Tour de Livingston | Hometown Bicycles

Melonhead Riders and Campus Cruisin’

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Shaun

MELON FEST OR BUST, BABY! HANG WITH YOUR HOMETOWNIES AT THIS WEEKEND‘S MELON RIDE

This weekend, we’re putting helmets on our melons and leading the Melon Festival’s Doc May Memorial Melon Ride on Saturday, August 20th.

It’ll be fun times with a new route, new scenery, a new Hometown-donated bike raffle, and Howell’s famous mm-mm-MMMMMMMmelons!

Team Hometown Bicycles will be on course for courtesy SAG, route assistance, and all-around good vibes. Plus, we’re offering complimentary bike valet service, so that you can enjoy post-ride festivities without your bike in tow!

GET REGISTERING, HOMETOWNIES!!

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HELLO-O-O-O, BUDGET-FRIENDLY CAMPUS CRUISIN’

We’re bringing back a collegiate favorite – the Hometown Bicycles College Special. It’s everything a student needs for traversing campus on two wheels – bike, lock, light, kickstand, water bottle and cage – for a tuition-friendly price.

THIS DEAL IS LIMITED TO 10 STUDENTS, so book it over to Hometown before you miss out!

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THE TOUR DE LIVINGSTON TRAINING RIDE SKIPS A BEAT

Oh, Michigan… sigh. Intermittent drizzling laid a wet blanket on our first Tour de Livingston Training Ride, BUT the sun’ll come out tomorrow – or, we’re actually hoping, on August 27th. Remember, THIS Saturday, it’s all about the melons (see above)!

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HOMETOWN BICYCLES’ SHOP RIDES

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

WEDNESDAY, 8:45AM – Rails-to-Trails Ride

WEDNESDAY, 6:30PM – Hammerfest Advanced Road Ride

SUNDAY, 9:00AM – Iceman Training Gravel Grinder

SUNDAY, 5:00PM – Beginner Mountain Bike Ride

TUESDAY, 9:00AM – Hometown Green Gals Mountain Bike Ride

CLICK HERE for details about these Hometown shop rides!

Filed under: Hometown Bicycles | Tagged: bicycle shop, bicycles, bike shop, bike valet, bikes, campus, College Special, cruising, cycling, cyclists, Doc May Memorial Melon Ride, group rides, helmets, Hometown Bicycles, Hometownies, Howell, Melon Festival, melons, Michigan, SAG, shop rides, students, Tour de Livingston, Training Ride | Leave a comment »

One Incredible Bike Ride: This is what fun looks like!

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Shaun

THIS WASN’T JUST OUR BIGGEST RIDE OF THE YEAR… IT WAS OUR BIGGEST SHOP RIDE EVER!
You just boggled our minds, Hometownies. We expected a big turnout for our first ever “Tour de Livingston Party Ride with Shaun”, but this… well, this was something else! See for yourself in this quick pictorial look back at a day that will go down in Hometown history. (Shoot, do we ever love what we do!!)

ABOVE: This is what we like to call “controlled chaos.” Over 70 riders packed the Hometown parking lot on this most epic of shop rides. W. O. W.

ABOVE: Our Party Ride launch was spectacular, with wave upon wonderful wave of cheerful cyclists pouring out of Hometown’s parking lot. It was truly a thing of BEAUTY.

ABOVE: These are a few of the friendly faces that were spotted at the Party Ride. Customers, Team, and staff joined forces to totally ROCK this event! (And *ahem* the three lovely ladies in the center are the Musketeers that masterminded this event – Jean [the one who made it happen], me [Dawn], and Jennifer [our rock].)

LEFT: Congratulations to Roger Pelkey (left), who won the Tour de Livingston jersey drawing. There will be more chances to win TDL swag at our Saturday Tour de Livingston Training Rides (details below)!

