Skull!

Get out and ride and make some scary StravART!

Spooky Scary StravART!!

It's time for some more drawing with your bicycle! Because it's the Season of the Witch (my top Halloween song, BTW) the challenge this month is to draw something that fits that theme. It could be a pumpkin, a ghost, or this scary cat:
We'll ride this out to Sunday, October 26th. Do the ride, draw the thing, email the masterpiece to cort@peddlerbikeshop.com. My team of art critics will judge your creativity and we will select a winner on Halloween, October 31st.

What's this month's prize, you ask? Check this out:
Just in time for cheering at cyclocross races!

SSSHHH Sleepy September

I welcomed a new cub to my wolfpack on September 5th at 2:57PM. Since then my schedule has revolved around him sleeping and the Peddler Bike Shop Strava Club has missed a monthly challenge. Today I correct that!

To correspond with my new found joy I'm looking to the new Tour De Wolf 2014 segment to award this month's Local Challenge prize.

And the Club Members with the fastest times are Ellis Huey for the boys and Mollie Smith for the girls! For each of you I have a bag of Skratch Labs Apples+Cinnamon Hydration Mix. Swing into the Walker Shop and pick up your bag at your earliest convenience.

Mmiiddnniigghhtt Ccllaassiicc

Kudos to everyone who rode the Midnight Classic this year! The Peddler Strava Club has a few members on the leaderboard for this year and I know some people beat some personal goals they had set for themselves. But the challenge this month was to take a ssllooww ride and one person was the slowest: Pete Sullivan! With a time of 1 hr, 42 minutes, and 53 seconds Pete is almost an hour behind the KOM. That's definitely some chill riding!

Pete, stop by the Walker location to pick out your T-shirt and size.

Can You Push SLOW?

The USA Pro Challenge starts on Monday the 18th and rides through Sunday the 24th. During this week the pros will ride 524 miles around Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. They will be pushing much faster than you and I, so I say "let 'em." I'm ready to sit back and watch and go on some chill rides. That's where this month's challenge comes into play. The Meritan Midnight Classic is August 23rd. While a lot of folks will be trying to treat this ride like a race we challenge you to treat it like a cruise. Whoever lands at the bottom of the leaderboard will win the challenge. Be sure you are registered for the ride here.

The prize for this challenge? A Bontrager Paw T-Shirt* to remind us that we don't always have to kit up to go ride a bike.

*T-Shirt subject to availability

Longer Miles and Shorter Months

It's me, right? These days are just flying by; filled with grand openings and grand projects and grand tours. Maybe you feel it, too? I think we need to take a step back and focus on what's important right now: riding bicycles. July felt really great and if you didn't get out and enjoy those cool temps, well, dudes, I feel sorry for you.

I know someone who did enjoy them, though. Goes by the name of Richard Taylor and he logged over 1,000 miles in the month of July. For his efforts I'm going to buy him some beers. Root beers. Flavored Gu. Root Beer Flavored Gu:

Swing by the shop on Walker and pick up your prize an any time, Richard!

Check back soon for the August Local Challenge!

Wind and Rain and Morning Sun

It looks like somebody was able to get out on short notice and steal a KOM, despite any foul weather. Congratulations to Bryant from BPC on crushing Morning Sun Hill and swiping a Knog cycling cap to keep the sun out of his eyes while he sits so high atop the leaderboard. How's the weather up there? It's still kinda rainy down here in Regularsville. Maybe July will clear up.

To redeem your prize contact cort@peddlerbikeshop.com.

Everyone stay tuned for July!

Last Minute June Local Challenge!

I'm sure you can imagine how busy it's been at the shop, what with the move and all. So we'll go ahead and blame the lack of June's Local Challenge on that, and not that I had an excellent vacation in California and I also just built a brick patio at my house. And man has it been hot! Whenever it's not raining that sun is blazing! We want you to stay cool out there so this Challenge's prize will keep you in the shade. Or, at least, it will keep your eyes in the shade.

