We have the best customers EVER

So a few months ago Bicycling Magazine made this video about us.We were overwhelmed with nice responses, from all over the world. The other day we got this email:

HI Steve Bilenky!

i saw online axcidently your excellent video this weekend. It inspire me and i draw some still frame, so i will send to you and hope you enjoy it. I'm artist in Rome and i think that some beautiful images have value. I appreciate your work and your video so much! I'm sorry about my english but i speak italian, german and tzech and not fluently english.

I send to you and your staff a hugs.

Clara De Paoli

Here are the pictures. We are speechless, senza parole, verklempt, and němý:

 Looking good, Steve!

We also got some great photos of one of our frequent customers doing RAAM (which, for the uninitiated, stands for Race Across America. The riders go across the continental US, in sometimes as little as eight days. Some do it in teams, which is reasonable, and some go solo which is NOT.)

Dan's team here had the oldest average age of any RAAM contestants ever: 

 

At the starting line....

 Made it!

 And here's Dan on his RAAM Litespeed, which we retrofitted this winter.

For the record, this guy has a Cessna airplane and a Burley tandem with just one set of couplers in it so it fits in the back.

And finally, here's an email we got today:

Steve,

I thought I'd toss you an update: The Lygie you saved and renovated is still in fine shape and passed on to my son Nathaniel who rode it across 5500 miles across country and went on to a career in promoting bicycling for transportation, lifestyle, health and urban design. I will always remember the time on the phone time, trust, sensitive of art and esthetics and personal care invested in a rejuvenating a beat up bike that still means so much.

Thank you,

John Higley

Sherborn, MA 01770

 Aww! Thanks John! We love hearing about the lives of bikes that have been through our shop.

Bilenky Cycle Works-- serving criminally cool cyclists since 1983.

On an unrelated note, can it be spring now? I mean, COME ON!

-Isis
BCW

Spring Cleaning!

As some of you may have noticed, our website looks different. As some more of you may have noticed, it works! No more re-directing to pages from 2003 (although they may still be floating around in cyberspace somewhere, no one can remember the necessary passwords). One of the biggest changes is a readable, functional store that functions. 20th Century, here we come! Steve even has an iPhone.

Our Official Awkward NAHBS Family Portraits are out!

 

THE EPIC FRONT

 

THE EPIC BACK

I should have made a vest for the 'chuck. I am a rotten rodent wrangler.

SPEAKING OF RODENTS....

HOW did no one bring us a live woodchuck? Not one? Woodchucks are so eminently smuggleable, all you have to do is give them a few shots of bourbon and they sack out for hours in the nearest box. 

Like this!

Well it's your loss, next time you have to smuggle in a woodchuck that looks exactly like Jacques Anquetil if you want your free Bilenky! 

Also, Tom and Kasy don't want their vests. I'm gonna put em on Ebay, but I figured I'd give our faithful fans a chance to make us a first offer. They're both medium-ish. Tom's says 'love' on the back in glittery sequins and has hearts on the front. Kasy's is more conservative. Both have giant BCW patches on the back. HOW CAN YOU RESIST?

Meanwhile, we have rearranged the office, tried to tidy up the shop (ha. ha.) and made a significant dent in our bike queue. Ferdinand is having none of it: 

You can have these files when I'm good and ready.

 But check out this tandem! 

 

29er Ti Crazybike

And I leave you with a lovely video from one of our customers. These bikes are currently in for retrofits. We love facilitating globetrotting! 

 Ok, wanderlust ignited...

Also? Spring Classic season? Who's stoked?

--Isis

BCW

NAHBS Recap! We came, we saw....

Well that was fun! We're still reeling from amazing bikes, thin air, amazingly nice people, too much beer, too much snow... According to the airplane announcer guy, Denver is sunny 300 days of the year. According to me, it's kind of slushy. But there are actual mountains all around, and that makes it worthwhile.

All the bikes took the train:

 

ALL THE BOXES ARRIVED. Miracles can happen. 

And then those 12 grubby boxes became this:

 

So tidy.

And then Steve did this:

 

So MESSY. 

Note the pink vest. I'm waiting for our official shop photo with ALL our beautiful studded vests on display to turn up. Tom and Kasy didn't like wearing theirs at all, but Steve stood out like a hot pink glittering beacon all weekend. And the woodchuck got drunk:

 

The beer is called Old Chub

And passed out at like three PM: 

 

This is just embarrassing. 

