State of the Union Avenue Climb

In this new year it is my hope that we can work together to bring safe and fun bicycling to more Memphians. In the past we have dealt with incomplete infrastructure, trail remodels, and bad weather. Now, we have turned the page. We can look forward to new monthly challenges, Strava Club Group Rides, and gift certificates. Yes, gift certificates!

We are a little late coming into the January local challenge, but I'm just coming out of hibernation. Rest assured, (see what I did there?) this one is gonna be interesting. Memphis is known for being flat so when a Cat 4 climb pops up in the middle of the city you gotta wonder, WTF Mate? This is one of those automatically generated segments that appears when Strava analyzes someone's ride data and maths it out that they climbed enough in a set distance for it to be tougher than your average hill. This segment has only one rider, and it's been that way since 2012*, so it's ripe for a new KOM and QOM. It's called the Union Avenue Climb, which is strange because it is not on Union Avenue, rather adjacent to it. Regardless, 273 feet of elevation difference in 6/10ths of a mile, average grade of 8.3%. So attack it, right!



You have until the end of January to KOM or QOM this. Winners will each receive a $10 gift certificate. Yes, gift certificates!

Go ride!

*I had someone go ride this and they noted that the segment crosses the trolley tracks on Madison, so be very careful!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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!