ABOVE: So many superstars stepped up to make this event extra special. Here are just a few you may have seen… Steve and Brandy (center) made a whirlwind photography team (click for pics). Stan a.k.a. the Music Man (top left) gave us a party atmosphere with his mad DJ skills. Mike (top right, holding tongs) was the world’s best grill master. Mark’s (bottom right, purple shirt) party bus was a huge hit with anyone who wanted to chalk a fun message. And Luna (bottom left, 4 legs) was a crowd favorite, spreading kisses and tail wags wherever she went.

ABOVE: For those ride junkies who craved a little more saddle time, Team Hometown Bicycles led off a post-Party-Ride night ride through the trails of Island Lake. Animals!

Want to see more Party Ride pics? Of course you do! Check ’em out on our Facebook page and Facebook TdL Party Ride photo album!

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HERE’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE PARTY RIDE…

Our Party Ride was an official (and mind-blowing!) launch for this year’s Tour de Livingston Training Ride series with Team Hometown Bicycles. Starting THIS SATURDAY, these Training Rides will outfit you with the skills you need to maximize your Tour de Livingston experience, go the distance, and – oh, by the way – win cool TDL swag! We’ll be looking for you!

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“TRANSITION TO MOUNTAIN BIKING” CLINIC TONIGHT!

Tips and tricks for trail riding, “how to”s for your first singletrack expedition, best beginner trails, demo bikes, and groups and classes that can help… it’s all happening HERE,

TONIGHT, AUGUST 9TH AT 6:30PM

CLICK TO REGISTER FOR THE TRANSITION TO MOUNTAIN BIKING CLINIC

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LIVINGSTON’S MOST DELICIOUS RIDE

Melons, melon ice cream, and all things melon-y are the name of the game at the Doc May Memorial Melon Ride on Saturday, August 20th.

Hometown’s partnered with Howell Area Parks & Rec on a simple, new route that will tour you past some of Howell’s most scenic highlights.

Our Team will be on course for basic SAG, route assistance, and all-around good vibes. Plus, we’re offering complimentary bike valet service, so that you can enjoy post-ride festivities without your bike in tow!

REGISTER NOW, HOMETOWNIES!!

………………………

HOMETOWN BICYCLES’ SHOP RIDES

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

WEDNESDAY, 8:45AM – Rails-to-Trails Ride

WEDNESDAY, 6:30PM – Hammerfest Advanced Road Ride

SATURDAY, 9:00AM – Tour de Livingston Training Ride

SUNDAY, 9:00AM – Iceman Training Gravel Grinder

SUNDAY, 5:00PM – Beginner Mountain Bike Ride

TUESDAY, 9:00AM – Hometown Green Gals Mountain Bike Ride

CLICK HERE for details about these Hometown shop rides!

Filed under: Hometown Bicycles | Tagged: beginner mountain biking, bicycle, bicycle ride, bicycle shop, bike ride, bike shop, bike valet, bikes, clinic, cycling, cyclists, Dawn Bhajan, demo bikes, Doc May Memorial Melon Ride, gravel grinder, group rides, Hammerfest, Hometown Bicycles, Hometownies, Howell Area Parks & Rec, Iceman, Island Lake, Jean Steinberg, Jennifer McCauley, melon, mountain bike, night ride, Party Ride with Shaun, Rails-to-Trails, riders, road bike, SAG, Shaun Bhajan, shop ride, swag, Tour de Livingston, Tour de Livingston training ride | Leave a comment »

Biggest Ride, Your Chance to be Tintyped, and a Total Mud Bath

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Shaun

BIGGEST RIDE OF THE YEAR THIS SATURDAY – PEDAL & PARTY WITH YOUR HOMETOWN & TOUR DE LIVINGSTON PEEPS!
This’ll be our BIGGEST and BEST bike shop ride of the year, led by your goateed bike guru Shaun, with a big post-ride Tour de Livingston jersey drawing, cookout, and PARTY. No drop, NO CHARGE, and no way you won’t have the time of your life!

CLICK TO REGISTER FOR THIS SATURDAY’S TDL PARTY RIDE

(Help us make sure we get enough food for all of you hungry riders!)

