The duo returns for the 6th episode of the FSC. In this episode, they start with a discussion about the recent influx of bike tech at CES. From there they discuss their presentation and time spend at last week’s Portland PMBA (Professional Bike Mechanic Association) summit. Finally, they discuss their upcoming Inaugural Warehouse Sale.
Shawn: 00:00 Welcome to episode six of the fiber side chats. I’m Shawn Small and I’m Dan stinely. This week we’re covering our attendance at the pro bicycle mechanic association. We did a three day presentation about what we do as a business and how to help shops better inspect bikes. Uh, we’re also going to be covering our upcoming warehouse sale, which is a big deal for us. And something we’re very excited about. And finally, coverage of ces, the consumer electronic show from Las Vegas.
Shawn: 00:40 see. Yes. A lot of bike. The thing about the yes right now is how much bike tech is showing up there. Most of the stuff used to show up at interbike or Seattle or euro bike or Taipei, but now it’s showing up a cvs. Right. Why do you think that is? I don’t know. I was actually trying to figure that out. And it’s again, is it like, is it the demand of the consumer or is it the drive of the industry? And that I was, that I have a hard time with because I don’t know, you know, how many people really have a desire or a need for bone conducting headphones. It’s great. It’s really, it’s a really cool concept that you want to listen to music still hear ambient noise. I get that a, yeah, right. Not just minimal downtime. Bow, which is great to helps you keep a good, a good, you know, good cadence I think.
Dan: 01:36 But I don’t know. Is it, is it really the desire of the consumer? I don’t know. I admit that I am the world’s worst consumer because all I would do is leave in. I would leave in my right ear bud and leave my left ear bud out if I rode with headphones, but I don’t ride with headphones. But what a lot of it is, I think why it’s coming to ces versus interbike is um, the perceived investment value. If for me, if you’re seeing this extreme rise of trainers indoor, I see all that stuff is trainer stuff and trainers, uh, interbike, they had a trainer section and it goes in a different room or haul. But cs, I mean big money, you got your Samsung and Sony easier panasonics and all that other stuff. Um, and you’re seeing that stuff show up there. It makes sense to me, it doesn’t make sense.
Dan: 02:30 And your, I guess in that sense you’re, you’re typically bringing it as a producer of this technology. You are bringing it to a different market. One that’s wider rather than just going to interbike you’re like, you know, only targeting the bike industry. Whereas you could still use bone conducting headphones for training and speed skating, for example, running or running or you know, any other, any outdoor activity being right also be good there. He’s a speed skating. Yeah. Cool. Wisconsin Pettit, nationalized central. I used to love having birthday parties, their cell phone. Alma, Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen. That’s right. Also short track. Speed skating is amazing. Grace at grace. There’s bike track racers. A big quads. Yeah. I really, really liked speedskating costs so fast, so really, really fun to watch. So I know what event you’re watching in a month. Yeah. Short track, speed skating. So I mean the South Koreans are going to beat everybody again.
Shawn: 03:33 I think it’s been really good at speech, getting them in the Dutch. Really, really good at speed skating. I don’t know why South Koreans are traditionally good, but I know the Dutch are traditionally good because when all the canals froze historically they. Yeah, you know, and they do really, really cool. Long distance speed skating. Racist from town to town to town in Amsterdam on frozen canals. It’s really, really awesome. Sounds like a Minnesota joke and hockey, which isn’t a joke, it’s just a reality but it’s cold is cold. Nothing else to do. Yeah, it’s dark, it’s cold out. But the long tangent is I can definitely see why these products did you at ces rather than a interbike, you know. And on that same note, I’m a big fan of more people on bikes and however you get on, if this gets, you know, by putting more product at ces, putting more product add in trainers at Peloton, it keeps blowing up like they are at one point $3,000,000,000, you know, getting people get, getting people active is good.
Shawn: 04:37 I agree, you know, it’s, I don’t care. I mean sure, I’d rather prefer they’re rewriting cool road bike outside, but if they’re active indoors, it’s great. I mean in also I think we out here, I think we have a little bit of a bias perspective honestly, of being able to go on really great road rides all the time regardless of where we are and have the good road infrastructure to do so I could see how people would want to invest in trainers and all this other stuff and living in a really big major city on Saturday to get out. It is hard to get out. Honestly. I was talking to unwrap the PMA conference or convention or workshop. I was uh, talking to various people and I was just like, you know, one of the best things about Portland is the access to amazing road biking socks.
