Criterium updates the rental fleet three times every year:  Memorial Day, July 4, and Labor Day.

Our Memorial Day sell-off starts at 8 a.m. on Monday, May 28th.  This sale includes rental mountain bikes, both hard-tail and full suspension.  There are very few 29ers in the May Sale.  They are simply too new to sell off.  You may preview the bikes the day before:  Sunday, May 27th.  We won’t have prices until that date.

The sale on the 4th of July will include Specialized demo mountain bikes.  We are not allowed to sell those until after June 30th.  The July sale will also include a variety of road bikes.

All of the sales also feature leftover treasures that are new to you, but old to us.

Our events for Novice Riders begin Saturday, April 28th, with the Specialized Women’s Ride Day.  Molly will lead a ride from Criterium to Garden of the Gods via the Greenway Trail.   There may also be a self-guided group going via street on road bikes.   The ride will take shape at 2 p.m.

RAIN?   …always a possibility in Colorado!  Molly will lead a short fit seminar in the store if it is too wet to ride.  Bring your bike!

NEXT:  Beginner riding classes –limit of 5 riders–personal attention to your riding position, starting and stopping techniques, using gears.  Call for times and reservation.  $20/hour. 599-0149

Chick Fil-A Novice rides:  Tori leads a Saturday breakfast ride from Chick Fil-A on Garden of the Gods to Criterium.  Over the season, this ride will help novices prepare for the Ride for Heroes.

Training rides for the Ride for the Cure:  We need a ride leader to train novices for the Komen Ride for the Cure.  Rides will originate at Criterium.

We know all about inflation at the bike shop.  Putting air in your tires keeps the wheels round and helps you to roll faster.  There is a self-serve pump by the front door.  We will also fix your flat while you wait, any time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., so the flat tire doesn’t ruin your ride.

There is a dark side of inflation, too.  The price of black butyl rubber has been steadily rising.   We can’t control this type of inflation, but we can develop some offers to keep your bicycle miles per dollar up.

For example, we did not want to compromise the quality of innertubes that we sell, so we now offer ‘bulk tubes’ of identical quality, without the box.  These tubes are available in most common sizes.  In addition to the bulk tube savings, we offer an additional $3 off when you purchase three tubes.   It gives you an incentive to keep a spare on hand.  Here is the math:   $10 tube in box, OR $6.52 bulk tube – $1 each with 3-tube discount = $5.52 before tax.   …just a little more than a gallon of gasoline, and probably good for hundreds of miles.

SPRING brings new necessities to the bike shop.  One of our favorite new products is a child-sized wind jacket from Pearl Izumi in that brilliant yellow color worn by bicyclists and the Baylor basketball team.  Sometimes it is called ‘ion yellow’ or ’screamin’ yellow.’  In addition to the high-viz jacket, Criterium stocks real bike shorts, bike gloves, sport tops, helmets, and dark glasses for children.

Our motto is ‘Start Here,’ and we mean that by age, as well as by location!

Yes, we are open Easter Sunday.  It looks like a good day for an afternoon ride.  Look for our daffodils and forsythia in bloom, and celebrate the season with Jelly Belly Sport Beans if the Easter Bunny skipped your house.

Like Caesar, our half-price service specials will die on March 15th.    As long as we have the bike checked in by that date, the deal will apply when you pick up the bike.

All of us here at the shop love our smart phones.  I don’t think anyone of us could do with out them for any more than half a day.  On top of that we’ve all experimented with using them as a GPS unit as well, see the map below for an example.  If you haven’t gone down Jacks I promise you there are not that many long straights and 90 degree turns.  The phone lost the connection and recorded a B-line between the two last known locations.   The phone’s batteries are also depleted within about 2 hours with continuous GPS use, making it completely useless if something bad is to happen.

Until this year, the cost of a stand alone GPS unit was so huge it was hard to justify the expense.   That’s all changed now with the 2012 Garmin line. For the cost of the deductible on a broken smart phone you can now afford a well-made GPS unit. Keep the phone, too!   

So, don’t invest in a new mount to put your phone on the handlebars, but store it in a nice cushioned bed packed away in a pocket or pack.  The Garmin can handle the dirt, rocks, rain and mud that we come across on an average ride off road.    Stop in at the shop, check out the Garmin Edge 200, 500 and all the rest.

We forget that 60 and 70-degree days are not uncommon in the Pikes Peak Region, even in January! A variety of customers seize the day to get outside, choose a new bike, or call up a friend for a ride. Don’t forget to bring in your bikes for service before the next global warming event creates a perfect day on the trail. Criterium never experiences an off-season, and this month, intrepid riders are joining us with a year-round enthusiasm for cycling.

As the temps drop outside the temptation is to slack off and sit on the couch, losing the fitness you spent all season building up by piling on miles. In addition, the availability of holiday sweets adds to the problem, but we have a solution for your dilemma: indoor racing. No longer do you need to brave freezing temps to get a high intensity workout to maintain your fitness and burn those excess holiday calories.
Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday starting at 6pm, you can bring your road or TT bike down and for the low, low price of FREE (yup, that’s not a typo) challenge yourself by racing with some other folks.
We have four Computrainers set up and linked together so that you can race virtual courses with other people simultaneously. It is a hard workout that lasts between 30-40 minutes typically, and gives you valuable data like power output, calories burned, speed, and power to weight ratio. Come down and check it out and bring some friends to race against.