Marty's Blog

CABDA 2017:

So here we are; a bike shop in the dead of winter in northeast Ohio. Without a large demand for bicycles or labor services, we decided to head northwest to check out what was happening in Chicago IL. Turns out, not much really, but there was a huge bicycle expo going on in St. Charles! As you read on the homepage, we sent Mike and Joe up to this show to see what it was all about. There were many dealers present, and a few with booths among the plethora of manufacturers; some of which included, Shimano, Bianchi, Campagnolo, Park Tool, Bosch, Felt, Jamis, Moots, Orange, Wheel Fanatyk, and many others.

The show consisted of two large "Showroom" areas where dealers, vendors, and manufacturers could strut their stuff and bribe your staff with freebies. Some of the freebies were the product itself for companies like Dumond (lubricants) and WD-40 (cleaners) while others simply gave out information on becoming a distributor. It was really neat to see new tech like FSA's new wireless groupset, Rotor's new hydraulic shifting groupset, and Boschs' new e-bike system. Speaking of which, we're becoming more interested in this growing niche. Bosch is haveing a training seminar to become certified in servicing their e-bike systems. Marty is thinking of sending a few of our mechanics there so that we can be an authorized service shop for Bosch systems, although we're not certain if carying the e-bikes would prove to be worthwhile as they are quite expensive. Be sure to dorp us a line and let us know how you feel about that!

The second part of the show (which was going on at the same time) were seminars put on by various vendors or manufacturers. This made the show a bit frustrating as you'd get caught up in conversation with someone on the showroom floor and miss the seminar you wanted to attend. The ones we did get to check out were very informative and engaging. One was about managing your business online and is actually the reason for this website re-construction.

That's all for now, please send us a comment on facebook or send us an e-mail to let us know what your think about e-bikes and our new website! We'd love to hear from you!