Shawn: 05:26 That’s fact. I just got to drive for ways, but our access to amazing road biking through the urban growth boundary just allows us to get out of town so fast. I mean, how long has it from our house to Saltzman? Twenty minutes. Salzmann’s A. Yeah. If you’re slowing, I am this time really slow, step off covering miles so you can get into forest park in less than 20 minutes from where he dropped, you know, we dropped off the west side and hardly saw any cars and just rolling through beautiful roads and it was 50 degrees this weekend, so that was great. More people on bikes, people just active, like see this is kind of doing a good job of pushing that. A lot of stuff on a probiotic product I would never buy. I mean, as you said, there’s just so much augmented reality stuff like who really wants a hud for road riding, you know, who wants glasses that are putting like probably team sky. They’ll find a way to cheat
Shawn: 05:26 This week we had the pleasure of hosting a technical session for three different days with the pro bicycle mechanic association presenting at presenting at Pbm, a hosted pbx. Sorry, pma hosted at the airport in Portland. We’ve already attended. The one in Denver will be attending one in about a month, the beginning of February and the Washington dc area. Um, these conferences or workshops are more dedicated to new tech by a lot of the companies, but we got invited up to talk about carbon fiber. Talk about a little bit why we’re different and maybe some secrets of the dark arts as we like to joke. And um, what, what were your big takeaways, Dan? What were some of the, what was the most interesting question you got?
Dan: 07:12 I think the most interesting question that I heard was from somebody that approached us and essentially asked us how do I convince my customer that they’re broken mountain bike, that they’re xc racing is not safe to ride and they should get it repaired. Yeah. That was such a great question and a hard one to answer, but that was probably the best question that we heard all week. I think, um, you brought up the good point that this is something that we’ve seen before. Obviously safety is always the number one concern, but I really liked the point that you brought up and that this person can then take to their customer. You know, we had another, we had another bike come in, somebody who was already was racing track US nationals in the masters category and they did, they broke their seat post and they brought it to a local person, not really that experienced in carbon repair.
Dan: 08:05 Ended up breaking their posts, miss the race, missed something that they literally trained all year four. And I thought that was a really interesting takeaway is that now you have another mechanical factor that you can bring into the fray of potentially ruining the race for you. And it seemed like, you know, safety was not a concern for this individual racing broken top [inaudible] mountain bike, which is an individual’s decision. But, uh, you know, if you’re going to be training all year for an event, it’s really a shame that something that is in your control to fix a and you end, you end your race for him, for
Shawn: 08:40 you. And on that general, we’ve worked with a number of athletes over the years. They’re just like, oh, it’s broken, but I still need to do this race or this credit. And I really try to drive home. The fact that hey, you’re knowingly racing something broken, it could come apart on you and you could take out half the field, you know, a crit already sees enough danger. They’re dangerous. I mean that’s high stakes racing and if you’re out there openly, knowingly with damaged equipment, you’re putting everybody else’s butt’s on the line and that’s just not cool and it’s dangerous and you open yourself up to all sorts of court live, you know, all sorts of liability and it’s just, it’s just not worth it, you know? So that’s, it was a great question and it’s not one we, you know, we traditionally get and made us really think about it.
Shawn: 09:25 You’re like, God, some people are really hard to convince. What do you think was the most interesting question that you heard? That one was mine as well. Luckily, you know, we were together a lot, so heard that one cousin and my cousin, a lot of people thought we were a. But overall it was a great event, you know, I was really happy with how everything went. We got to really talk about save carbon repair. We’ve got to really talk about what it means to, uh, look at some of these unbranded, Ebay, Alibaba type bikes. A lot of shops are seeing come through more and more and you know, just to reiterate our stance on it is we don’t touch. I know. Sure. A lot of times they’re fine, but yet again, there’s just so much mystery baked into those. Literally we don’t, we don’t think they’re worth it.
Shawn: 10:09 You know, we really like supporting real bike companies, real brands and you know, we’re going to stick to that. Maybe we should talk a little bit about what the Pba is a great one. There stands for professional bike mechanics association. Yeah. Pretty new group. About what, a year old year and a half, maybe two years at this point. I think two years. Yeah. It started off just as I’m the organizer, original creators name is James Stanford. We’re actually going to be interviewing him and we’re out in the DC area, so we’ll have them on for a full interview and I don’t know if he was the original brain child, but I think so. Um, and he basically said, hey, I want to start organizing mechanics a bit, I’m going to start elevating mechanics a bit. I want to educate them more, bring a lot more business sense into it.
