Quick, large Spring newsletter
Happy March to all who celebrate! We're always quiet on the news during the winter since, frankly, there isn't a whole lot going on and some of us choose to get our vacations in during the slow months. This week though, everything will be happening all at once. For reasons that'll be clear in the first section, this is a very quick newsletter, so I'll get straight to the point, and give you a table of contents to stay organized:
- Bassi news happening right now!
- Bassi news coming up
- Spring plans at C&L in Montréal
- A nice little site-wide discount code just for newsletter friends
- Restocks you'll want to know about
- Coming soon to the store, and big international restocks we can take pre-orders on.
|
|
If you've been following our social media updates you'll be aware we've got Bassi frames incoming. Well, now you're the first to know they're showing up Wednesday the 15th, which is tomorrow or right away, depending on when you read this! Meaning we'll unload the big container, take quick pictures of everything, then be able to start shipping. Forgive me if I'm slow to answer emails for a day or two but it's very exciting! We're getting:
- Hog's Backs in the new Cool-ade and Loch Ness colours
- The long-requested return of the Piggy Pink Hog's Back!
- Bloomfield V2, with green paint and lilac lettering, featuring 650B only, canti posts, and the same fun and useful geometry.
- Bobby Bars for all your wide swoopy needs, Roberto designed it and we've spent, what, two years working on prototypes?
- New Bassi Classic crank in black: narrow-wide 38-tooth. We're putting these on the Hog's Backs once our stock of Apex cranks is out, it'll be a better climbing gear. We're also restocking our Bassi Classic compact doubles.
You might also have seen that our own Julian and Roberto are visiting Japan right now! They're hanging out with our bike buddies out there, and visiting our dealers: Circles (of Sim Works fame) in Nagoya and Crumb Works in Tokyo. They'll be off to Taiwan for some more fun riding and serious business soon, the Taipei Cycle Show is coming up.
The photos above are from the builds Circles have made, they get the frames quicker than us, which is good for them and also no fair. Check out their very cool and kind frame arrival post here.
Julian and Roberto also visited a bunch of Japanese manufacturers, so stay tuned for more news on that ;) |
|
- The next run of Rachel frames (we've been due for a restock) are on a boat and should arrive next month. Colours will be Monet and Fondue. That's pretty vague but we can promise they'll be super cute. No changes to the bike except a slightly longer front end so that very swoopy bars work better.
- Production is ongoing and the details have been finalized for the upcoming Bassi hardtail MTB, the Coyote! ETA is sometime this summer, hopefully on the early side. It'll be suspension-corrected and provided with a rigid fork, but can run a 130mm travel suspension fork. This is very much a cross-country bikepacking frame, meant to be built any which way and loaded with luggage.
The colours are Sunbathing Yellow and Stargazing Blue, and our riding buddy Brian did the design.
- Speaking of frames, if you're not in Canada and want some Bassi, we've been opening more dealer accounts around the world, find 'em here. I'm updating that page as fast as I can! If you know any shops on the US West Coast that would maybe want some Bassi, let us know.
|
|
Spring plans for C&L Montreal
|
|
First off, we're back on Spring and Summer hours starting April 1st. That means both stores will be open seven days a week, with evening hours Thursdays and Fridays. In-store shopping and bike builds and repairs are available on Rachel St. and Villeneuve St. See you soon!
We're also starting a programme of official C&L Cycles public group rides, which we've been wanting to do for some time now, but it takes a bit of organizing. We'll be doing fortnightly Coffee Outside super-chill rides on weekend mornings at first, and we'll see what else we wind up wanting to do. Keep an eye on the calendar, and we'll probably have some RideWithGPS thingies set up soon, too. Expect us to talk the rides up here and on social media as the Spring blooms and we're more sure of our schedule.
What we want to do with these rides is just to see more of our cycling community outside of "I need to buy something" or "my bike broke", and we also want to see you if you're visiting from out of town and want to hang out on bikes! |
|
Spring is when we can really go for it when it comes to ordering the cool stuff from abroad, so here's what's on the way. If any of these fine folks make something you'd like to special-order, send us an email! We can add it to our orders for Spring arrival.
- We're now an official Blue Lug dealer (thanks Julian and Roberto!) and will be getting their Nitto/Fairweather stuff, special grip colours, and all in-house items they make. We're, uh, pretty excited. Our staff are currently bankrupting themselves on special orders.
- Gilles Berthoud saddles and fenders are gorgeous and long-lasting and made-in-Burgundy. We don't stock every single thing they make but we can special order stuff.
- We're ordering Carradice straight from England shortly and getting most of their classic saddlebags and support racks, but again: get in touch for the special stuff.
- They're local so less urgent, but Atwater bags are coming soon.
- No clear timeline but we're due for more Mission Workshop bags. Spendy but unimpeachably-well-built and warrantied.
- Same for Swift Industries, we'll be glad to have lots of their variety back in stock.
- We order regularly but will be placing some larger Velo Orange orders all Spring so shout out if you need some of their weird stuff.
- At some point fairly soon we'll place a Stridsland order because you people eat their chainrings like flapjacks apparently.
- We'll put in a small order for Hennessy Hammocks this summer. Sleeping like a joyful little sloth hanging from the trees isn't for everyone but a bunch of us really enjoy it.
|
|
Look, it's Spring. My winter is basically just receiving parts and accessories, we're stocked up to here so just come on down if you need parts or gear! Here are some highlights:
- Grepp woven bar tape: made-in-Europe from EU materials, machine-washable and reusable!!
- Darn Tough socks: made-in-Vermont active wool socks. If you know anything about taking good care of your feet while cycling in weird places, you know these socks. Oh, and they have a lifetime warranty. Yes, for wool socks. Yes, it works, I tried it with my worn-out pair from 2014. Julian rode in Colombia this winter and swears by the Element Athletic Lightweight styles.
- As I was writing this a big box came in from Voilé, I'll have the straps on the website by the time you read this! Thank goodness, we couldn't start spring while missing so many sizes.
- Bassi caps are restocked in black, C&L tee-shirts are also back in all sizes (printed by our friends here in town as always), and we're flush with water bottles, classic C&L colours only this time. Summer awaits!
- The shortage of Tubus racks was terrible for the stress levels of touring cyclists everywhere, but it seems they found some steel and got production back on track.
- Most kinds of Wald baskets are now in stock, though we're still waiting on a few.
- We recently got Crane's very cute stem-spacer mounted bell. Adorable and beautiful-sounding!
- Since the year-round opening of the Bromont Velodrome, we've noticed an uptick in track bike requests. You know that's our jam, so we've added a section just for that on the website.
- I also made a list of basics that most people need if they're doing Spring maintenance on their bikes or if they're setting up to ride regularly for the first time, nothing deluxe in here. It might be useful to you or your friends!
|
|
|
|
|
