Passion Trail Bikes, Belmont, CA - specialists in quality bike service and custom-built mountain bikes: Category Passion

New Years Inventory and Store Hours

Patty — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:28:00 +0000

Passion will be closed on Saturday 12/31/11 New Years Eve, starting at 2pm, and will be closed all day on New Years Day, Sunday 01/01/12, as well as closed Monday as usual.

Enjoy your weekend, the weather should be AWESOME.

Holiday Lights Ride Weds 12/21, 7PM

Patty — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Quick note: we are closed on Thanksgiving Day, but we will bring our big bellies in to serve you Friday, Saturday and Sunday (see hours on the right).

We are planning our annual tour of the neighborhood holiday lights ride. This year, we will wander out on the solstice, Wednesday December 21, leaving the shop at 7pm for the best-lit streets of San Carlos and Belmont.

Stay tuned for info as the date gets closer and we know the weather, but in the meantime, make sure you have some festive, or at a minimum, functional, lighting for your bike.

Halloween Costume Candlelight Party at Passion 8:00pm, Sat Oct 29

Patty — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:00:00 +0000

It’s Charles’ favorite holiday! Get your costume plan going, it’s sure to be a night of fun, fun, fun! Even the shop is dressing up, with candles, black lights, perhaps a horrible surprise or two, and disgusting food and beverages, starting at 8pm.

Please RSVP to patty@passiontrailbikes.com so we can get a corpse count for the right amount of guts and blood to serve.

The eternal internal infernal Passionate conflict

The Monk, he knows beer.

What new identity can you take on? We are dying to find out!

Please RSVP to patty@passiontrailbikes.com so we can get a corpse count for the right amount of guts and blood to serve.

Waterdog Wride at the Shop 9am Sunday 1/23 , BBQ 1pm

Patty — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Since our weather forecast for this weekend is for continued “unbelievably beautiful” we thought we’d encourage a gathering at the shop for a morning jaunt pedaling through Waterdog, followed by grilling outside the lounge.

Decision Time…. up Ohlone or down Chaparral?

For all the details about our wrides, please refer to this webpage. If your questions aren’t answered there, you can also email us for info at info@passiontrailbikes.com.

All rides start pedaling from the shop: Passion Trail Bikes, 415 Old County Road, Belmont, CA 94002 650-620-9798.

Sunday morning riders will gather at the shop at 9:00AM. We will open the lounge for water, restroom, etc. then lockup and head out shortly thereafter. We will break up into small groups depending on turnout. Note we may not have leaders for each group but usually someone knows their way around.

All groups will meet back here at the shop sometime after noon when the shop opens, for story telling, grilling & beverage enjoyment. We will have some sort of grillable food, chips and fatty snacks and Devil’s Canyon Brewery’s Full Boar Scotch Ale, Silicon Blonde Ale, and Handmade Organic Root Beer—all on tap. Bring something for the grill, or a dish to share if you are so inclined. Otherwise we may make a run to Safeway.

The Passion Build

PeterD — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:22:00 +0000

It is interesting to watch different customers come in when they are shopping for a new bike. Some obviously just “get it” about Passion and what we are offering, and other haven’t picked up on it yet. As a marketer, I’ve had trouble figuring out how to help people who don’t “get it” to understand what we are really offering.

The problem is a bike has a standard retail price, often listed right on a manufacturer’s web sites. If a bike is a commodity, then going to the discounter that offers that bike at 20% off is better for the customer than paying full retail as you would at Passion.

But Passion doesn’t believe bikes are commodities. The parts may be the same whether you buy the bike from us or a discounter, but the final product is not.

If you want to have some fun, ask the other bike shops you go to how long they spend assembling the average full suspension mountain bike. I think you will hear numbers all over the place. For a big box store, the answer will be in how many bikes an assembler can build in an hour.

Yes, Passion gets the same bikes that are 90% assembled by the manufacturer. But that is where the similarity ends. Rather than just finish the last 10% of the build as many shops do, we instead tear the bike apart and re-assemble. In doing so, we do the added steps like facing where the head set, bottom bracket (see pic to left of faced bottom bracket), and the brakes mounts on the frame, making sure the wheels are correctly tensioned, and greasing every point of metal to metal contact. Doing these little steps up front will pay many performance and reliability dividends later on.

