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Spring hours for Open Bench Time are coming soon!!

Spring hours for Open Bench Time are coming soon!! 🧰 🔧
Open Bench Time is our drop-in, pay-what-you-can, DIY bike repair space at the Bike School. It’s an opportunity to work on your bike and learn something new with the benefit of a repair stand, workbench, tools, and assistance from a mechanic.

Stay tuned for more info and weekly hours beginning mid-April!

#gearhubbikeschool #openbenchtime #diybikerepair

Antique of the Week delivered by the hungry hungry

Antique of the Week delivered by the hungry hungry @jessebillypilgrim

If you frequent the Portland Gear Hub garage you may have seen a handsome looking Diamondback Ascent kicking around with different combinations of racks bolted to it. This bike is our pizza bike. We love pizza here at the PGH and one of our favorite pizza places is Micucci's Grocery on India street.

Micucci's has been a Portland staple for over 50 years and is primarily a grocery store. My mom would make special trips to Portland when I was a kid to get specific Italian foods that you couldn't get anywhere outside of NYC, but I hadn't ever tried their pizza until I started working at the Gear Hub. I was missing out, They sell a Sicilian slab style pizza in cheese or pepperoni that is almost too big to eat in one sitting and I have a hard time saying no when someone does a run to Micucci's on the Pizza Bike.

The thing about pizzas is that they are kind of tough to carry on a bike. Because of this we have outfitted our shop bike with pizza specific racks. The rear rack is a Vetta rack with a classic milk crate that fits the Slab boxes perfectly. I can stack about 4 boxes in the crate before it gets a little dicey, and then I can use the custom flat top front rack in conjunction with a cargo net to stack as many as I feel comfortable riding the few blocks back up to the Garage. We have successfully carried dozens of pizza's on this bike without incident.

The bike itself rides wicked smooth with its fat Bontrager tires and simple friction thumb shifting. It also seems to somehow fit everyone who works in the shop with a simple adjustment of the saddle height. If you happen to be on India street in Portland stop into Micuccis and grab yourself a slab and look for our pizza bike locked outside waiting to be loaded up with precious cargo.

#antiqueoftheweek @micuccigrocery #pizzabike

A taste of some delicious vintage mtb’s that wer

A taste of some delicious vintage mtb’s that were donated and rebuilt this winter here at the garage:
A Specialized Stumpjumper, full chrome Mongoose Hilltopper, and a very electric GT Ricochet 💧

#gearhubbike #26inchmtb #gearhubbutter #thankyouforyourdonations

Thanks for bringing us your custom build dreams fo

Thanks for bringing us your custom build dreams for this Surly Midnight Special!! @thorvaldarnell

Have fun riding! 🚲

#happynewbikeday #gearhubbutter

Closed today while we change the shop over for Spr

Closed today while we change the shop over for Spring!!! Skis going out, more bikes and camping gear coming in! 🌱🦋
We’ll be back open tomorrow at 10 AM.

SPRING SKIING this weekend Saturday & Sunday at th

SPRING SKIING this weekend Saturday & Sunday at the Oxbow Beer Garden! The Oxford Hills received more fresh snow this past week, granting us a season extension. ❄️ The Gear Hub will be open with spring discounts renting XC Skis and Snowshoes. Let’s get out and enjoy what is likely our last weekend of the season!!
@oxbowbeergarden

#gearhubwinter #getoutthere

Today and tomorrow are the last days of our Winter

Today and tomorrow are the last days of our Winter Sale!! Make the most of spring skiing or save on deals for next winter. Discounts on new and used equipment ⛷️ up to 25% off!

Trails groomed for XC Skiing and snowshoeing this

Trails groomed for XC Skiing and snowshoeing this weekend! Join us up at the Oxbow Beer Garden and make the most of these last weekends of winter.

Rentals Saturday and Sunday at the XC Ski Barn: 10AM - 4PM

Antique of the Week brought to you by the ideas-gu

Antique of the Week brought to you by the ideas-guy @jessebillypilgrim 💡

If you have ever mistakenly backpedaled your geared bicycle while shifting you know that it usually results in some horrible noises and your chain coming off. In the mid seventies, geared bicycles were still a bit of a new thing. The average cyclist was used to the coaster brake single speeds and internally geared 3 speeds of the 60's and they complained that shifting with derailleurs was too complicated and that having to pedal while shifting was confusing. This issue resulted in the Front Freewheeling system, or FF, one of Shimano's early attempts at making shifting easier for your average cyclist.

The best way to describe how this works is to just quote an original ad that I found. It says:
"Shimano's FF system moves the freewheel mechanism up to the chainwheel - where you pedal. This allows the chain to revolve even when your feet stop pedaling. Now you can shift effortlessly. Smooth FF System can be done while coasting, back pedaling, or even with your feet off the pedals!"

I have worked on a few FF Systems over the years and they work surprisingly well. I have never actually had to take apart the bottom bracket/freewheel though, so ask me after I have tried to put one back together how I feel about the system then. FF was usually paired with POSITRON which was another early shifting innovation which deserves its own AOTW.

This system only existed for a few years as other innovations like indexed shifting became popular and people got more used to riding a bicycle with gears, though if you Google "Trials Bicycles" you will see that they use a similar system for completely different reasons. If you want something funky that does actually work look for a Shimano FF System!

#antiqueoftheweek #frontfreewheelsystem #shimanofrontfreewheel #sportswoman #positron

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