Have you recently relocated to our fair city? We're excited to offer a warm welcome to all new cyclist, or cycling-curious residents of Cambridge! Cambridge Bicycle is approaching our 20th year serving the Cambridge cycling community. We're honored to have had the opportunity of two-decades-worth of outfitting countless people with fun and safe bicycles for adventures in the city and beyond. Whether you need a couple quick fixes on your trusty beater bike to get you through your...
Some days are just the pits - like when you go to adjust your saddle height and the thing won't even budge. Above, Pete is attempting to break the bond of corrosion holding a carbon post in an aluminum frame with the tactical soda - one of the many solvents he's used for this customer's frame. If you've gone longer than 4-6 months without treating your seatpost with grease, anti-seize, or carbon compound, do so today! If you aren't sure how to do this, come see us. If you find your...
Pete and Alex (featured) are two of our primary wheelbuilders on staff. A custom, hand built wheel offers a wide array of rim, hub, and spoke choices for either high demand cycling, or for unique projects where a stock rim is just not available. We frequently offer hand built wheels for heavy-duty commuters, cycle tourists, and road cyclists who need the reliability and strength that only a professionally built wheel can offer. While we do offer an extensive...
This is San, the entrepreneur behind Boston's The Coffee Trike. You may have seen him around Boston pedaling his custom fixed-gear cargo trike and coffee shop. He happened to be less than a block away when the bond between his chainring and crank failed. He just barely managed to coast to a stop in front of the shop. We only had tools to remove and replace the crank arm, but not re-attach the chainring. Luckily a former employee and local machinist located near our shop happened to have a few...
Recently a customer brought in his Circle A singlespeed road bike for some help: all four bolts in the frame's sliding dropouts had seized into place, and each bolt head was rounded out. Randy ended up using a dremel with a grinding disc to cut wrench flats into each bolt so he could have at them with some vice grips. Some time later and he had meticulously freed each bolt without damaging either the dropouts or the frame.
It's about that time of year when it seems like everyone is putting away their winter beater, pulling out their fair-season bikes, and finding they need them tuned up. Right now our turn around time for general tune-ups is two days. Since the weather's getting rapidly better, that is not going to be the case two weeks from now. We're expecting our turn-around time to be about a week long within the next three to four weeks. If you'd like your bike ready to go for Spring, our service staff...
This past summer Dylan brought in an old USA made Schwinn touring bike. He needed some work done for his first tour - a solo trip out from Boston to Ann Arbor. We tuned up the bike and built him a custom wheelset, re-building his vintage hubs to Mavic A719 rims. When he got settled in he sent us this e-mail with some photos from the tour. "Tour is complete, showed up yesterday afternoon. Just wanted to say thanks for all your help, Charlie: those wheels rocked the house, or the northeast...
Just like pictures, bicycles are worth a thousand words. Dan's Miyata, however; is worthy of it's own Homeric epic. He dumpstered this frame, which was once a 1980's chromoly road bike with Shimano 600 parts, and quickly stripped it. It's been built and re-built several times; changed ownership at least three times; and was once literally dragged behind a car to New Jersey by a previous owner. This bike has been a fixed gear, single-ring road bike, and currently is a dedicated single speed....
Our neighbors at M.I.T. stopped in yesterday to have us fix a flat on the Copenhagen Wheel and again this morning to have us pack it up for a little trip to Washington D.C.. In the words of our fearless leader Bud, "this wheel contains the future"! Find out more about the Copenhagen Wheel here. Bud fix'n the flat Pete Pack'n the complete bike up
Our front display is currently featuring a project we finished just this week: a WWII military bike. This amazing bike is a single speed, complete with rim brakes, cruiser bar, and wing-nut couplers on the frame! After restoring the wheels and tires, we put on a Brooks B-17 standard saddle, Brooks tool bag, and a set of Brooks pannier bags for the rear rack. The bike itself is not for sale, but the Brooks accessories certainly are. Although this bike is not safely rideable (as the brakes...
Our mechanic Charlie doing another routine repair on a bike.
Over the past few days our repair staff have been working diligently on tuning up our rental fleet. These bikes have seen their fair share of action this past summer and spring, and they'll be better than ever for the rest of the fall. If you find yourself looking to own a bike rather than rent, we still love to sell these workhorses for $375 - fenders, chain guard, rack, Dutch lock, and bell included.
A friend of the shop, Andrew Snowden crafted us a new sign for the repair area of our shop. It's not in it's permanent home in the shop quite yet, but handwork this great would look good anywhere.
...And we take it VERY seriously. Dan and Ling - Dan's first time on a tandem!
Ok, so it's not quite as bad as this picture...yet. But we all know that the section of North Harvard St. by Harvard Stadium is in dire need of some big-time repairs. I used to loath that route like nothing else when I had to take it to and from my old job every day: bumpy as hell, cars parked on both sides, the godforsaken 66(6) bus nearly running me off the road. So, I'm excited to report that the city has finally taken note of this deathtrap and drawn up reconstruction plans. According to...
This is what happens to your thumb from doing 100's of flat fixes. Keep it up Tom, they aren't slowing down anytime soon.....
This customer had this mona-lisa smile about him as he picked up his repair, so I asked him if he had just had straight bars installed. He said he had and I responded with, "that's so cooool." He had bought the fuji track from us and was now making the journey to a customized street machine. I've been helping people do this for over 10 years so I know the inevitable excitement a cyclist feels when he or she customizes their ride for the first time and really begins to take ownership of their...
I have been doing a lot of spring ordering to get ready for the busy bike season and one thing I have been noticing more of recently is people becoming more interested in doing their own basic repairs. Therefore I decided to grow our consumer tool area and luckily the tool world has been growing too, check out these new options! The Pedros Trixie tool is a new tool designed for single speed and fixed gear riders which is small enough to carry around with you. The tool has all the essentials...
This is Rick. Once an employee, Rick is now an M.I.T. designer and computer guy who designed a new tool for us to install sealed ball bearings...AND IT WORKS REALLY WELL!! We got it today. It's made from a brass weight, so it has the necessary heft to snug those little sealed guys right in...quick. Our mechanic Tom has already used it several times to swiftly switch out bearings for folks in a rush-- just another piece in the upgrade to our service department. Expect more upgrades soon. As...