And people generally don’t walk into Passion and leave with a bike. It frequently requires three or more visits to Passion to get a new bike, instead of a more “grab and run” approach at some other stores. Where discounters will sell the bike and then offer discounts at a later time for stem swaps and other modifications to make the bike fit you, we do it a bit differently.

First we work with the customer to figure out the exact mix of parts that is right before we start to build it. Then we build it half way (example being the blue Ibis in the picture to the right) and bring the customer back for a first fitting – this way we can get all the sizing and parts just right. Only when it is fully assembled can the customer take the bike. I know this can drive people batty with anticipation as they wait for their new bike, but only doing this makes sure that the everything from cables length to seat height to stem length is set perfectly right from the first ride. Actually, with a discounter, it is more likely it will never be made perfect for you, but instead you’ll make do wit it as is.

And all this takes time. The answer for Passion on how long it takes to assemble a full suspension bike is over 8 hours, which doesn’t include the fitting time.

“Get it” now?

ps 1 – want to see more photos of bikes being built? Check out bikedoula.com. Charles doesn’t think of Passion as a bike shop, but as a bike doula – read the description to understand the difference.

ps 2 – if you do ask other shops how long they take to assemble a bike, post your findings in the comments here

Places to eat near the shop

Patty — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:09:00 +0000

After a good hard day of work at the shop, we often opt for dining out instead of heading straight home to a dirty kitchen and empty cupboards. Where do we go to eat?

Here’s a list of places we like with links to the yelp page for each:

Bar Food
- $ Aussiello’s Tavern, Belmont – your basic hangout bar; shuffle board, pool, and a grill
- $$ City Pub, Redwood City – a bit more upclass, with outside dining, fireplace inside
- $$ Devil’s Canyon map of tap locations – If you must have a Full Boar Scotch Ale with your meal (and who wouldn’t?), search here

Burgers
- $$ Jack’s Prime, San Mateo – High quality, fresh meat. Excellent. Trumer Pils on tap.
- $$ Godfathers’ Burger Lounge, Belmont – Bustling burger restaurant
- $ Classic 101 , Belmont – Not quite a drive through. Sterling and Pancho like it.

Mexican
- $$ Hola, Belmont - a staple in the C&P dinner out rotation. Good margaritas
- $ El Metate, Belmont – fast, cheap, yummy, and across from Devils’ Canyon

Italian
- $$$ Caprino’s, Belmont – Excellent food, nice wine list, full bar. White table cloths fancy.
- $$ Toto’s Pizza, Belmont – CJ’s Dad’s favorite pizza. Watch the dough discs fly.

Chinese
- $$ Gin Mon, Belmont – small, fast, family run. We like the reasonably priced food too.
- $$ China Village, Belmont - Large rooms for big parties. Jay likes the Dim Sum.

Sushi
- $$$ Sushi Sam’s Edomata, San Mateo – high quality artistic sushi. The real deal.

Indian
- $$ Koriander, Bemont – brand new. Good food, next to an Indian Food Market

Thai
- $$ Thai Time, San Carlos – Excellent food, with a full bar.

Afghan
- $$ Kabul, San Carlos – YUM. Charles gets the lamb kabob, Patty gets pumpkin in yogurt

Scottish
- $$$ Martin’s West Gastropub, RWC - Full bar, many Scotches, kitchen open late. Quality food.

Please post your comments below on where YOU like to eat, and maybe you can get a group together for tomorrow’s Wride.

October Demo Followup

Charles — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:03:00 +0000

Whew! We just had a fantastic weekend running our third Fall demo event at the shop. We had major league participation from Giant, Specialized, and Santa Cruz for the first time, and were also able to round out this fleet with bikes from Maverick and Ibis, allowing us to send out over 200 separate test rides over the two days. I want to thank everyone that participated, from those that came to tempt themselves by looking at new hardware, to the benevolent bunch that volunteered to help us keep things running smoothly, to those that just left a little extra in the til or the tip jar before the end of the day. We have been getting a lot of positive strokes and good feedback since Sunday, and it would not have been as good without everyone’s help.

I still want to hear what bikes you liked, what you liked about them, what you didn’t see or get to try, and what surprised you. Add a comment to this thread, or shoot something out to info@PassionTrailBikes.com. Santa Cruz left some bikes here for a couple extra days, so I was able to get a long ride in on a Blur LT Carbon yesterday. Look for a more thorough ride report on that one from me soon.

