Come to Trophy Bikes Philadelphia for folder demos, rides and rallies, and a folder bike-on-rail excursion. Whether you're a folder geek or new to folders, you'll enjoy this weekend.


If you ride a Bike Friday, a Brompton, a Birdy, a Dahon, Moulton or Strida--come and take part. If you've wondered why folder bikes are the fastest-growing thing on two wheels, stop in for a test fold.

The ROUND UP is held during the same weekend as the TD BANK PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIP-- America's biggest one-day bike race--on Sunday, June 7th.

That means you can see top-flight road racers, a bike expo and much more!


noon-5 pm folder demos.

5:20 pm sharp --Folder Roll to Manayunk
with ad hoc hill climb of the Manayunk "Wall"
with optional return by rail (a small number of folders may be available for loan)

6 pm sharp -- Ad hoc climb of Manayunk Wall. MEET at Levering and Main Streets, Manayunk. Climb starts 15 min. later.

7 am -- (optional) come out and cheer folders (and full-sized bikes) in the MLK Time Trials. Art Museum at West River Drive, 26th and the Ben Franklin Parkway.

9 am Musical Folders ride (try out lots of new and classic folders in this short and fun ride)

10 am--2pm folder demos and talks

2 pm sharp -- bike on rail excursion.... MEET at 30th Street Station Suburban concourse--take the 2:20 R6 train; we'll detrain @ the Norristown Transp. Center and ride back to the city.

7:00-ish pm reception at Bridgewater Pub, 30th Street Station South Concourse, 30th and Market Streets.


8:30 am -- Catch the start of the TD BANK CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS.  Logan Circle, 19th and the Ben Franklin Parkway.

10 am -- Meet at the front entrance to the Pearlman Building,  2400 Pennsylvania Ave.  for group Philly Pholder Photo Op and visit to the Bike Expo and Lemon Hill to catch some race laps. Informal folder demos.

2 pm -- FAST FOLD SHOWDOWN Schuylkill River Park at Market Street. Ride! Fold! Sit! Unfold! Ride Back!

4 pm -- Informal closing at a pub TBD.

Starting in 2009, all full-time employees that regularly use their bicycles to commute to work are eligible to receive $20 every month, tax-free, from their employers.  This is a reimbursement meant to defray expenses related to cyclo-commuting such as new bike purchases, parts, repair, storage, etc.  It is not at a cost to employers: this expense is to be deducted from federal taxes.

The Bicycle Commuter Act, sponsored by Congressmen Blumenauer (D-OR), was part of the larger “Renewable Energy Tax Credit Initiatives” included in the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008” aka “Wall Street Bailout Bill,” which was passed in October 2008. 
Section 211 of this act allows for a …

PARK "TOOL SCHOOL" BIKE MAINTENANCE

How to maintain your bike on a daily, weekly and monthly basis for best performance and longest service. This 6-hr intensive, hands-on class is given once each month. Registration of $99 includes instructor fee, Park Tool School Manual, and more. We provide all the coffee, tools and materials--students learn everything involved in a standard tune-up--plus flat repair and bike maintenance. You also get a coupon good for 10% off on tools!   Bring your bike (recommended), or we provide one to work on.

spaces limited - call now to reserve your spot
215.222.2020
join our email list to stay informed
 

> 31st and Lower Walnut Street. Philad'a, Penna.




Curious? See last year's pics here.
Click to Download Flyer

It's a well known fact that cyclists enjoy eating regularly. College students? Well, they eat when they can--and where.

There's a new website to help them (and anybody into quick curbside cuisine) seek out and explore strange new meals, to boldly go where none have dined before--it's called PennFoodTrucks.com.

We're hooking up with their site, which offers a fast and easy way to locate and rate all the food trucks around the Penn campus. PennFoodTrucks even lets you search by ethnic menu and by "what's open now" fields.

This is a great feature for cyclists, because we're always on the go. Grabbing a truck meal on your bike is a good plan--you get home while your meal is still hot.

Trophy Bikes, BTW, offers the city's best selection of ways to transport your meal--baskets, racks, courier bags, even trailers and cargo bikes if you're bringing home a feast. Click here to investigate our baskets and racks. or stop in and we'll help figure out the best way to turn your bike into a lean, mean, Lo Mein-moving machine..

Then log onto PennFoodTrucks.com, dial in the coordinates and get food fast.

Greets... here are some results from the 2008 Tussle at the Trestle 2.

27 riders turned out for this flat track cross thing-a-majig bike race under the majestic railroad trestle below 31st and Walnut, just east of Trophy Bikes University City.....

