Surly Bikes
This year before Eurobike, a few of us were lucky enough to travel through the Netherlands, visit some really awesome dealers there, and (of course) ride our bikes a bit.
On the coast there is some really impressive riding to do. Beautiful, majestic, plus they sell weed in coffee shops there.
We spend two days there and visited several shops. CycleNation in Arnhem is a really cool “modern” style bike shop. (By “modern” I mean, a small amount of bikes on the wall and a lot of character with style)(As apposed to the old style, that has so many bikes squeezed in there that you can’t tell one from the others.)
They had an Ogre in stock with a sweet Woody Guthrie quote on it...wait a minute!
In Haarlem we saw Bike Planet, which is pretty much one of those bicycle super stores that you can walk around for hours in. They have a huge amount of stock, lots of P&A and accessories. The kind of place you can get lost in and that my wife would be pulling on my arm like a six year old asking, “Can we go yet? Can we go yet? Can we go yet? Can we go yet? Can we go yet? Can we go yet? Can we go yet?”
In Amsterdam saw a great shop called Kaptien. Cool city shop that has a couple of Surly fans working there. Their regular clientele don’t quite know what to think of Surly, but then, who the hell does.
Just Pedal in Amersfoort is one of my favorite shops. If you know me, or read the blog on a regular basis then you know what that means. Almost all custom builds, really creatively done and of course some with custom paint jobs as well.
This is the owner being thrashed by a small child.
Rootbeer Pug, so sweet!
In Amersfoort we also had a chance to do a Surly ride with about thirty awesome folks most of whom were on Surly. It was a classic city “toodle-around” (as I like to call them) which is my personal favorite kind of ride. Goofing off, having fun, pissing off people, you know…a Surly ride.
As I always find when I am fortunate enough to go on trips like this, riding with people is such an amazing experience and one that is more bonding than pretty much anything else. It was truly a blast.
Check out the sweet pedal mounted bikes on the wall.
We left there and headed to Eurobike. Adam and Fleck and I are staying out in the middle of nowhere, so the ride in is amazing. The first day Adam and I set a route (meaning we got completely lost but found our way to where we were going eventually), the best part of which to me, was finding an active quarry and screwing around there for a bit.
At the time of writing this, Eurobike hasn’t started yet, but by the time it posts, it will have come and gone. If it’s anything like last year, expect my next blog to be a Eurobike rant.
And who the hell doesn’t like those. Especially when they come from a giant poser like this
Now go ride.