We were honored to win the ribbon for best lugs! All those hours of cutting, flowing and polishing paid off:

                                        

AND moody lighting

We got a ton of awesome press, too. I can't sufficiently express how thrilled and humbled we all are by everyone's kind words. 

Here's a slightly mortifying blurb about me (of course this would be the weekend I had roadrash on my FACE)

Here's one from CXMagazine, about our SUPERFAST Baltimore Bullet 'cross bike. 

Some GREAT pictures from Bicycle Times.

MORE great pictures from BikeRumor.

And some love from Velonews.

There's more, but you get the idea.One of the great things about these shows is that all the builders from around the country (and world!) get to hang out and trade ideas and gripe and draw an already tight community tighter. We don't often  get to let our dork flags fly quite so flamboyantly! I'm writing a much longer recap on my own blog, if anyone's interested.

And now we're back, with bikes to build and a website to redo and a woochuck to resuscitate. Again, it was great seeing old friends, making new ones, and drooling on pretty bikes. And next year NAHBS will be in Charlotte! Bike trip, anyone?

Also, SPRINGTIME!

-Isis

                                         

NAHBS Countdown!

So the lot of us are rolling off to Denver for NAHBS with piles and piles of boxes, three singles, a tandem,  two frames and a woodchuck. Ferdinand will be having a holiday in South Philly, as the shop will be closed. We thought about bringing him along, but we hear there are mountain lions in Colorado and we don't want him to feel little and develop a complex.

Don't worry Big Man, everyone on the East Coast is smaller!

Bikerumor wrote a nice blurb about us. Thanks, Bikerumor! 

We're super stoked to see all our favorite bike nerds and meet new ones. We'll have a whole bunch of merch, some old, some new, and some seriously blinged-out bikes. 

                                                    BLING! That's going to go on a fork.

We also have two Amazing NAHBS Specials (tm). Number One...

 

Please order cool looking bikes!

And Number Two, which is kind of on the down low, so there isn't even a graphic. BUT! If you bring a live, healthy woodchuck to the Bilenky Booth, we'll build you a frame. Extra points for a good mannered woodchuck. And doped woodchucks will be disqualified at once. And be advised that it's your responsibility to bring the 'chuck back to his hole after the show-- we do not want to be responsible for a Colorado Woodchuck Plague.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand's intern is engaged in mysterious preparations:

 

But why? You ask. Why not! We say.

In any case, we will be recognizable. 

So see you there and safe travels to those who are traveling. Do you know how HARD it is to keep Steve from packing excess bikes? (We only got a 10X10 booth). I know he's gonna try to slip a cargo bike or two in among the luggage. Not on my watch! 

Westward Ho!*

Isis

BCW

*By which I mean the exclamation, not the quaint little town that apparently exists in Somerset, UK. It even has a ! at the end. Who knew?

Belated thanks for not dying! And pre-spring cleaning.

Happy 2013, everyone! And thanks again for killing it (but not yourselves) at the Junkyard race. I still don't quite know how we had 152 racers, 1,100 beers, one EMT (thanks Anthony!) and no disasters. Here's a great recap from RideTheJawn . Seemed like everyone had a go-pro this year which is great because I got to experience the scary parts without riding them.

Also, where did those blow-up dolls come from? Anyone?

Next year we're gonna connect this event with the Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships which are COMING TO PHILLY so make sure you're around next December because it will be amazing.

Now that the last ton of sand has been shoveled into a pile (does anyone want two and a half tons of sand?) we're back to production under the eyes of our laser cat master:

He only LOOKS like he sleeps 20 hours a day

We're making wiggly bikes,

 

Squirmy bugger kept getting away

Tiny bikes, 

 

Too small for Steve!

And really excessively big tandems: 

 

 700c, Baby.

In order to make room for heightened production and because the cat boss wants unobstructed sight lines for his laser beams, we're trying to get rid of some of the stuff that Steve we've been accumulating for years. Some is brand new; some is vintage. All is cool. The first round is up on Ebay now, keep checking back.

There will also be a calendar and a new Brazin' Woodchuck t-shirt in the near future. We be busy!

And because people keep asking us what we think of the Lance Armstrong debacle, here's our statement:

We knew it all along ferchrissakes. Now just get his smug mug off the news and the internet because the only fitting punishment is to ignore him forever. Also, Bradley Wiggins is awesome.*

                                                                ---The BCW Celebrity Doping Control Board

Case closed. 

Keep warm, ride safe, and may 2013 have so many bikes in it that you need to buy another shed. 

Isis

BCW

*If our man Wiggins turns out to be doping we are all going to buy hummers and Steve will shave his beard.