-complete results-

varsity miss and out:
1. dan l. (rides RAPHA and all around nice guy)
2. harlan price (Ruta vet and 100-mile mtb racer)
3. warren h(olzman?) (A serious ironworker; also tall!)

jv miss & out:
1. nathalie anderson (Yay, Nat!)
2. keith w./ will l.
3. karen tourian  (a regular at the Trophy Bike Garage, Karen races both cross and road class)

varsity 9 lap points race:
1 harlan price
2 joe reynolds
3 jeff appletans (check out his GoCycling Philly caps/jerseys/socks)

jv 9 lap points race:
1. will l.
2. nathalie anderson
3. greg b.

bso race 1 (BSO= BikeShapedObject -- trashed old bikes from Trophy's basement)
1. luke elrath (FUJI product designer, working on their new BREEZER line)
2. joe reynolds
3. harlan price

bso race 2
1. dan l.
2. warren h.
3. ?

varsity win and out:
1. david o.
2. harlan price
3. dan l.

jv win and out:
1. nathalie anderson
2. karen tourian
3. dan collela

varsity cross:
1. harlan
2. dan l.
3. joe reynolds

jv cross:
1. karen tourian
2. greg b.
3. will l.

track pursuit (three heats):
1st heat winner: harlan
2nd heat winner: shane
3rd heat winner: will l.

PS
if we missed something, or you have rider astrological info to add --please email mcget at aol dot com

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Peter Dalkner • Thomas Faust • Robert Botto --who all got up early and laid out the course, and stayed late to take it down.

Greets...
PLEASE NOTE THAT

One of the great things about being a small business is being, er, "civic"... helping out with organizations and people doing cool things....

SPONSORSHIP is the more or less elastic word for this activity.

Some of the groups we are humbly supporting:

The Painted Bride Art Center

Fairmount Soccer Association.

Schuylkill River Park Alliance and Runnin' on the River.

Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.

Neighborhood Bike Works.

Bicycle Club of Philadelphia.

Wharton Follies --University of Pennsylvania.

Masterman Outdoor Frisbee Organization

Casino Free Philadelphia

American Cancer Society Bike-A-Thon

Parent Infant Center

These groups all need your help to make Philadelphia a better, more interesting place to be in.
Please visit their websites and consider joining, volunteering or contributing.

thanks
  mcget and the rest of the trophy bike organization....

YES, Trophy Bikes would like to sponsor more activities... but we have to say no a lot, as we are not (yet) trillionaires.

Some tips -- ask early. We like to get on board in time to get ye olde Trophy logo on programs, posters and t-shirts,--so as to selfishly swing as much PR out of our sponsorship as possible!

Come up with some numbers--tell us how many people are coming to your event, how long it lasts, when it started etc.

We generally DO NOT sponsor cross-country charity rides, as there are too many of them and we feel they are not that cost-effective.

We dig sponsoring bike events, especially if they can use non-cash help (see above about our non-trillionaire status).

Greetings... Trophy Bikes needs another staffer--we prefer a gal/guy with shop mech and sales experience, but will train the right person with skills.

It helps if you have a sense of humor, are ready to deal with a really diverse bunch of bike riders (from delivery guys to serious racers to bike tourers to super-commuters). Theater background or sales experience a plus... racing a minus (we like racers, but we already have some on staff and can't close up entirely on race days!)

We offer decent pay, iTunes, and more. P/T to start, will become F/T.

Please send your info to mcget@aol.com

thanks

On-line catalog now available. Check it out!

Every day,  we look for interesting things to stock.  If you've heard about something that we should carry at Trophy Bikes... send us an email and we'll try to get it.

Also of note--BIKEALOG--our CD-based catalog with more than 150,000 bike products--full bike specs, parts, clothing, you name it.

We keep it available at our main store on Walnut Street and down at our new Trophy Bike Garage in Northern Liberties.

Well, the first UK edition of the Brompton World Championships in London, came off like a charm Sept. 28th... Here's a quick report on the world's largest folder bike gathering, set at historic Blenheim Castle.

Trophy proprietor Michael McGettigan started in position 308, and advanced three places, finishing in 305th place. Also in the race--Roberto HERAS, former Giro winner and Tour de France rider, who took about ten minutes less than yours truly to finish the course. Amazingly, Heras did not win--British subject Alistair Kay trimmed him by a few seconds, though Heras and Barcelona-based Team Cap Problema were the top team finishers. My pictures are pretty dodgy--fortunately, I ran into ex-Philly guy Brian Jones--find a link to his excellent pics and report at the bottom of this account.

