What do the Germans know?

On Sunday, October 26, 2014 9:33:15 AM UTC-4, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lou Holtman:
What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

The density of merchandise per square foot of floor space seems awfully
low.
--
Pete Cresswell

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD


http://goo.gl/5WxISd

On 10/26/2014 9:33 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lou Holtman:
What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

The density of merchandise per square foot of floor space seems awfully
low.

I wondered about that, too. I don't know of any store of any type that
has so much open space. Did they somehow come upon an old warehouse for
sale, super-cheap?

--
- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/26/2014 9:33 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lou Holtman:
What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

The density of merchandise per square foot of floor space seems awfully
low.

I wondered about that, too. I don't know of any store of any type that
has so much open space. Did they somehow come upon an old warehouse for sale, super-cheap?


Nope, they build the store from scratch. You can feel, touch and try
anything that is on display. Like I said you can take any bike from the
stand feel it, weigh it, ride it (in the store). It is a damn good way to
sell bikes(tuff). You don't know how big Rose is, not only in Germany. You
should see their warehouse where they ship the online ordered stuff. They
have a history of more than 100 years. Longer than most Italian bike
companies with their bull**** heritage air.
--
Lou

On Sunday, October 26, 2014 3:28:08 AM UTC-7, Sepp Ruf wrote:
Lou Holtman wrote:
Clive George schreef op 25-10-2014 19:47:
On 25/10/2014 17:11, Lou Holtman wrote:
I did my annual trip to (one of) the largest bikeshop(s) of Germany
today which is within a one hour drive from my house. What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

I have mistakenly let my wife see those pictures. Now she will have
marked the road atlas with an exclusion zone.

(she wouldn't let me go to the Unimog museum either).

For the same reason I go only once a year. Everytime I need some
clothing. They have al the major brands and available in all the sizes,
which means I never leave without. This time a winter jacket and
wintershoes ;-)

Tell her that these could have been essentially free if you had bought just
a couple of Philips bike lights on sale, to resell them to some clueless
Potrlandians who seem to need a battery light to tie their shoelaces.

No need. I can go over to Universal and buy a Philips light:

http://www.universalcycles.com/shopp...&category=2214

In fact, I can also buy most brands and models of dyno lights here in PDX. I can buy a Gazelle or a Kalkhoff or a Brompton. Brompton even uses a spot made at Clever Cycles: http://wn.com/brompton_bicycle. All that odd-ball stuff is available within a few miles of my house.

I actually went to Clever and Universal yesterday. I saw Silas Mitchell over at Universal buying some stuff. He plays one of the central characters on Grimm -- a T.V. show shot in PDX. http://www.nbc.com/grimm There was also a guy buying a dyno light for his girlfriend, although he didn't have a clue about the light. I assume he had a dyno.

I've gained a real appreciation for dyno lights just seeing how effective they are in NL -- http://tinyurl.com/mmstwc9 You can see all the way to the next coffee shop! Commuting can look a lot different in PDX. This is a popular commute route. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUXgvgWIURY I use it sometimes to get to my neighborhood. Not a single overhead street lamp. The great part is that there is no auto traffic -- that's elsewhere on the commute. My usual climb is up a steeper but shorter residential street and then on to an unlighted trail and then up some stairs. It's all very much like Amsterdam.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 10/25/2014 10:28 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, October 26, 2014 1:18:09 AM UTC+1, wrote:
???? forestry, mining, oil exploration .....

Sure. If the going is really rough, especially in the rainy season, seasoned travellers used to use them in Africa as an expedition truck, mainly in order to keep breakages and stuck-in-the-mud losses of whole trucks to reasonable levels. But nobody who expects comfort or speed chooses a Unimog; it is the choice of the desperate and the resigned, who MUST arrive, the sort of guy who before he even asks the price tells the salesman how many PSP holders he wants welded on. Outrageously expensive too, even by Daimler-Benz standards. But, outside of these truly horrendous conditions suitable strictly for third world specialists, a Unimog in civilization is a sure signal that you're dealing with poser.

Andre Jute


PSP holder? What?
Web search suggests both dental equipment and video game
accessories.
??

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/26/2014 11:37 AM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/26/2014 9:33 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lou Holtman:
What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

The density of merchandise per square foot of floor space seems awfully
low.