Shawn: 11:00 Just as the face of the bike industry keeps changing sales little tougher, you know, essentially Amazon, whoever, canyon track, everybody is starting to do more direct and that’s fine. Things change every day, you know, this is, this is an economy, but service still needs to be there and it’s really cool that there is an organization essentially trying to elevate both service and technology, uh, in the shop. But also what’s really important is they’re trying to make mechanics more professional. Yeah. And professionalism in the bike industry, uh, can be a lot of things, you know, it can be kind of buddy buddy. Sometimes it can be, you know, real handshake and a beer sometimes. But what’s great about what James is trying to do with this organization is go even farther beyond that, how to accurately present yourself, how to talk to your customers and communicate with everybody on a
Dan: 11:54 better, more professional level. Um, so it’s really taking the different side of professionalism, you know, you’re not being a professional bike mechanic just because you’re being paid to be a bike mechanic, you know, he’s really bringing in the other element of that, um, through all these workshops. And that’s really cool to see
Shawn: 12:11 yet again, further developing some of those specific technical skills, but then trying to make some of these service technicians, you know, they could be doing sales at that point, uh, or value added service or value added sales and really help them up their customer service game. You know, that’s so important in kind of this new digital Internet based marketplace. Uh, you know, that human to human contact is still really crucial, especially on the service side of it.
Dan: 12:39 I think another one of the points of the organization is they’re really trying to make the bike shop the point of knowledge rather than the Internet. A really relying on human communication rather than endless input through people’s Avatar at that point. Essentially random forums, random forums, google image searches. So it’s a really cool organization. Um, if you’re, if you are out, if your listener out on the eastern seaboard, uh, we will be presenting again, as Shawn said in DC in February, I believe there are still spots available, so if you are interested, check out the organization and, you know, maybe sign up. Um, it’s everybody that we talked to you a has really only had positive things to say. Our time there, very well spent. What’s difficult for us is, you know, sometimes putting this information out into the Internet. It is really technical and it’s really nice to actually just be face to face explaining what we do, why we’re different and why we succeed to people. So it’s cool to have that. Again, it’s really in this digital age, face to face time is really great with people.
Shawn: 13:48 It is, yeah. We’re really happy to do it and allowed us yet again, think of more questions that we wanted to bring back to this podcast. We met some real life listeners, which was awesome.
Dan: 13:56 Yeah, it made us feel a little like a celebrity, I’d say
Shawn: 14:00 a little bit, little bit, little. Um, it was cool to hear that, you know, a lot of people, you know, we don’t get a lot of good. Well we don’t get feedback a lot of times in general on a lot of things. Just, you know, we take care of it, people love it. You never hear from again. So it was great to yet again interface and have that one to one and be like, you know, what, what are these shops seeing? What are these technicians seeing, what are their questions about carbon nowadays the things change so fast. A bike industries, you know, it’s fast changing, it’s great. Um, it’s a very quick. Somebody is very frustrating because it’s so quick, but you know, they’re always developing stuff and got to really show how we can support shops and help bring service dollars to shops as well.
Dan: 14:40 Another thing that was really interesting is, you know, carbon repair is validated, it is safe, it can be done at a professional level and know that. And what was really interesting to me is how shops want to become better at inspecting. Like that was very obvious point. Every session that we did, we had people asking questions about how to do better inspections and that was really interesting to see how people took two fluorescent penetrant die as an example of ways to better inspect frames because it is, you know, uh, you made the point during the presentation that it’s very visual, uh, if you bring customers in and perform that kind of thing in front of them, it’s really easy to have an example of like, look this, this is a broken piece of equipment, um, than other nice part about that is it really doesn’t take any training and is a very low cost investment in the first place. So it was really interesting to see how quickly a shops in mechanics and the service managers there, uh, we’re kind of taking to that inspection idea. That was really cool to see as well. And it’s also cool to see that, you know, obviously, like I said, shops do know that carbon repairs that thing and are actively looking for problems in those bikes. It’s great to see that they’re, that they want to learn more ways to investigate if something broke.
Shawn: 16:01 We’re not talking about the limitations of inspection techniques, quarter tap test, you know, everybody’s familiar with it. A very few people really understand that depth or a severe limitations of it, so it was really great, you know, showing directly like how far that can work and really what it can and cannot tell you that, you know, there’s a lot that it can’t tell you. That was great to just drive that point home of like, you know, every inspection technique on a bike is case by case. Yeah. The tap test doesn’t resonate well with everybody you could say. Yeah, it was fun. Yet again, we had a fun time being up in front of everybody. Very mature audience audiences. Awesome. You know, I really, really liked the people that are choosing to pay to attend and travel to these events. You know, it’s a broad range of service technicians, but they’re all there to actively listen. A lot of people scribbling notes. Real quick. Great questions. Really great time.