The Le Mans start, with users running to their folded bikes, was enlivened by an almost 100% defiance of the race rules, which asked riders to roll their bikes to the course from the starting area. Not b****y likely--even Brompton's staffers were spotted charging across the turf. "When your bike's unfolded, you're going to ride it, not go pushing it across the grass, I mean, really!", declared one unrepentant Brompton exec.

You know you're off the pace when: an extremely distinguished older gentleman pauses to say hello, then motors away, in full tails and patent leather shoes... and when not one, not two, but three different gals--wearing shiny pumps to go with their (required) business attire, dust you off. The last one chirped, "Okay, keep going now," in an encouraging, have a cuppa tone, as I swayed uphill in my woolen suit coat and carefully-knotted tie.

Fortunately, the BWC was just two 4-mile laps--all of which took place in the Duke of Marlborough's back yard. The awards ceremony had multiple highlights--with the best being Brompton inventor Andrew Ritchie allowing that he was a bit "horrified" to see Bromptons being used for racing, as "...they're not actually designed for that..." he murmured into the microphone before making a very nice recovery and thanking the various competitors for their exertions.

Any lingering aches were quickly dispelled by liberal doses of Wadsworth 6X -- brewed in wooden casks. Things got even sunnier when I was "adopted" by a very nice British family; father and son both had competed in nice linen suits--they noted I was a bit at sea--as I don't travel much and was having a bit of trouble understanding English as spoken in, er, England.

They offered me a "buttie"--which turned out to be a sandwich, got me back onto my Brompton S3-XL for a more sedate lap of the beautiful race course--during which I learned about "primogeniture", and then it was off to the Blenheim Castle gardens, where EVERYTHING that met the eye was designed to make you feel like a master of creation. Hedges, pools, statues, even cloud formations, all lined up just so, marching off to the horizon. I began to feel as though I was retroactively enjoying a bit of primogeniture myself.

There's nothing like a leisurely British afternoon tea to make you forget about everything--including when the bus back to London departed. Sustrans (the British group which pushes for bike facilities) to the rescue! Just outside the castle grounds, I easily picked up local Bike Route Number 5, which led to Oxford and a fast train back to Paddington Station.

After a day of sightseeing--I had a quick tour of the Brompton factory, just 10 miles from Buckingham Castle, and a five minute cycle from the train. Do you like bikes? Legos? Really cool machines? Seeing order vanquishing chaos? Then you'd love strolling the building where Bromptons are born. "On this side is the "Metal-Bashing"... welding, machining, and so forth..." quipped Brompton Quality Control maven Andrew Finkill... "...and on that side, you've got Assembly." The factory is big, yet just small enough to see the entire space in a sweeping glance... here freshly powder-coated frames were being stacked and arranged by color, there, a young, mod-looking guy was bending fender struts with a curious handpress, and in a row of bays, was the payoff: Final Assembly, where all these parts are united into a finished Brompton.

No one seemed to be hurrying, but everywhere you looked, folder subassemblies were taking shape; OK, let's talk to this burly guy was putting frames into what I mistakenly called a sandblaster...."Well, actually, it's not sand, it's MET-AL, you know--it's in fact recycled from old ball bearings... does a better job... now, let me show you how this makes it better ready to take the paint--and if we've got a problem with the brazing--I'm going to find it 'ere, See?"

He snatched up a mainframe tube and pointed to a pencilled circle--inside the circle was a minuscule blemish in the brazing--about the size of a fly's footprint. "So this 'ere--it might not hold up. We can't have that, See? And that's why we put 'm all through the blasting cabinet--if there's any little flaws--they show up right away. Now look at this brazing... see how it just like fades into the metal--that's going to take the paint well." Then followed about 15 highly-detailed minutes about quality control, where to find the initials of the worker who brazed each frame assembly, how it would be corrected, what else would happen, and etc. etc.

Was it possible to care too much? It was tough to break away from this gentleman so as to see the rest of the factory, with high tech (a room where frame hinges were inspected using magnetic flux to insure proper casting and brazing) to low tech--a folded Brompton getting a quick buff of wax before going into a shipping box, and even a bit of inspired ingenuity--a steel jig that lines up the front wheel nuts and the handlebars--to make sure the bars are perfectly straight before the stem bolts are tightened.

Another aspect of getting a Brompton built really hit home--Brompton doesn't make everything--goods trucks were arriving with hubs, shifters, other parts--all these have to come in the door just as they're needed--anything late can disturb the assembly flow and so Brompton's factory managers must constantly take the temperature of their many parts vendors.

to BE CONTINUED...
 -- do check out Brian Jones' BWC photos/report here.

Put youself on the map! Trophy has started a Frappr page to see where in the world these astonishing British folder bikes are--click here for more info or to register.