This cycling cap from Knog will protect your eyes, absorb your sweat, and has the added bonus of making you look good. Not to mention the fact that it's yellow, and I'm sure you know the connotations of that *cough* Tour de France *cough*

To win this shade-thrower all you have to do is post the fastest time on the Morning Sun Hill segment in the month of June 2014. You have until the end of the month, which is Monday, at 11:59:59 PM. I know that one Strava Cycling Club Member has already ridden it this month, now get out and prove yourself!

Here's the link to the segment so you can see the deets: http://www.strava.com/segments/morning-sun-hill-1735748

May Local Challenge Winners

Kudos to everyone who got out and rode on Memorial Day! While I wasn't able to participate in Tour de La Grange, I was able to get out and steal some KOMs elsewhere! It also gave me some time to get an amazing prize for our 3rd May Local Challenge Winners. That's right, I said winners!

There's a little segment out on the course around mile 15 on Yager Road called Yager Shot. We had some Club members post up some good times on the segment. Two of the top times belong to Peddler Employees; as such they are ineligible for prizes. And I know they are wishing they could have won one of these beauties:

In keeping with the theme of the segment name we have a 16oz Stainless Steel Trek Logo Cup for each winner. The two Club members with the best times on the segment yesterday are MR Graham and Trey L! They actually tied each other! I can only imagine them going up at the same time and encouraging each other along the way!

You guys can pick up your prize at Peddler Bike Shop on Highland, ask for Cort or email cort@peddlerbikeshop.com to make other arrangements.

May Local Challenge Week 3 (Kinda)

According to Strava, a week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. But whenever there is a holiday on Monday we say we have a "3 day weekend." So I'm fudging the rules a bit and holding the 3rd week challenge on Monday. Now a lot of you guys and girls who are on teams have been DOMINATING the club leaderboards. So to get some swag into the hands of the folks who may not be the fastest, who may not climb the most, or who may not ride as much or as long, there will be some challenges over the next few weeks to reward them.

The challenges will focus on charity rides because riding for a cause is just as important as riding for yourself.

The week 3 challenge will occur during the Hightailers Tour de La Grange on Monday, May 26th.
The actual challenge is still TBD and the prize is still TBD, so you just have to do the ride, and do the best you can do! Remember to log it and load it, or it doesn't count!

Don't forget to tag your Instagram pics #shelbypeddler and Twitter @shelbypeddler!

Bike To Work Week Winners

So I looked down at my feet after another busy day at work and said, "What are all of these water bottles doing down here?"

Duh! I forgot to post the results of the May Week 2 Local Challenge! So I did take a picture of the winners and thankfully I still have it. The top ten are as follows:

1. Dwayne Accardo
2. Will Stoffel
3. Dannie Medlin
4. Victor Gasior
5. Carter Chappell
6. Jeff Fejfar
7. Patrick Smith
8. Michael Burt
9. Richard Taylor
10. Tim Hanisco

Tim edged me out by 1.1 miles! Not that I need another water bottle...

So all of you guys can stop by the Highland store and pick up your 1 World, 2 Wheels water bottle at any time, preferably soon, so I don't keep kicking them!

Hump Day? More like Slump Day!

AmIright? First off, big congrats to Andrea "Brickhouse Racing" Wilson for maintaining her lead over all challengers on Plymouth Rock last week and to Jeff Fejfar for holding steady. You two can swing by the shop and pick up two tubes of your choice. If you have any questions contact cort@peddlerbikeshop.com.

So this week started off great for bike commuters but has slowly gotten soggier! But it looks like this rain will cool things down for the rest of the week! Have you registered for Bike To Work Day? Visit http://www.biketoworkmemphis.com/ to register, find an energizer station, and get all the info for the rest of the week.

Stay tuned for more bad jokes later on in the week!

May Local Challenge(s)!

We're gonna shake it up this month. May is National Bike Month and there is so much going on we have decided to do a different challenge each week!

