The moving truck is here and we will be on the road soon. Here’s the skinny on ordering–all the inventory is boxed so I won’t personally ship anything until at least Friday. However, if you need Velocity rims, dynohub lighting, or spokes I have partners who can ship your order pretty much immediately. If you just-gotta-have one of those things shipped the same day you order, you might want to call ahead or email to be 100% certain it can ship immediately.

On Wednesday night I’ll be unplugging the phone in Wilmington, but during the move and thereafter I can be reached at 603.242.3622.

By Monday everything will be back to normal as far as ordering goes (for you). For us moving chaos will still reign, but everything has been planned so that we will be fulfilling orders normally by then.

We’re excited about the new digs, but moving isn’t fun. The anxiety of moving has been lessened, however, by a good March. We appreciate the patronage and support very, very much.

That’s 603.242.3622. The phone number at the top of this page will work for a little bit but I’ll cut it off very soon. Don’t be afraid to call–it will be a welcome break to the monotony of taping up yet another box.

Yesterday was the cutoff day for ordering wheels that could reasonably be expected to ship before we move on the 31st. For at least the next three weeks wheelbuilding orders will be delayed. Wheelbuilding keeps the lights on around here and I know how hard it is to wait, so I’m offering an incentive to order wheels during our relocation.

If you can stand to wait a little longer (probably about week longer than normal) for you wheels and order between now and April 6th I will waive the labor charge. This offer only applies if you’re buying all your wheel components from us. If you are ordering online you can put your parts in the cart and leave a note in the supplied field at checkout about the wheelbuilding offer. And of course you can always call to order.

At the end of March we will be moving to Troy, New Hampshire, a small town outside of Keene. The vast majority of our customers are out of town, so our move won’t affect you too much, but there will be some downtime while we move the shop.

We’ll be moving beginning March 30th and hope to be fully functional by the end of the next week.  On the 30th I’ll start putting the inventory in a moving truck. Fortunately a couple of partners can ship Velocity rims and Busch & Muller lights, so if you order those online during the move they should still ship out the same or the next day depending on what time of the day you order.

Wheelbuilds–the wheelbuilding backlog has been hovering around one and a half to two weeks since the beginning of February. Any wheelbuilds ordered after March 16 may be delayed since they might not ship before the move. When we arrive in Troy resuming wheelbuilding will be first priority so that people with wheels on order won’t have extended delays, but there will be some delays until I get caught up and settle in.

I am having an Everything (That I Don’t Want to Move) Must Go Sale through March. I’ll post items in the near future. If you are local you might stop by to see what odds and ends I need to sale before the move. I promise prices will be very good.

Prices for Schmidt dynohubs and lights as well as all Bush & Muller lighting have gone down. From what I read, a weakening Euro doesn’t bode well for the long-term health of the world economy, but in the short term it means I pay less for European made products, which means you pay less. Prices for individual items and complete wheels have been changed in the webstore. For instance–

• SON 28 polished 32H hub was $262, now $245
• SON 20R/SONdelux polished 32H hub was $286, now $265
• Son Edelux Headlight was $200, now $185
• B&M IQ Cyo’s were $113, now $104

The first bicycle boulevard in the Southeast officially opens Saturday with an opening celebration at the Martin Luther King Center at 10am. The Ann St. Bicycle Boulevard terminates at the riverfront, and the grand opening celebration is timed to coincide with the Spring opening of the riverfront farmer’s market. I’m sure many of my local readers plan to walk or ride to the farmer’s market, boulevard, fanfare or not, but attendance at the opening of the boulevard will impress upon the mayor and others in attendance that bicycle facilities in the city are needed and welcome.  After the celebration (I have an inside tip that some bike locks and complete bicycles will be given away) their will be the shortest group ride in history to the farmer’s market.  The eastern end of the boulevard doesn’t extend out of downtown, but is  a part of the the  River to Sea Bikeway that will be improved in the next few years to eliminate the harrowing sections (on Oleander across Bradley’s Creek, Wrightsville Ave, etc) and provide a worry free route from downtown to the beach, and vice versa.

Happy New Year to all and best wishes for 2010. I’ve changed the shop walk-in hours which will now start at 1:30 instead of noon on the weekdays and 1pm on Saturday. I’m happy to set an appointment for those who want or need to come to the shop outside of walk-in hours.

The Christmas wheelbuiding special was such a success that I’ve decided to keep it around in a slightly modified form. Wheelbuilds with components purchased from us will be $15 for 2010.

Sometime on Christmas Eve I’ll close early for Christmas and I won’t return until the following Monday.

Locals, please note I will only be open by appointment from Christmas until January 4th. Call the shop or e-mail me if you need to stop by.

Web orders will ship during this time, and for long-distance customers everything will run normally except that I might be a little harder to catch on the phone. I’ll still be shipping orders and building wheels.

Through the end of the Christmas season wheelbuilding labor will be almost free–$5. This means you’ll save $50 on a handbuilt wheelset. The offer extends through the entirety of the Christmas season, so you have to the feast of the Epiphany (January 6) to take advantage.

As usual, if you’d like a wheel built with components you don’t find in our webstore, simply contact me. I’m happy to special order hub or rims that I don’t normally stock to build the wheel you want. The $5 labor offer is only good for wheels when all the wheel components are purchased from us, sorry. If you send me a hub to build up you’ll pay the normal $30 charge. To shop for wheel components start here.

We’ve added two new rims from our webstore, both are high-polished models from Velo-Orange. You can find both here.

Prolific list-master Jim G generously volunteered to start a discussion group for those interested in the 650B framesets and future Longleaf products. I think this will be a better medium for discussion than blog comments, which are limited to topics generated by me. The home page for the group can be found here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Matthew at Kogswell and I have agreed that I will take over the Kogswell 650B P/R production and design. Kogswell has decided to concentrate on 26″ framesets and when Matthew told me he didn’t plan to continue production of the 650B P/R it seemed like a natural fit.  As was the process with the P/R, I’ll be soliciting feedback from owners and prospective buyers about fine tuning the G2 P/R’s before producing the Longleaf 650B frames. The broad strokes of the design will remain the same, a steel TIG welded 650B bicycle with low-trail geometry designed for 35-42mm tires. For now I’ll keep discussion of the frameset on the blog, but I think in the future a google or yahoo group will be a better medium for discussing this and future framesets. For starters, I’d like to solicit feedback about the following:

• Tubing–The current tubing gauge produces a lively bike, but makes shimmy more probable. What do we think about the pros and cons of zippy but-might-shimmy tubing vs. slower-won’t-shimmy tubing?
• Sloping top tubes–Some people hate them, others don’t mind. The problem with eliminating the slope is that it will mean a ton of stem/steerer tube for many builds.
• Threaded vs. threadless steerer tubes–I prefer threaded, but lean toward threadless for practical reasons. Perhaps a switch to 1″ threadless? This would give people who want to use quill stems the option of cutting and threading the steerer tube without using headtube reducers. I know there are 1 1/8 quill stems and threaded headsets, but there aren’t any good options in those categories.
• Fenders–I’m pretty happy with the VO 650B fenders, but I also have a soft spot for fenders painted to match the frameset, so I lean toward producing fenders with the framesets.
• Name? Just wouldn’t seem right to keep calling it the P/R. I have an aversion to branding, but realize it is important. Any name suggestions for this model?
• And in case anyone is wondering, I will make the frame modifications on this P/R standard to allow for further integration of the lighting system–ports for internal tailight wiring, brazed on loops for headlight wiring.

As for the inevitable “When?” questions I’m shooting for prototypes in early spring and hope to have the the first production run by the end of the summer.