Dan: 17:00 Yeah, we really can’t say enough great things. And we went to the presentation, uh, in Denver as well. We did three days there. We did three days here and we’re going to be doing three days in DC, uh, for an organization in their first year. Uh, they’re really come a long way, really, really shaping up to be something great as far as the elevation of technical prowess in the bike industry.
Shawn: 17:22 Now let’s keep. Let’s keep going. Yeah. If you’re going to be in DC, we’ll be out there. A hit us up. Even if you’re not going to be attending the conference, feel free to reach out. We’ll be, I guess a dose.
Dan: 17:33 Yeah, we will be so or invite us down to your shop. If you’re in DC, we’d love to. We’d love to come by and say, hey, there’s a bunch of you out there that we work with. So we will, uh, be reaching out to constantly as well. Totally
Shawn: 17:45 Yeah. So Saturday the 20th, we’re hosting our first ever warehouse sale. Pretty exciting. Yeah. We’ve been a 69 bikes for sale. They stack up fast. They do. They’re both knew you. Not both. Their new used, repaired and ready for repair. We did want to make a point of clarification for the warehouse sale. That being. We have had a lot of questions about the types of bikes that are going to be there. What kind of bikes we’ve got, Dan. We got new bikes or used bikes. We got repaired. Bikes got soon to be repair bikes and that is where we wanted to make the point of clarification. The soon to be repaired bikes. A couple of people have asked us through email using the carbon queries hashtag. Of course, what is ready to repair mean, ready to repair bikes mean that they are currently broken in some way, shape or form.
Dan: 18:47 Be to chainstay down to bottom bracket what have you. What happens if you are to come to the warehouse sale and purchase or ready to be repaired? Bike. That bike immediately goes into the repair queue that day, which right now is about two weeks and your repair is covered in the price of the purchase. So let’s say you come to the warehouse sale and you know, for example, get alumni that we have that’s broken. We don’t actually have a Lamont, but that’s why I’m using this example. Let’s say you buy a broken limb with the broken chain, stay for $300. Therefore that day your lemon goes in the repair queue to be repaired for the price of $300, which could be a bargain for some of the bikes you see and for the costs of some of our repairs. So just again, just a point of clarification, ready to be repaired. Bikes go in the queue that day and the purchase. The cost of the bike includes the repair.
Shawn: 19:48 My favorite thing is we have a bike that I’ve worked on forever and now worked on with our repair technician. Joel is a a custom Ruckus bike. If you’ve ever had your eyes set on a bike that can have disc brakes, fender mounts run, what did I say? with vendors. Three water bottle bosses, road geometry. This is the bike because the bike for you and it hasn’t. We’re leaving an unpainted. We’re going to work with whoever buys it to paint it. It is awesome.
Dan: 20:42 Made in house by Ruckus composites. It’s really, really cool. I don’t want to give too much away cause
Dan: 20:48 I can’t wait for everybody to see in person, but it is a both twill and uni. The joints are all wrapped into [inaudible] and the main tubes are all uni so it looks really, really nice. It’s going to ride like an absolute dream. It’s going to be crazy stiff. I can’t. Yeah, it’s a lifetime warranty. Lifetime warranty. There’s no way anybody could break this bike though. It is. I shouldn’t say that for those. Someone’s going to try and test me, but like it’s beefy. It’s one of a kind. It’s beefy. It’s beautiful. It comes with whatever paint job you can think of. Yeah. If you, if you can think of it, we can do it. And again, that is factored into the cost of the frame. So really, really cool. Limited edition. One of one Ruckus. Spike a also only they will let the warehouse sale.
Dan: 21:42 So come and check it out. Yeah, pretty cool. I’m really excited for. Give them a good home. We’ve got some other great stuff. We have a new. What was the trick with the. Not Their hedgehog. Is that the [inaudible]? So yeah, that’s right. The one with the head chalk bearing. Yeah. Well that’s right. We’re confusing brands here. That totally. It’s the front bearing. The front pivot as they call it. A got one of those flat mounts. We’ve got a couple great bikes that really awesome specialized Ruby, some special edition, but that’s a yet again another through a brand new 2017 through axle. Um, we have a fork with it on needed some top tube repair, but that’s a killer deal. We’ve got some older bikes. Um, if you’re looking for just any basic road bike, you know, classic 10 speed. Obviously there’s 11 speed as well.