NEW EVENT ADDITION!! In a completely unique and randomly awesome twist, pro photographer, Steve Hane, will now be offering wicked-cool wet plate photography at this event. Imagine you and/or your bike getting the 19th century treatment on tintype!!

Old-timey attire NOT required. Read on for details…
(Photo at left Copyright © MetroAir Photo, LLC)

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BRINGING YOU & YOUR BIKE INTO THE 19TH CENTURY

Hometownies, here’s a rare and completely unexpected opportunity for you…

THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY you and your family (if that includes your bike… hey, we won’t judge!) have the opportunity to be immortalized on tintype right here at Hometown…like they did at this year’s Tour de France !

Aerial photographer, Steve Hane of MetroAir Photo LLC, is a fountain of historical know-how, including the highly original art of wet plate photography. He’ll be setting up a temporary studio at Hometown to immortalize you Civil-War-Era-style, and will have your image printed and even framed by the next day! (Check out his site.)

Steve will be here Friday (8/5) and Saturday (8/6) in the late afternoon and evening, and appreciates pre-booking to ensure material availability. CALL STEVE FOR INFO OR TO BOOK YOUR SESSION AT (571) 236-3810 OR EMAIL STEVEHANE@METROAIRPHOTO.COM.

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REMINDER: TRANSITION TO MTB CLINIC NEXT WEEK!

FOR ANYONE NEW OR NEWISH TO MOUNTAIN BIKING: Just a reminder to REGISTER NOW for next Tuesday’s (8/9) “So, You Want to Transition to Mountain Biking” Clinic, where Jennifer and Shaun will share tips and tricks for making the leap to singletrack, how to prep for your first trail experience, where to ride when you’re ready, and groups and classes that can help. PLUS, ride a variety of demo bikes to try what you just learned!

CLINIC RUNS TUESDAY, AUGUST 9 AT 6:30PM
in the Hometown Bicycles Community Room

CLICK TO REGISTER FOR THE TRANSITION TO MOUNTAIN BIKING CLINIC

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TRAIN UP, TONE UP FOR YOUR BEST TOUR DE LIVINGSTON YET!

Don’t forget to mark down the dates above, Hometownies! Our TDL Training Ride series is a tip-top training tool to maximize your Tour de Livingston experience, with skill building, stamina stretching, and many more chances to win cool TDL swag!

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TEAM NEWS: SPA TREATMENT AT TREE FARM RELAY

(Hometown Team Captain, Jim Cleer… at least, we THINK that’s Jim. Photo courtesy Mark Lang.)

That’s right… with the Saturday deluge hitting Team Hometown Bicycles mid-Tree Farm Relay, everyone got a bike-and-body mud bath on suddenly slippery, sloppy trails. But indomitable spirits prevailed, and our Team had a blast at this much-loved event.

Fist bump to Hometown crewman, Colin Wood, who wound up being one of the fastest in the field. Seriously, we work with the coolest people!

NOTE: If you’re one of the many Relay riders whose bikes took a beating in all the muck and mayhem, just know… WE CAN FIX IT! Thanks to all of you (so many!) who’ve already brought your bikes in for some Hometown love!

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CALL FOR NUMBERS – HELP US FILL OUR WALL!

Our numbers wall has always been a hallmark of Hometown “photo shoots”, as Colin cheerily demonstrates at left.

But this is one BIG wall and, though we’re close, there are still a few blank patches that need to be numbered up!

Would you like to add YOUR number(s) to our wall of fame? If so, please drop them by, and remember to sign your numbers with your name and the date of the event. Every number that’s up there tells an incredible story. We’d be honored to share yours, too!

Muddy, wrinkled, torn – it all just adds to the intrigue…

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LESS THAN A WEEK TO MAKE US #1 – VOTE DAILY!

CLICK TO VOTE HOMETOWN BICYCLES “BEST BIKE SHOP 2016”

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LIVINGSTON’S MOST DELICIOUS RIDE

Melons, melon ice cream, and all things melon-y are the name of the game at the Doc May Memorial Melon Ride on Saturday, August 20th.

