Working on the shower

I am currently working in my office (less than 10ft away from where the above picture was taken) trying to knock out some work while slowly developing a headache. We are less than 1 month from grand opening so I must have my brain rattled one way or another!

The shipments have started arriving

The UPS man has been starting to get a bit busy with us lately. We have finally started ordering merchandise.

The almighty keggerator has arrived! It shall have a glorious custom tap handle which is currently in production.

And finally the tools arrived too. Above is my double repair stand and below is my master mechanic tool kit.

The painting has started

We just wrapped up painting the fit studio. It just happens to be that today is St. Patty's and we were painting a room green.

Tomorrow it looks like the serious painting starts when we do the showroom. Hopefully free beer attracts some help.
I got a few test saddles in today also. At Pro Cycle and Tri we take professional fitting very serious and like any real fit studio we have a good selection (almost overwhelming) of test saddles available for clients to take out on the road and try out. So far we have accumulated 22 saddles but we should be over 40 saddles by next week.

F.I.S.T. fit school day 2

Today at FIST training we discussed more tri-fit protocols. We performed the usual hands on training and had group discussions.

The Slowtwitch compound is scattered with dogs. Important rule! If you walk into a business and they don't have a dog(s) on staff, DON'T TRUST THEM! There are no exceptions to this rule. That's why Pro Cycle & Tri keeps Chip on payroll.

Pictured above are Dan's shoes. They are trail running shoes that look like clown shoes, interesting.

Pictured above is another staff member.

Above is my sweet whip I rented. I figured it was worth mentioning since I paid a high fee for being under 25 years old. Thanks Enterprise for charging me extra for no reason!

F.I.S.T. fit school day 1

My endless quest for training and expertise has brought me to Valyermo, CA to get trained by Dan Empfield on triathlon fitting. I decided back in October to become a FIST trained triathlon fitter. FIST (fit institute slowtwitch.com) was founded by Dan Empfield, I wont go into his background and history since most triathletes know it and its not hard to find elsewhere. Basically Dan is the biggest influence in the tri industry. FIST is a triathlon specific fitting method. In all fit schools I have attended they have discussed road, mountain, tri, etc. FIST is strictly triathlon specific. FIST is the standard by which all tri and time trial fits are judged by and it is the most sought after fit method for triathletes. The clinics that Dan puts on are for retailers, coaches and manufactures. At 1am this morning I landed and made my way to the Xantusia compound. I woke up this morning and took a look outside and was amazed (check the photo above) by the scenery and facilities. This place is a multi sport athletes wonderland endless trails, swimming facilities and good mountains to explore.

Dan has an unbelievable database of frame geometries and fit coordinates of thousands of triathletes.

Dan has accumulated his fair share of bike equipment over the years. The above picture is just a small sample. He has enough saddles to build a mountain.

The fits that we do here are all performed on size cycles.

Most of the fit schools I've done in the past covered tri fit but FIST takes it above and beyond the others. Today I learned some new things which other fit schools never covered as far a triathlon fitting goes. FIST education will be a very useful offering to our clients and I'm excited to start using it.

Unleashing the news

This morning we will be sending out our press release. I'd say over 50 people know about the shop already and we have had nothing but positive reactions and excitement.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


New bicycle and triathlon store coming to Fairhope, AL



Fairhope, AL. 03/04/2011. Pro Cycle & Triathlon is proud to announce the opening of the Gulf Coast’s newest bicycle and triathlon store located in scenic Fairhope, AL. The grand opening date has been set for late April 2011. The store will be located downtown Fairhope at 510 Fairhope Avenue. Pro Cycle & Triathlon is family owned and operated and will offer sales of bicycles along with bicycle, triathlon, and swimming accessories. Both professional repair and professional bicycle fitting services will be available.

Pro Cycle & Triathlon will be located on Fairhope Avenue in a 3,000 square foot location.

A strong focus of the shop will be helping local cyclist and triathletes in staying healthy. Shower and changing facilities will be offered to clients.

A huge focus of Pro Cycle & Triathlon will be offering clients exceptional services. Professional repair services will be performed by a United Bicycle Institute certified professional mechanic. United Bicycle Institute is the industry's leading technical school. Services offered will range from simple flat tire repairs to advanced overhauls and custom wheel building.

Professional bicycle fitting services will be offered to the store state-of-the-art bicycle fitting studio by highly skilled fitting technicians. Pro Cycle & Triathlon will have the only F.I.S.T. certified triathlon bicycle fitting professional in the state of Alabama.

For more info visit them on the web at www.procycleandtri.com or email info@procycleandtri.com

Progress report

Things are starting to shape up construction wise. Suprisingly everything has been smooth and simple.

The builders have been at work for the past 2 days so I figured I could share the progress.

Above is a picture from our fit studio. This will be the stage where the magic will happen.

Next up is the framing for the service department.

Above is the framing for a dressing room.

Yesterday one of our vendor reps stopped by and gave us an outdoor demo for Skirt Sports and showed off some other cool new products.