Shawn: 22:34 Threaded bottom brackets, normal road bike. They’re not the prettiest, but if you’re just looking to throw together anything, we got those as well. Even if you want a bike, just the build up and throwing your trainer. Um, these would be great. You know, maybe we don’t know what some of them are going to go to them for. I guess write a couple hundred bucks maybe for some of them. Framing fork. I’m somewhere just frame home name, but what’s the coolest bike out there we have for you? The coolest bike that we have out there for me, that Ruby Bay, the custom special one rebate is really, really cool. Big, big green time. Oh, the time. We have two times. Yeah. I know. There are two times. Both of those are very cool. I know. I’m one of the awesome. Yeah, the green. Yeah. Two Times. That coal, that extreme power is pretty cool too. A little bit of an older one and he’s probably looking at 2007. I think it was that old. Yeah. Is getting. That one’s pretty cool. We have a couple full suspension, bigger travel mountain bikes out there. What’s the specialized stump jumper? Fs are correct frame, but that we also have that shock with it. Rear Shock, rear shock. Um, bike’s awesome. That’s what are you looking up at? A hundred and 40
Shawn: 23:46 millimeters. A rear travel hundred and 450. I don’t remember. It’s big but it’s big. And then there’s a w in the full suspension room as well. We have a jekyll to candidate cannondale jekyll out there. Um, that one I believe comes with a lot of parts to some rear shock. Yeah. Every bike Kinda, you know, depending on which one you’re interested in has various levels of forks, wheels, components, whatever. With it, I’m kind of getting rid of everything as is. And you know, some of them may be missing a cable stop. It can just go a removable cable stopping. Go find, you know, we’re pointing people to their local friendly bike shop in Portland to help fill in any of those small parts. Totally. We’ve got a couple of smaller frames. Uh, one of the ones that I thought was really cool is that giant live the avail disbursing spray, which is a really, really cool frame.
Dan: 24:32 That one’s definitely on the smaller size to it’s gotta be 50 or 51, I’m not sure the size. So that would be great for the smaller writer. Um, there’s a trek farley out there.
Dan: 25:33 We have suggested pricing, but as it being a warehouse sale come and pitch a surprise to the worst that we can say is no, we’re just looking to make some room around here. Pretty much. Almost all. Well what a good half of them are repaired on ready to go home. The other half we’re going to be basically taken to the positive essentially to get them into a repair queue and you’ll have it in two, three weeks. Yeah. Depending on the damage, you know, if it’s a simpler repair and two weeks is probably what you’re looking at. A few, you know, get something with a harder repair, going to be a little longer than that, but it’s winter. It is winter. It’s terrible out. Well actually it’s not lately. Now, not this weekend, not this weekend. If you are interested in attending the warehouse sale, the dates are all online, but since you’re listening, January twentieth, starting 10:00 AM to 7:30, three eighty southeast 20th avenue, Portland, Oregon, and Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, 10 to four, 10 to four, 10 to four, sponsored by [inaudible] the box.
Shawn: 26:33 Come early. Make an offer because we’re not going to. Oh yeah. We’re not going to hold anything. No, no holding note. No reservations. We take credit card. We need to push that. No, we do take credit. Cash cryptos. We accepting cryptos. Buy Coins by Colin’s. I don’t know. We’ll accept doge coins. I just listened to a podcast called planet money on Dojo. Point 2,000,000,000. Regarding creative Deutsche. Greg doesn’t have any dose coins anymore. Funny. Yeah. Saturday, January twentieth, 10 to 4:33 eighty southeast 20th avenue. Portland, Oregon, 97 to zero to hope to see you there. We’ll have a two personnel from inflatable, wacky, inflatable, two-person, wacky, waivable. Inflatable. And Are we going grilling hot dogs? We are grilling hot dogs. That’s Vegan or not be getting. Doesn’t matter. We got both. We’ve got them both. Everybody’s welcome here. Always. That’s a general statement for us in general.
Dan: 27:33 Everybody’s welcome to come anytime. Unless we’re on lunch. Was around though then as someone’s still here and if you come on lunch, bring his chips because we love them. Well that about tapes up the box for this episode. Thanks for tuning in. As always, you can reach us through any form of social media using the Hashtag carbon queries. We have gotten a lot of great questions submitted through that already, so we’re going to keep going with that. Please help us get the word out there like share, comment, give us five star ratings or just an honest rating. We really liked that too.
Dan: 28:06 Remember, the only moment you have is the present. Check into it once in a while. We’ll see everybody next week.
Shawn: 28:06 Good. You jump to the job. Will get jam. Slam you in a fight at what? Carbon Bikes break the most? Find us at the bar. Nobody found us at the bar. Nobody found us at the bar.