Hometown’s partnered with Howell Area Parks & Rec on a simple, new route that will tour you past some of Howell’s most scenic highlights.

REGISTER NOW, HOMETOWNIES!!

Filed under: Hometown Bicycles | Tagged: 19th century photography, bicycle ride, bicycle shop, bike ride, bike shop, clinic, Colin Wood, cookout, demo bikes, Doc May Memorial Melon Ride, family, group ride, Hometown Bicycles, Howell Area Parks & Rec, IMBA, jersey, Jim Cleer, Melon Festival, melons, MetroAir Photo LLC, mountain bike, mountain biking, mud bath, numbers wall, Party Ride, SAG, Shaun Bhajan, shop ride, Steve Hane, Team Hometown Bicycles, tintype, Tour de Livingston, Tree Farm Relay, Vote 4 the best, Vote4theBest, wet plate photography | Leave a comment »

New Mountain Biking Intro Clinic + Parties, Rides and Accomplishments

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Shaun

Curious About Mountain Biking?
—- WE’VE GOT A CLINIC FOR THAT! —-

JUST HOW DIFFERENT IS RIDING TRAILS TO RIDING ROADS ANYWAY?

The lure of woodsy single-track strikes just about every cyclist at some point in their life… there’s something almost primal about the need to take a path less traveled.

But mountain biking (MTB) is a very different beast from road riding – with different equipment, challenges, and skill requirements – and that can be downright intimidating.

We get it, and that’s why we’ve created the “So, You Want to Transition to Mountain Biking” Clinic. Jennifer (our Events Coordinator, MTB novice, and instigator of this clinic) and Shaun will talk about these differences, how to prep for your first trail experience, where to ride when you’re ready, and groups and classes that can help. PLUS, we’ll have a variety of demo bikes on hand for you to try what you just learned!

CLINIC RUNS TUESDAY, AUGUST 9 AT 6:30PM
in the Hometown Bicycles Community Room

Rest assured, you will NOT have to grow facial hair and wear flannel shirts to participate…

CLICK TO REGISTER FOR THE TRANSITION TO MOUNTAIN BIKING CLINIC

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KUDOS TO CORA FOR THE SALE OF HER BIKE ART!

Just wanted to give a huge Hometown shout-out to Pinckney High School art student, Cora Kroll, for the sale of her wicked-cool graphite bike art. Way to go, Cora!

Do YOU want to support the awesome talent of these students? Their artwork is still on display (and for sale) in our Community Room. Come check it out!

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8/6: TOUR DE LIVINGSTON PARTY RIDE WITH SHAUN

Don’t forget to sign up for this FREE, biggest-ride-of-the-year, food-on-the-barbie, chill-around-the-campfire, win-a-jersey, Party Ride with your goateed bike guru to launch our annual Tour de Livingston Training Ride series (see section below)!

CLICK TO REGISTER FOR OUR SATURDAY, AUGUST 6TH TDL PARTY RIDE

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TOUR DE LIVINGSTON TRAINING RIDES JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER

Following the big Party Ride (see section above), we’re turning our annual TDL Training Ride series into a tip-top training tool to maximize your Tour de Livingston experience, with skill building, stamina stretching, and many more chances to win cool TDL swag!

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TEAM NEWS: ACHIEVEMENTS THAT REALLY HIT HOME

Just when we think we can’t get any prouder, our Team serves up another dish of “oh, wow!” This time, a couple Team achievers hail right from our very own Hometown crew…

Congratulations to Hometown’s Events Coordinator, Jennifer McCauley, for blowing it out of the water at last weekend’s Sylvania, OH Women’s Only Triathlon and rocking a second place win in her age division! Jennifer designed and will be instructing our upcoming, August 9th “So, You Want to Transition to Mountain Biking” Clinic. She credits MTB cross-training for breaking her out of a plateau and shaving 3 minutes off her triathlon bike time! (see top)

(Above: Jennifer holds up her well-deserved trophy at the Tri. Image courtesy Jennifer McCauley)

A round of high fives to Hometown’s Rides Coordinator, Jean Steinberg, who was tapped byCRAMBA (Clinton River Area Mountain Bike Association) to be an instructor at last weekend’s Got MTB Women’s Mountain Bike Clinic. Despite getting caught in a deluge (“I dumped running water out of my shoes twice…”), Jean did our shop and her sport proud, sharing her passion with a bevy of enthusiastic MTB newbies. (There’s another one on August 27th!)

