I wrote this article on Flagstaff’s newest bike shop for the June issue of The Noise. Then we had to look for a sponsor to make the bike column go. When I found one, we were excited. This article never ran, however, because the last half of the peice sounds like a giant advertisement for Revolution Bicycles. I’m a big fan of the shop, so I don’t mind posting this here.
____

Last year, with the greatly informed help of Elson Miles from Bici-Mundo, I rebuilt an old road bike for a good friend. It was great practice for me because I really wanted to learn. My next build would be for me.

After obtaining a steel track frame toward the end of last year on Craigslist, I slowly began picking out components online. When the snow pilled up, I sloshed through town on homemade studded snow tires, arriving at home, eagerly awaiting small packages. Each box seemed to bring me closer to spring.

Pedals, crank, bottom bracket, saddle, handlebars, a stem…I removed each item from it’s packaging and lined them up on floor of my room: yet to be greased, yet to be threaded. Some small parts, a Surly cog and Soma lock ring, I purchased at the counter of Absolute Bikes. I read reviews, imagining if spring would be smoother rolling on Mavic or Velocity wheels, learning the difference between Tange and sealed bearing-headsets, then wondering why such small pieces of metal can cost so much money.

Flagstaff resident Ray Walker convinced me that a good sealed-bearing headset would be less hassle in the long run compared to the Tange-style, which requires a lot of routine maintenance on exposed bearings. A headset is the set of components that creates the smoothly rotatable interface between your frame and fork. It’s a set of bearings that essentially allows you to steer your bike. It arrives in a very small box, but it is a very important piece.

The only problem is that the crown race of my fork, a little cone-shapped nubby that sits at the base of the fork tube was machined to fit a Japanese Industrial Standard, or JIS, 27mm headset, while the sealed bearing headset I wanted fit a slimmer, and more common, 26.4 standard.

Without going into more geeky bike tech stuff, I couldn’t find any bike shop in town that had the tool necessary to perform this modification. I don’t particularly blame them. The Crown Race Cutting Tool made by Park Tools costs close to 350 bucks and it isn’t used very often. C.J. Constantopoulos, owner of Revolution Bicycles, which just opened officially in mid-May, said a few weeks before he was officially open that he was ordering tools, and this cutting tool seemed like a good one to have.

“Really?” I asked. “350 bucks?”
“A good tool is a good investment.” He said, filling out the order information online. I told him, gratefully, that he would be the only shop in town that has it, that I’d tell everyone I know. Done and done.

So, there started my love affair with Flagstaff’s newest bike shop. Some undoubtedly suppose that Flagstaff needs another bike shop like it needs another women’s boutique downtown. After all I can think of 6 other shops off the top of my head. Besides the casual acquisition of rare cutting tools, there is much about this shop that sets it apart from others in town. For one, it specializes in used bikes. And lets face it, there are a lot of great bikes out there that just need a little TLC.

“I had worked as a mechanic in many bike shops in the past and people would always come in and ask, ‘hey, do you guys sell used bikes?’” The only other place in town he could point them to was Bici-Mundo, or a pawnshop.

He also wanted to run Revolution Bicycles as a community space where people can learn to fix their own bikes, by facilitating workshops—like the “Emergency Mountain Bike Repair” workshop he organized in April—as well as giving the community access to shop tools and knowledge. For $15 an hour, community members can have access to a work stand, tools, they can also ask questions and get their work looked over.

In the fall Revolution Bicycles is partnering with Northern Arizona University Outdoors to facilitate Bicycle Maintenance 101, a course open to the community of Flagstaff as well as to NAU students. For students, the course will be good for one academic credit hour, and for community members, the course will cost as much as a one credit class at the University. Bicycle Maintenance 101 will include 25 hours of class time, a course book, and massive discounts on Park Tools bicycle maintenance tool set.

“By the end of the course, [students] should be able to do all basic maintenance stuff, essentially everything a bicycle mechanic would need to know to get a job.” C.J. said he is hoping to offer Bicycle Maintenance 202, an advanced mechanics class that will get into wheel building, fork overhaul, face-chasing, and more.

This, of course, sounds an awful lot like a bike co-op. There are bike co-ops in Phoenix and Tucson, and this was the initial idea for Revolution. After becoming a little disillusioned with the lengthy and complex process of forming a co-op, however, C.J. decided to run Revolution as “a co-op style shop with the support of retail.”

Revolution Bicycles is a dealer for new Jamis and Voodoo bicycles of all varieties. He also has the tools to service Chris King and Cane Creek headsets. But it’s the used bikes that always catch my eye. Beautiful road and single speed bicycles from the 80’s line the racks, cruisers going back 5 decades, and tandem bikes that look more fun than playing mad-libs with strangers.

CJ is also helping to keep NAU’s Yellow Bike Program rolling, by giving them an instructional checklist for routine maintenance. He is also helping with some of the service and will be supplying parts through his shop. He will also soon be working with Flagstaff Shelter Services to fix up the bikes they lone out to employed residents.

The one thing that C.J. really wanted to highlight in our interview is a feature on the shop’s website that allows anybody in town to report a missing, stolen, or, in much happier cases, found bicycles. The database of stolen bikes or components will also help him when he comes across a suspicious bicycle. The website is also more user-friendly than dealing with the police every time a serial number looks modified or components don’t quite fit. Go to flagbikerev.com, and click on “reports.”

C.J. showed me how to use a few tools I had never used before, like a chain whip and a lockring wrench. I watched and took notes, much like I did last year when Elson Miles helped me fix up that old road bike. My first inkling, after realizing I would need these tools was to buy them, but that notion quickly passed when I saw them hanging neatly at the community workspace. Now that I know how to use them, I’ll just come here.

Come celebrate the grand opening of Revolution Bicycles during First Friday events in Flagstaff on August 6th, beginning at 5 PM. Revolution will be hosting a party in the parking lot, with beer and tunes, featuring the Ugly Stick Bruisers, Annie Jump Can, and others. Many varieties of bicycle-related artwork will adorn the walls of the shop, including photography, paintings, jewelry, and possibly even some graffiti art. C.J. said the party will last until the beer is gone and the bands are finished.