Open Bicycle

Friday, May 7th, 2010 posted by Joshua

I apparently was a bit ambitious about blog frequency in my last post, and there’s good reason.  Solid spring weather has found us happy and healthy here in Union Square, Somerville, with plenty of projects, plans, and moves to accommodate. A few things of note:

We’ve been running all over the Northeast arranging the final touches for the new shop.  Our socially-conscious design vision (and our long-since-over-budget build-out allowance) compel us to recycle and reuse as much as possible in our transformation a 40-year old barbershop to a clean and functional shop.  We found dozens of recycled steel shelves (from a now-defunct RAD Fabrications) up in New Hampshire to organize our stockroom and make room for all the new product coming.  A blisteringly fast shot down to south Connecticut scored us a few made-in-NYC vintage oak library ladders for our roomy upstairs (cool story on the Putnam Ladder Company last year in the NY Times) and a rush hour crawl back.

We dropped by Sean Milnes’ lovely house in New Haven to relax a bit and pick-up Sean’s wheels for repair.  Turns out doing this:

Leads to this:

(Photos via Ride Tyrant’s Flickr)

Sean’s off on a East Coast trip with Shop Cultur on what may be one of the first FGFS “pro” tours this June, and we spoke a bit about what the scene is shaping up to be.  Manufacturers are making new product to meet the evolving demands of riders like Sean and enterprises like Shop Cultur signal the rise of FGFS in the ‘burbs and smaller cities that don’t have shops like OPEN to cater to their needs.  Inevitable schlocky bandwagoning aside, it’s a win for everybody when a small group of committed pioneers create something that gains mass appeal and support, and we at OPEN are constantly looking in to new product, events, and education to encourage this growth.  Sean is a genuine, kind, and focused person and is exactly the kind of individual who personifies our philosophies and attitude.  We’re super happy to have him as part of the family.  Be sure to check him out on the tour (details TBD) and at the BFF 2010 in NYC this year (OPEN will be there for the films, races, comps, and street party, as well).

Last note / shameless plug:

Chorus Gallery, formerly adjacent to the old OPEN shop, is getting ready to occupy new (and larger) space down the street and is holding a pop-up gallery and live-painting fundraiser at  Trina’s Starlight Lounge, May 12th, 2010. Drink specials, good art, and fine people will be in abundance. Come out and support Chorus Collective as we move towards reopening in Union Square.

All that being said, keep an eye peeled on this site / RSS / word on the street as we rapidly approach our re-opening.  The shop is looking good, the weather is getting consistently clement, and we’re becoming terribly excited.