Originally Posted By: gizzsdad
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
The shop is
Skunk River Cycles. The owner's name is Ron
Actually - he spells it Ronn - and he is a great guy. I was thinking of him early in the thread before I knew you would reveal it later.
We are very fortunate to have two excellent shops in a town the size of Ames.
Yes we are, and thank you for the name correction.
Originally Posted By: someguy
Originally Posted By: The_Eric
Well, we did it... We each pulled the trigger on a new road bike. I got the Schwinn linked in the first post and the better half got a Raleigh Revenio 2.0. The shop gave us a discount on the sale priced bikes and a discount on the accessories we bought. The owner then grabbed us a couple of t-shirts and helped us load the bikes, then bid us farewell with handshake... I'm sold...
Sounds like a good day, and his plan worked you went out and told your friends about his shop.
I'm sure it did and I do plan to put the bug in everyone's ear.
Originally Posted By: steve
I know Skunk River Cycles of Ames, IA very well having bought things there for years. Ron, shop owner, is THE GURU for cycling in the upper Midwest and, as noted, a walking encyclopedia of things cycling. The shop is superb. Employees are top notch, know their products, and focus on the customers' needs. I needed some overshoes for winter cycling. Wade did a great job explaining the options, which worked and which were not so great. I could have bought them on the Web but chose Skunk River instead. I value the advice and technical expertise over the cheapest deal since I've been had too many times by the latter. Anyway, loaning these bikes for the weekend was typical Ron.
Although not a surprise, it's really good to hear others have had the same type of experience we had!
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
I LOVE that Schwinn! I`d like to find an old Schwinn Sting.
I do too!
Originally Posted By: cyclehead
The last two bikes I bought from bike shops were loaned to me the same way. "Try them over the weekend". I think it's a testament to the caliber of people that are interested in bicycling! .... Of course I`m prejudiced ~ see my screen name
I think these guys are beyond interested. It's their life.
As an update:
We now have around 200 miles apiece on our new bikes. I was riding mine back and forth to work until harvest got in the way, and then it got to be dark at the end of work, so cycling down a highway in the dark isn't really high on my list of fun things. The wife bought us a trainer and the corresponding tires (from Skunk River Cycles of course) and she's logged a few miles on it too. I haven't thrown a leg over mine in the trainer yet as I've been too busy after work, but would like to eventually. I do miss riding and have considered bringing it to work and riding to and from lunch.
The bikes themselves have been flawless (with the exception of one of my spokes coming loose) and we are still quite happy with them.
Since I'm here typing, I'd like some input on chain lube. We have to ride or rack/drive on 3/4 mile of gravel before getting to pavement and because of this, our chains accumulate a fair amount of dust and grit. The lube the chains were shipped with seemed pretty resistant to the build up, but our lubes haven't handled the task as well. So far we've tried Rock'N'Roll, Tri-Flow and Finish Line (Wet). I switched to the Wet, thinking that we weren't going to let rain get in our way, but it's been a fairly dry year... The Rock'N'Roll was not as easy to clean as I'd like. Maybe I should give it another try?
Also, is there a trick, or a tool to getting the chains apart? They both have one link with a slot in it that looks like you should be able to squeeze the pins together and it should unlock?
