Spring Update

What’s up bike people? I just wanted to give you a little update on Rock The Bike as we head in to the Spring.

Rock The Bike is growing! Last year this time there was only one employee, me. Now there’s five of us! I’ll get you a picture soon. There’s Emmeline, who balances the books and crunches the numbers, Paul, our in-house pro videographer photographer extreme athlete, Leif, our product designer, and Melanie, our customer service rep and outreach specialist. And I am now working 100÷ on RTB, having stepped down from running Worldbike, as I had since 2003. (A huge salute to Worldbike’s new director, Kristna Evans, who is on a mission to take Worldbike from a rough-and-ready grassroots bike-focused nonprofit, to a international poverty-focused NGO using bicycles as a tool for economic empowerment.) With each of RTB’s key new hires, we shift from amateur to professional in their area of focus.

And as I hail this moment of losing our amateur status, I must acknowledge that we’ve been less than perfect in some areas this past year, including our customer service. So if there’s anything that’s bugging you about about a Rock The Bike purchase or product, please let us know. In particular, if you had to deal with a delay of more than 2 weeks on a Down Low Glow purchase without proper communication from us, and would like a shipping refund, please let us know. Please use the contact page on the left and select “customer service” as the topic.

Phew, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me tell you some of the cool things we’re working on this Spring.

I guess I’m ready to announce that we’re hard at work on a new version of our flagship product, the Down Low Glow. I’ve used the DLG almost every night for the past 5 years. I’ve used all the colors except Royale Purple. I love the DLG and know that there are aspects of the current version that I’m really going to miss. But the new version will without a doubt solve the waterproofing problem we’ve battled from day 1, and be much simpler, with fewer things to attach to your bicycle in order to use it. The new DLG will be a much more ‘manufactured product’, whereas the current one was I think correctly described as ‘cottage industry’ by Velovision’s Peter Eland. We currently make every DLG system by hand in our West Berkeley workshop. There are so many parts and so many steps involved in making it, many of which are rising in price, that we are now forced to raise the price of our trickle-charged DLG systems by about 10÷. The price change will go into effect April 8, so please take that into account if you are planning to buy one. Customers who purchase a DLG system between now and our early summer release of the new DLG will get access to industry pro-deal pricing on the new one. So if you’re psyched to buy the DLG now, go for it. I promise you won’t regret getting started sooner than later with this amazing product!

Let’s see, what else? We’re now the exlusive North American distibutor for the Yuba Mundo, a heavy duty cargo bike that will make a great platform for custimizing to your unique cargo. We’re becoming, in a sense, long-wheelbase bicycle specialists, because we also carry and install the Xtracycle FreeRadical. So if you want unbiased advice on which cargo utility bike platform is right for you, please contact us.

We entered the Bicycle Film Festival with an extended version of our Innovate-Or-Die piece on the Choprical Fish. We’ll be doing lots more on-the-ground documentation of San Francisco’s bike culture in the coming year, now that Paul McKenzie is on board.

We’ve also doubled our square footage in our workship.

Well, I think that about covers it. If you’ve read this far you must be interested in our little company and our crazy mission to “bring the light, bring the beat”, and help each of you truly rock ou on you’re two-wheeled thing. I thank you for your support and interest, whether you’re a customer, a fan, or just a web surfer.

Yours,
Paul a.k.a. Fossil Fool