(Above: Jean simulates proper weighting for climbing with fellow instructor Norbert. Image courtesy Jean Steinberg)

Also, we want to give a “hollah!” to Team Hometownie “DJ Joe” Ostervik, who’s been posting some great pics on Facebook of his RAGBRAI (“The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa”) adventure in the Team kit. In fact, he’s still out there, enjoying his week-long trek across Iowa. Safe travels, Joe, and thanks for sharing the adventure!

(Left: “DJ Joe” pit stops at the Jamis tent on the RAGBRAI, crossing Iowa by bicycle. Image courtesy DJ Joe Ostervik)

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VOTING CLOSES AUGUST 7 – PLEASE VOTE DAILY!

CLICK TO VOTE HOMETOWN BICYCLES “BEST BIKE SHOP 2016”

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TAKE NOTE! DOC MAY MEMORIAL MELON RIDE ON 8/20

It’s never too early to mention a Hometown favorite – the Doc May Memorial Melon Ride on Saturday, August 20th!! We’re partnering with the Howell Area Parks & Rec Authority on a simple, new route that will tour you past some of Howell’s most scenic highlights. Our Team will be cycling on course to provide basic SAG, route assistance, and all-around good vibes. Plus, Hometown’ll also be your bike valet for the event, so that you can enjoy the post-ride festivities unencumbered by your 2-wheeled steed – NO CHARGE!

What are you waiting for, Hometownies?? GET REGISTERING!!

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HOMETOWN BICYCLES’ SHOP RIDES

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

WEDNESDAY, 8:45AM – Rails-to-Trails Ride

WEDNESDAY, 6:30PM – Hammerfest Advanced Road Ride

SUNDAY, 8:00AM – The Gravel Grinder

SUNDAY, 5:00PM – Beginner Mountain Bike Ride

TUESDAY, 9:00AM – Hometown Green Gals Mountain Bike Ride

CLICK HERE for details about these Hometown shop rides!

Filed under: Hometown Bicycles | Tagged: adventure, best bike shop, bicycle art, bicycle clinic, bicycle shop, bicycles, bike art, bike clinic, bike guru, bike shop, bike valet, bikes, Community Room, Cora Kroll, CRAMBA, cross-training, cyclist, DJ Joe Ostervik, Doc May Memorial Melon Ride, Events Coordinator, Got MTB Women's Mountain Bike Clinic, gravel grinder, Green Gals, group rides, Hammerfest, Hometown Bicycles, Hometown Bicycles Student Art Program, Howell, Howell Area Parks and Rec Authority, IMBA, Iowa, Jean Steinberg, Jennifer McCauley, Melon Festival, Michigan, mountain bike, mountain biking, Party Ride, Pinckney High School, RAGBRAI, Rails-to-Trails, Rides Coordinator, road riding, SAG, shop rides, single track, student art, Sylvania Ohio, Team Hometown Bicycles, Team kit, Tour de Livingston, trail riding, Training Ride, Vote 4 the best, Vote4theBest, win a jersey, Women's Only Triathlon | Leave a comment »

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Hometown Bicycles

Visit Our Store!

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Become a Fan!

Fun Emails!

Melonhead Riders and Campus Cruisin’

Share this:

One Incredible Bike Ride: This is what fun looks like!

Share this:

Biggest Ride, Your Chance to be Tintyped, and a Total Mud Bath

Share this:

New Mountain Biking Intro Clinic + Parties, Rides and Accomplishments

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Since We Opened

Overall Repair Count