water up to the roof where is went through a spray head system that sprayed water onto the tower. The tower was about 4' square and 6' tall with multiple slats on each side. The water was sprayed onto the top slat and trickled down the slats to return to the pond which fed back into the building. The water was supposed to cool off and the system used that temp differential to cool the building. We limped this system along for 8 or 9 years which made for some brutal summer days. You'd be standing out in the showroom with a customer and you would hear the system shut down. This usually resulted in a trip to the roof to clear the rust scale out of the spray heads. Did I mention how hot a black tar roof can get in the middle of summer while changing spray heads in 120 degree water? As a bonus, one trip to the roof was to fish a dead pigeon out of the return pipe!
Ahh, the good old days.
It looks like this has all added up to about $30 a month in savings which will help pay for the improvements.
I almost forgot one of our biggest improvements 5 years or so ago. When we moved into the building, it was still using a cooling tower for air conditioning. This primitive system used a large pump to move water up to the roof where is went through a spray head system that sprayed water onto the tower. The tower was about 4' square and 6' tall with multiple slats on each side. The water was sprayed onto the top slat and trickled down the slats to return to the pond which fed back into the building. The water was supposed to cool off and the system used that temp differential to cool the building. We limped this system along for 8 or 9 years which made for some brutal summer days. You'd be standing out in the showroom with a customer and you would hear the system shut down. This usually resulted in a trip to the roof to clear the rust scale out of the spray heads. Did I mention how hot a black tar roof can get in the middle of summer while changing spray heads in 120 degree water? As a bonus, one trip to the roof was to fish a dead pigeon out of the return pipe!
Ahh, the good old days.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
LANO trail work April 2009
Woody Keen, of Trail Dynamics, came down to the Itusi Trial for the weekend to advise us on how to add some more technical trail features. Below are a couple of photos of the weekend.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Mountain Goat #30 full pictures
We finally got #30 all built up and have her up for sale now. Most of the built kit is from a Trek Fuel EX7 so it is heavy on the Bontrager parts. The frame was built up with an XL top tube but with a lower standover height and is correct for a 100mm fork. The color is a a heavy metallic lime over a black base and it really pops in the sun light! There is a full description @ http://www.firstflightbikes.com/2008_Mountain_Goat_WTR30.htm
Price is $2,499.99 complete as pictured.
Price is $2,499.99 complete as pictured.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Yet another Goat update
We got hit with about 6" of snow on Sunday which pretty much shuts everything down. School was out Monday and Tuesday and delayed on Wednesday....all from one snow storm. It'll probably take the bread and milk suppliers a month to catch back up. As soon as the forecaster utters the "S" word, the grocery stores are picked clean of sliced bread and liquid moo.
Darrell's Hairy Kay is getting the final buff job today and should be ready by tomorrow. Then, "let the assembly begin!"
I built the wheels for Sean's Ti WTR. The rims, Groovy Luv Handles and Fox fork were all painted a deep cobalt blue. I built the rims up using silver Industry 9 hubs and spokes (with the exception of a single blue anodized spoke per wheel). The wheels look great and the fork should be back from paint tomorrow.
The Route 29 FS is now black and I just have to finalize the artwork.
The "extra" WTR is at the local powder coat place. I picked out a lime metallic over black base which should look pretty damn cool. I just flipped through the powder samples until something grabbed me. This frame should be done in the next couple of days as well. Once we get it back, we'll build it up as a display bike for the shop.
I also got the call yesterday that the Ti bullmoose bars are on the way. We should have them soon in both 100mm and 110mm extensions. pictures when they arrive.
Darrell's Hairy Kay is getting the final buff job today and should be ready by tomorrow. Then, "let the assembly begin!"
I built the wheels for Sean's Ti WTR. The rims, Groovy Luv Handles and Fox fork were all painted a deep cobalt blue. I built the rims up using silver Industry 9 hubs and spokes (with the exception of a single blue anodized spoke per wheel). The wheels look great and the fork should be back from paint tomorrow.
The Route 29 FS is now black and I just have to finalize the artwork.
The "extra" WTR is at the local powder coat place. I picked out a lime metallic over black base which should look pretty damn cool. I just flipped through the powder samples until something grabbed me. This frame should be done in the next couple of days as well. Once we get it back, we'll build it up as a display bike for the shop.
I also got the call yesterday that the Ti bullmoose bars are on the way. We should have them soon in both 100mm and 110mm extensions. pictures when they arrive.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Updates, we've got updates
Just a couple of quick Goat-related notes to let everyone know where we currently stand:
-Right now, we have 3 Goats at the painters: Darrell is getting a glorious coat of pink on the Hairy Kay, Sean is getting his Fox fork, Groovy Luv Handles and rims painted for the Ti Goat and my Goat FS is getting a coat of paint. On a related note, we got the Industry 9 hubs and spokes for Sean's Ti Goat. Silver hubs and spokes plus one blue spoke per wheel. Should be cool.