Week #1: If April Showers bring May Flowers, what do May Flowers bring? (Wait for it...) Pilgrims! We've created a segment on the Tour de Wolf in Shelby Farms and titled it Plymouth Rock:

You might recognize this segment as near the abandoned cars. One of the cars is a Ford and Vance thinks the other one is a Pontiac but we're gonna call it a Plymouth. Just go with it. Either way, watch out for ghosts.

The segment is visible in this video at 8:45 until approximately 9:45:


The challenge is to KOM/QOM this segment. And you only have until May 11th to do it! The Strava Cycling Club Members (one male, one female) with the highest rankings as of May 11th at 11:59:59PM will win 2 inner tubes in their preferred size.

Week #2: Bike To Work Week! The Top 10 Strava Cycling Club Members with the most cumulative miles on the weekdays (Monday May 12th through Friday May 16th) will receive a 1 World, 2 Wheels water bottle!

Week #3: We're still working on week #3.

Week #4: Special Tour de Cure Challenge! We gave you a preview of this challenge back in February. You can read all about it here. Or click the image below to get registered!

Mayflower Winners!

Congratulations to Carter Chappell and Tina Sullivan for KOMing and QOMing our special Strava segment! It was a hard fought battle against the wind, time and the other club members! For their efforts they will each receive a pair of Bontrager R3 tires!

Email cort@peddlerbikeshop.com to schedule a way to pick up your prizes!

Tandem Takeover

Not every telephone call the bike shop receives is checking to see if we can deliver water bottle cages to a hotel downtown, but this phone call was. After a few moments of disbelief followed by a credit card transaction we had a delivery to make.

I was expecting to leave the bottle cages at the front desk for a pair of cycle tourists but I walked into a registration area and amazingly bumped into the customers right away. (I know this because everyone was wearing name tags!) They thanked me and invited me into a staging area where several people were attaching brake cables and making sure all the gears were shifting on their tandems.

A room full of tandems! Plus another room full of tandems in boxes! Plus this was registration day! About 100 tandems will be taking over Memphis today and Sunday. After the Memphis visit the group will board the American Queen River Boat and sail on down the Mississippi towards New Orleans.

Many of the tandems there were Santanas, who also happen to be the tour organizers. You can find out more at http://www.santanatandem.com/. Their 2015 Memphis to New Orleans tour is 80% booked so get going. If you are in the market for a great touring tandem you can also check out Tandems, Ltd. When they aren't doing support for the Santana Tour they run their shop in Birmingham, AL and focus just on Tandems and Recumbents.

When you see them out be sure to say hi! I just hope they aren't uploading to Strava; I'd hate to have to battle the power behind four legs!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

After completing the March Radness Local Challenge your strong legs should be ready for our April challenge: the Mayflower Sprint! We've marked out a short segment of smooth bike lane heading south on McLean from Poplar to Madison. The approximate ending point is the Mayflower Apartments. (See, that's how we're tying in the name. There is a Mayflower Street in Memphis but it's not in a very connected location.) The challenge this month is to KOM this segment!

The Peddler Bike Shop Strava Club Member with the highest ranking at the end April (Wednesday, April 30th, 11:59:59PM) will win a pair of Bontrager R3 700x25 Clincher Tires!

Upload your ride by May 1st and the winner will be announced Friday May 2nd.

March Local Challenge - The Final Five

Over the past two weeks we challenged our Strava Cycling Club Members to up their game and ride 280 miles. Many accepted the challenge but only five outstanding riders rode it home and now they win a Peddler Bike Shop branded mini-tool! Here are the rankings:

1. Will Stoffel - 401.9 miles
2. Carter Chappell - 347.5 miles
3. Joshua Eggar - 340.1 miles
4. Jeff Fejfar - 318.0 miles
5. Matthew Parker - 305.0 miles

And here are some sweet stats!

Winners, please contact cort@peddlerbikeshop.com to claim your prize.

