Last weekend we went up to Petaluma to scout the consignment stores for a nice old cabinet or armoire for our art/guest room, and we came home with this!
Nice armoire, eh?
So how exactly does this happen? How do you head out for a nice old armoire and come home with a shiny new bike with internal hub gears and disc brakes? Particularly when the type of bicycle you’re pining for looks something like this?
(Electra “Amsterdam” series bicycle photo courtesy of bikeportland.org)
Well, here’s how it happens. First, you try to find an Amsterdam style bicycle here in the US and find that they’re just a tad more expensive here than there. Next, you go on a scouting trip for a completely different item, in charming Petaluma, California. You stroll down Petaluma Blvd and wander into the Sonoma Bicycle Company, just out of curiosity, and ask them if they carry any bikes that would work nicely with, say, an xtracycle. Turns out they do have a great bike that looks like it would work well for your daily commute with the kids, and will you look at that? It has all kinds of nice additional perks, like the aforementioned gearing and brakes, as well as fenders for those rainy day rides. Then you decide that it’s a great bike and you really like it but it’s still more than you can spend, so you thank the great guys at the shop and move along. At this point things get good – they send someone out after you to chase you down and tell you that they’ll sell you the bike for a ridiculously fantastic price!
And that’s how an armoire gets turned into a brand new bike.