-The imported Escape Goat project is still on track, albeit the slow track. We have been working on finalizing the decals for the bike and tidying up some small details. It should be an exciting project and bring some Goat into a more affordable price range.
-The Grab On grips are now in stock and shipping. These are built to the same specs as the original grips and have been selling nicely.
-The second batch of Panaracer Timbuk II tires have been ordered but the date has slipped from March/April to April/May. There are only about 20 tires left from the original batch so if you need them before May, the sooner the better.
-It looks like Lynskey will be making us a batch of Ti bullmoose bars in the near future. I have been testing a set on the F-K-R and have really enjoyed them. Available soon (we hope) in 100mm and 110mm reach. Brushed finish $425 projected price.
-We've also been talking to Ted Wojcik about making some frames. Very cool guy and it would be great to have an East Coast builder. Things look good and we may be working on a sample frame soon.
That's about it for now.
-Right now, we have 3 Goats at the painters: Darrell is getting a glorious coat of pink on the Hairy Kay, Sean is getting his Fox fork, Groovy Luv Handles and rims painted for the Ti Goat and my Goat FS is getting a coat of paint. On a related note, we got the Industry 9 hubs and spokes for Sean's Ti Goat. Silver hubs and spokes plus one blue spoke per wheel. Should be cool.
-The imported Escape Goat project is still on track, albeit the slow track. We have been working on finalizing the decals for the bike and tidying up some small details. It should be an exciting project and bring some Goat into a more affordable price range.
-The Grab On grips are now in stock and shipping. These are built to the same specs as the original grips and have been selling nicely.
-The second batch of Panaracer Timbuk II tires have been ordered but the date has slipped from March/April to April/May. There are only about 20 tires left from the original batch so if you need them before May, the sooner the better.
-It looks like Lynskey will be making us a batch of Ti bullmoose bars in the near future. I have been testing a set on the F-K-R and have really enjoyed them. Available soon (we hope) in 100mm and 110mm reach. Brushed finish $425 projected price.
-We've also been talking to Ted Wojcik about making some frames. Very cool guy and it would be great to have an East Coast builder. Things look good and we may be working on a sample frame soon.
That's about it for now.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Paintin' the Goats
Mountain Goats have always been known for their custom paint. The older Goats were painted by Russ Pickett, of AirArt, and when we started making new Goats, we called on Russ to work his magic again. Russ has done a great job resurrecting the vintage paint schemes for us but it is a slow and expensive process. It is frustrating enough to have to wait 4-6 months for a frame to be built but adding on another 3-4 months for paints can make the wait uncomfortable close to a year. Shipping to and from Chico, CA adds a couple of weeks of transit time plus about $80 to the cost. We looked around at some of the local guys and found Peter Weber less than 10 minutes from the shop. He painted one of our customers bikes and it turned out great. Here are a couple of images from his web site: 
For more, go to http://www.peterscustomart.com/default.aspx
Obviously, he is more that qualified! We made the trip to his shop yesterday with 3 bikes. Darrell took the Hairy Kay to get a glorious coat of pink applied (Although Peter did as him if he was serious!). Sean took the part from the Ti Whiskeytown Racer for some candy blue. The rims, fork and Luv Handles will all be painted to match. After paint, the rims are heading to I9 for spokes and hubs. I took the Route 29 FS with a couple of ideas in mind. One was a take-off of the old California Yuppie paint except with a North Carolina inspiration (beach, Wright Bros., NASCAR...) and the other was the Goatful Dead with skeletal Goats. If you took a minute to look a Peter's web site, you know which one he preferred.
Hopefully, we'll some cool new stuff to show in the next couple of weeks!
For more, go to http://www.peterscustomart.com/default.aspx
Obviously, he is more that qualified! We made the trip to his shop yesterday with 3 bikes. Darrell took the Hairy Kay to get a glorious coat of pink applied (Although Peter did as him if he was serious!). Sean took the part from the Ti Whiskeytown Racer for some candy blue. The rims, fork and Luv Handles will all be painted to match. After paint, the rims are heading to I9 for spokes and hubs. I took the Route 29 FS with a couple of ideas in mind. One was a take-off of the old California Yuppie paint except with a North Carolina inspiration (beach, Wright Bros., NASCAR...) and the other was the Goatful Dead with skeletal Goats. If you took a minute to look a Peter's web site, you know which one he preferred.
Hopefully, we'll some cool new stuff to show in the next couple of weeks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)