March Radness

What's more important: riding bikes or watching basketball? One gets your endorphins going, is great when shared with friends, and will let you drink a few beers. Ok, wait, so maybe they both do that, but riding bikes will actually keep you healthy. So instead of spending all week watching men playing with balls you should prove that you still have some. The Peddler Bike Shop challenges you to ride the equivalent of what it would take a college basketball team to win the championship. That's 7 games because we're including the "First Four" lowest ranked teams. Excluding timeouts, halftime, overtime and commercials a game lasts 40 minutes, times 7 brings us to 280 minutes. In a minutes to miles conversion challenge, you need to ride 280 miles between March 17th and March 30th.

Those bike-riding superfans that complete the challenge will win a Peddler Bike Shop branded Park Tool IB-1C I-Beam Mini Tool!

We can't fix the games, but we can fix your bikes!

Fight For Your Bike!

We love it when people really get into being healthy! We ran a special promotion with John Trent, owner of Urban Fitness Kickboxing and President of Memphis Velo, in which the UFK Member who logged the most visits in the month of February would win a Trek 7.2 FX!

We were all surprised when not just one UFK Member, but TWO(!) showed up 42 times in February! Forty-two times in 28 days! WOW! "So what happens when there's a tie?" you ask? JAB PUNCH SHOOTOUT TIME!! Check this video clip:


After a grueling 56 minutes (56 MINUTES OF PUNCHING!!) Vernon emerged victorious and claimed his new Trek 7.2 FX!

It was such an epic jab battle that UFK Members decided that Mark deserves a new Trek 7.2 FX as well and started a collection! They've raised $100 so far! You can get in on the action at Urban Fitness Kickboxing!

Fight for your BIKE!!!

I Got Love For Ya!

I went out and hit up Overton Park and made a heart as part of our February Local Challenge. Maybe the weather was too cold because there was only one other member of the Strava Club to show some park love. That honor goes to Brad Wright:

But Brad decided he had more love to show so he went and made a second heart!

Brad, all that love wins you a Peddler Bike Shop Jersey! Come into the 575 S. Highland store and get your size!

And the rest of you check back on Friday for our March Local Challenge!

Join Us to find a Cure

We are proud to be participating once more in the Tour de Cure, an annual effort to raise money to find a cure for diabetes. We have set up a special team for the shop with the goal of raising $2,000 towards a cure. To help us reach that goal, please donate here: Team Peddler Bike Shop.

Or if this cause is as near and dear to your family as it is to ours you might be interested in starting your own team: Start Your Own Team

Sometimes we can't give but we can always click. Help spread the word by liking the cause on facebook: facebook.com/memphisada

We are also planning an extra special Local Challenge for Tour de Cure. Members of the Strava Cycling Club who participate will receive a unique gift*:
"The blue circle has become the universal symbol of diabetes. Within the blue circle is a geometrical blood drop. My intent was for this to signify the facets of life."

These awesome patches are made by Spoking Fun. Click the image to read more about the impetus behind the patch.

*Limited availability. Please notify cort@peddlerbikeshop.com when you register to ride Tour de Cure.

Project One Contest

We need a Project One bike in the store to showcase the possibilities available to customers so we've started a little Facebook Project One Contest

The employees have each designed a Project One Madone and we've put the pictures up on Facebook. The picture that gets the most likes by March 1st will be the bike that we order! Which one do you think is the best?

What would you do with Project One?

February Local Challenge - We Heart Parks

Are you familiar with StravART? People plan a route and take to the streets producing an image or message via GPS tracking. Someone even went so far as to propose!
(It wasn't me...)

For the February Local Challenge we want you to show your love as well, but it needn't be so grandiose! We want you to go to your favorite park and make a heart. Whatever park you want, however big you want it. The winner will be judged on lots of criteria like creativity, difficulty, symmetry, but basically whichever one my wife likes most. The winner will be announced on March 4th.

To win you need to be a member of the Peddler Bike Shop Club on Strava. Once you are satisfied with your GPS Heart, share your ride with cort@peddlerbikeshop.com. The winner will receive a Peddler Bike Shop Jersey!