On 12/3/2017 2:34 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 1:06:52 PM UTC-8, sms wrote:
I was just in Los Altos today and noticed that Chain Reaction is gone.
This is the store owned by Steve and Mike Jacubowsky--Mike used to post
in this group. Their Redwood City store is still open.

I was surprised to see it gone. That store was located in an area where
people have high disposable incomes, and was the only Trek dealer in the
area. They said that parking and rent were issues. The space is still
empty and they closed about 2.5 months ago, so no one is a rush to rent
it. That shopping center can get very crowded because there is a popular
Trader Joe's and a popular produce store, and an unpopular Rite Aid
store. Also there's both a Starbucks and a Peet's coffee.

I never bought a bicycle from them, my only Trek is a tandem and when I
bought it Chain Reaction didn't have the size I needed in stock, even
though they were cheaper than the place I ended up buying it from. For
all the other bicycles we've bought in the past 25 years or so Trek did
not have any models that met our needs, and Chain Reaction is a
Trek-only store. But I know a lot of people who bought expensive
carbon-fiber bicycles from them, one multiple times after the
carbon-fiber frame broke. They were a very well thought-of shop for Trek
buyers.

Trek has a bike for everything. https://www.trekbikes.com/ They even have bike-packing bikes. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...colorCode=grey

Not that you have to buy Trek (particularly if you're an anti-American communist), but I'm surprised you couldn't find something that suited your needs. Bike Gallery has a mind-boggling variety of bikes. https://www.bikegallery.com/ That's where I got my Emonda via Trek directly because I know the guys in legal. Shameless plug: Bike Gallery.

The Yelp post indicates Mike got squeezed on rent and parking. I'm sure he also go hit by the downturn in the bike market -- which, I am told, hit all the retailers regardless of brand.

-- Jay Beattie.

I like Bike Gallery. Purchased my first Burley trailer there while on a
business trip up to Intel in Hillsboro.

Trek's touring bicycle selection has always been lousy, they have the
Trek 520 which is inferior to other brands' touring bicycles. Chain
Reaction's business model is to be a Trek-only dealer and it seems like
a good plan though it does result in some lost sales when Trek has no
product to serve a specific segment. But if you look on Trek's European
web site, there were quite a few suitable bicycles that we would have
considered, but they aren't sold in the U.S..

Not bashing Trek, their business model makes sense--concentrate on
selling high-profit, high margin, carbon-fiber road bikes. A bicycle
shop as good as Chain Reaction should have been able to have two
locations in this area, but shopping center owners can get unreasonable
when it comes to lease renewals. Their Redwood City location is not open
Sundays which is a pain. The owner of the shopping center where
Cupertino Bike Shop moved to a few years ago is looking to tear down the
shopping center to build housing, I'm already being lobbied by someone
to support that rezoning when it comes up, probably next year.

Last Friday night I went to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition holiday
party held at Microsoft/Linked-In. The companies in this area are really
promoting bicycle commuting. At the party I talked to one of
counterparts in Sunnyvale about bicycle infrastructure. Unfortunately,
SVBC has become involved in issues that discourage bicycling,