I wondered about that, too. I don't know of any store of any type that
has so much open space. Did they somehow come upon an old warehouse for sale, super-cheap?


Nope, they build the store from scratch. You can feel, touch and try
anything that is on display. Like I said you can take any bike from the
stand feel it, weigh it, ride it (in the store). It is a damn good way to
sell bikes(tuff). You don't know how big Rose is, not only in Germany. You
should see their warehouse where they ship the online ordered stuff. They
have a history of more than 100 years. Longer than most Italian bike
companies with their bull**** heritage air.


Ahem. Italian BS heritage? Why pick on us?

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/26/2014 12:40 PM, jbeattie wrote:

I've gained a real appreciation for dyno lights just seeing how
effective they are in NL -- http://tinyurl.com/mmstwc9 You can see
all the way to the next coffee shop!

You might want to look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8EMerx3_98
say the night segments, from 8:30 to 9:00 or 16:50 to 18:00 or so.
Europe (and Paris-Brest-Paris) is far from the Scharfian myth of flat
ground all nicely lit with street lamps.

I'm not saying that all riders in Paris-Brest-Paris use dyno lights.
But reportedly, dyno lights are very popular there, and dyno light users
were more satisfied with their lighting than battery light users.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/26/2014 9:40 AM, jbeattie wrote:

I've gained a real appreciation for dyno lights just seeing how effective they are in NL -- http://tinyurl.com/mmstwc9 You can see all the way to the next coffee shop! Commuting can look a lot different in PDX. This is a popular commute route. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUXgvgWIURY I use it sometimes to get to my neighborhood. Not a single overhead street lamp. The great part is that there is no auto traffic -- that's elsewhere on the commute. My usual climb is up a steeper but shorter residential street and then on to an unlighted trail and then up some stairs. It's all very much like Amsterdam.

It's election time in the U.S. and some of the ads on TV and Radio, as
well as the mailers, remind me of some of the debates about lights and
helmets where one side keeps citing Amsterdam as proof of their position
even though the way things are for cyclists are not relevant to riding
conditions in other countries.

The sad thing is that there actually are people that fall for those
bull**** political ads which makes the Koch brothers very happy.

AMuzi wrote:
On 10/26/2014 11:37 AM, Lou Holtman wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/26/2014 9:33 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Lou Holtman:
What do the
Germans know? I took some pictures. Judge for yourself. Enjoy.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1010765...eat=directlink

The density of merchandise per square foot of floor space seems awfully
low.

I wondered about that, too. I don't know of any store of any type that
has so much open space. Did they somehow come upon an old warehouse
for sale, super-cheap?


Nope, they build the store from scratch. You can feel, touch and try
anything that is on display. Like I said you can take any bike from the
stand feel it, weigh it, ride it (in the store). It is a damn good way to
sell bikes(tuff). You don't know how big Rose is, not only in Germany. You
should see their warehouse where they ship the online ordered stuff. They
have a history of more than 100 years. Longer than most Italian bike
companies with their bull**** heritage air.


Ahem. Italian BS heritage? Why pick on us?

Nothing personel, only picking on owners of Italian bikes who look down on
Rose bikes because according to them they lack the heritage of their
Italian bikes not knowing that Rose has a longer history than Colnago, De
Rosa and Pinarello. Technically Rose bikes are better and cost less.

--
Lou

On 10/25/2014 2:08 PM, jbeattie wrote:

snip

Portland's version of Bike Town is book town -- Powell's City of Books. Our bike shops aren't that big, but we do have a ton of them -- and if someone was coming here from Germany, I'd give him or her a Vallium followed by a tour of ten or twelve of the better shops. Someone expecting the trains to run on time would need a mild sedative before plunging into the subculture of bike shops in this town.

The largest bicycle store in the Bay Area, in terms of selection, is the
bicycle department of REI. Which is pretty sad.

Also, nearly all the mountaineering stores have closed. No more Western
Mountaineering or Marmot. The problem is that people would not travel a
long distance just to buy clothing which is the most profitable category
and which supported the hard goods that have lower margins.

If I want to buy back country, telemark, or XC skis I have to drive to
Livermore to Sunrise Mountain Sports. Not even REI sells them any more.

The bicycle stores are all so under-capitalized that no one has the
money to open something like that store in Germany.

People will drive almost to Reno to go to Cabela's.

The large bookstores in the Bay Area have also all closed.