We ran special pricing on all bikes this past weekend, special orders and stock bikes included, and sold a few bikes and frames in the process. If you are regretting not taking advantage of that and getting one for yourself, let me, Berry, or Pancho know and we will do what we can for you.

I am updating Passion’s Flickr page tonight, and a few images from the weekend are already posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/51326343@N00/sets/72157622385579697/

Passion Jerseys

PeterD — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:52:00 +0000

So, you saw the pictures in the Lounge of Charles and Jay from their tandem adventure at the Sea Otter and wondered about those jerseys they were wearing? And you probably want one, as those jerseys sure made them fast – not quite as fast as Superman, but faster than Nice Lobster…

Well, those are the official Passion Trail Bike jerseys, made by Zoic, and we have plenty in the shop at $45 each should you want to be fast like them (custom tandem not included).

Here is some information from Zoic abut these jerseys:

Tagless neckline
Wicking
Anti-microbial
“(ee) Environmentally Enlightened”
Fabric: 57% Polyester / 43% Bamboo Active Carbon

And here’s a closeup of the front and back logos:

They are t-shirt style, so they don’t have pockets on them (none of that roadie stuff).

Don't Die In The House

Charles — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Tom emerged from the truck Monday morning with this inspiring text on his shirt, over the picture of a dead, inverted, rat. He pointed out to us that it was always good advice, and good for everyone. He and I, along with Daryl and Fabio, had woven our way through the minivan fender bender madness on Page Mill Road that morning to met at the Park n Ride before we carpooled down to the Demo, and we all admired or commented on the shirt before hitting the road in pursuit of Santa Cruz Mountain goodness.

Throughout the day, we all did a number of daring, surprising, and sometime hazardous things, hopping up on logs, riding skinnies, jumps and drops. Darting through the trees with reckless abandon, speeding down hills, and climbing hills fast and furious enough to make our hearts pop. Mid ride we ran into a game warden, astride a 450cc KTM, and exchanged a banter about what a nice day it was to be out under any means, and how little traffic there was on the trail. Then he asked us if we had seen any mountain lions, as a preface to going on about a mountain biker in Southern California that had been killed by one. I had heard of the tragedy he was referring to, recalling it was years ago, and thought as he spoke about the five thousand kids that had died last year of alcohol poisoning. On the way out, I started to wonder how kids could be encouraged to take on pastimes we perceive as being risky, like downhill mountain biking, or street speed skating after dark. Maybe buzzing around the hills on their dirt bikes, or big wave surfing.

Fabio got back to the truck with a little road rash, the harsh result of a couple unscheduled dismounts. He continues to be a real crowd pleaser. Tom’s derailer had shed a vital spring, and is now slated for a repair or replacement. Daryl’s bike is filthy, his tires received some serious abuse, and my quads are cramping as I cross my legs from left over right, to right over left. We all cheated death, but none of us died in the house today. I’m sorting through my pictures from the days ride, and wondering about the risks we all take on a daily basis, and wonder if they are the right risks.

An Unrelated Topic

Charles — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:57:00 +0000

A friend suggested to me yesterday that I spend a few minutes each day reflecting on the things I am grateful for. She wasn’t talking about work for sure, but this morning I am thinking about little else.

Today I am grateful for our customers, our friends, who are stepping up to lend a hand around the shop, and particularly during our Wednesday Night Wrides.

I can call out Rene for running the bar set up, and her boyfriend for cutting up a bushel of limes. Victor and Heather for being my gophers, and Erin and Emilie for making Patty’s life easier on the cooking line.

Thanks go out to our impromptu ride leaders, Peter, Kelly, and particularly Tom for not only delivering a certain blissful pain level for those that need that, but also for getting people out of the park. Janet for spiking the tip jar, and everyone else for following suit. Jill for doing whatever it takes, and Todd and Ingrid being huge with the after hours clean up and bottle emptying, after Scott softened up the dirty dish load earlier in the night.

There are also a bunch of folks whose contributions I did not see, or cannot remember right now, but contributed toward bringing friends here and making sure they had a good time.

It looks like we had 50 people here at one point, but might have had closer to 70 throughout the night. These events are building our ride community by getting us out for rides and providing a venue to meet and greet others that share, or might begin to share, our passion for trails and riding. We wouldn’t be able to manage it all without your help. Hope to see you all here for the next one.