Keep up to date with the latest Six-Eleven news, check in on your build, or get a glimpse of the Six-Eleven process.
I’m behind on blog posts… hope you haven’t noticed
Just about every journal entry we write could start with ...“it’s been a little crazy around here recently”. I guess that’s the nature of running your own business, though.
We had a fantastic open house on Saturday, March 24th. It had been a really rainy morning, but during the afternoon the skies cleared long enough for us to throw some brats on the grill and fling open the shop doors for a much needed breath of fresh air. We had a great turnout, with folks rolling in steadily from 3:00 until 6:00. Aaron and I got the chance to chat with a few folks, both some of the regulars and some visitors from out of town. We had members of the Greensboro Velo Club drive up for a visit, a graduating senior from Hampden Sydney who stopped by, and Kevin and Dana drove down from Northern VA to hang out with us and spend a night in our lovely hometown. We also had clients Bob and Beckie swing through from West VA, and of course, Patrick B. from North Carolina drove up to pick up his award winning CX bike!
This is a photo of Dick Howard (now an award winning painter!) giving a great toast at the open house. Have I mentioned lately how lucky we are to be surrounded by such great folks here in the Roanoke Valley?
We were at the shop late that night doing a fit for Kevin, and on Sunday we took a much needed day off to finally cut our grass. Yes, we had waited far too long.
The following weekend we had the chance to drive a bike down to Charleston, SC for a photo shoot. We needed to be down there Friday afternoon, so we woke up early Friday morning to make the 6 hour drive. It turns out the the Cooper River Bridge Run was taking place in Charleston on Saturday, so there wasn’t hotel room available for miles and traffic was a mess. But after lots of driving, almost running out of gas in standstill traffic, and BBQ, we finally made it to he photo shoot in beautiful historic Charleston. We were blow away with Charleston’s charm and character. And lucky for us, it was 83 degrees while we were there!
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The following day we drove to this bike owner’s wedding in Chapel Hill:
. We got the chance to see some old friends and catch up, and the wedding was spectacular too!
Last week and this week we’ve been busy playing catchup, getting RT’s bike back from paint and built up to ship out (hopefully tomorrow!), finishing up JP’s build to ship (hopefully tomorrow!), getting LW’s bike ready to ship to paint, and getting the main triangle on CB’s lugged stainless bike ready to braze. We’re moving right along!
The NAHBS merchandise (Tshirts, patches) will be up on the webstore soon, so keep an eye out!
Regular blog updates are coming again soon.
Some Might Say The Greatest Clients
I have to say, we’re lucky to have amazing clients. Our clients join the Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. family, and each one brings something special and unique to the table when it comes to designing their own custom built bike. On Monday this week we got a call from John Robinson, Roanoke resident, who asked if he could stop by the shop. He swung by and brought with him a deposit and letter. The letter is titled “Why I Want a 611 Bike”. Below I’ve hit some of the highlights, but I’ve also include the whole letter (click to enlarge) - it’s worth a read.
The letter begins,“The thought of having a custom made bicycle fuels my dreams and memories of the joy that cycling has brought me all these years. Commissioning the building of a 611 hand-made bicycle is not only a tip of the hat to my railroadin’ heritage hometown, but it pays homage to the importance that cycling has been to me throughout my life.”
John goes on to talk about the beauty of steel (and he says it better than we ever could). “...And I see the working of the materials, of the steel, the abrasives, the tools, the fire, as timeless elements of being human. The essence of which goes back thousands of years. We are tool users. Our hands, through tools and material and directed by the creative drive of our brains, give us the ability to directly affect change in our world.”
John concludes with a nod to the art of bike building. He says, “I want to support the craft, not only through my modest financial commitment, but through my enthusiasm, so this art and science is kept alive for now and for the future.”
Our clients are each unique and come to us for a variety of reasons and through many different avenues. But above all, we’re grateful for our clients who appreciate the beauty, strength, comfort, and art of steel. They may not all be so eloquent in their expression, but they’ve all communicated their appreciation through their decision to buy handmade steel. We’re so grateful to every one of our clients and admirers for supporting the art of small manufacturers and continuing the tradition of handbuilt, American made products. We work hard to live up to your expectations, and we thank you all!
Thanks John, both for the letter and for the permission to repost it! What a great way to start off and now end the week.
(and as if John wasn’t already cool enough, I borrowed the small photo of him on the side of the blog from the internet. Yes, he’s paragliding in Brazil.)
We finally got some fantastic new homepage images! The photos that were up there were taken as many as 3 years ago, and they were in need of updating. It was on my list of things to get done, but today David Hungate made it much much easier. David came to the shop in early December to photograph Aaron for a shoot for a local magazine. When I called him up yesterday to ask if he had any spare images we could use, he sent me a CD of all the photos he took.
We’re extremely grateful to David for his generosity and for sharing his work with us gratis. Check out his website here, at dominionimages.com. And check out our new images on our homepage! More images to come in future posts.
With the new year comes many exciting projects here at Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. A couple of them you’ll be hearing about in the next couple of weeks, and others are long term projects inspired by people doing great things across the country.
Aaron is 3 months into having an employee, and if I must say so myself, I think it’s going well! I am now handling all email correspondence and ordering, and I appreciate everyone’s patience and enthusiasm as we’ve made the switch. We’ve got a great lineup of bikes already planned for 2012, including some local bikes, like a road frame with DI2 for LD and a road frame for LW, plus a track bike for RT in northern VA, and that’s all slated for the next month! Lots of road and touring builds in 2012 - am I sensing a trend? We’re also working on new merchandise for this year, including new shirts and a few other items that will be posted to the webstore.
One of the things that we have to do every so often is adjust our pricing slightly to keep up with the cost materials and overhead. Although no one wants to raise prices, we do want to keep the lights on here at the Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. shop, so we hope you’ll bear with us as we make some slight pricing adjustments for orders placed in 2012. Actual 2012 prices will be posted in the next week or two, but of course all deposits that have already been received are locked into the current 2011 pricing structure. So until we get the new prices up on the website…
There’s good news! The price increase is not going to go into effect until January 31. So that means that all deposits received on or before January 31 are eligible for 2011 pricing! As a reminder, current pricing is as follows:
Track frames start at $1950
Road frames start at $2050
Tour / CX / Rando / 29er frames start at $2150
All prices include a single color paint job, and custom steel forks currently start at $300.
Get in on 2011 pricing by submitting your deposit by January 31! For questions or inquiries, email me (Michelle) at [michelle at sixelevenbicycleco.com].
In other exciting news, here’s a sneak peek of a 2012 NAHBS bike that is being sent to paint this week.
I’ll work on getting more NAHBS bike sneak peeks posted as we wrap them up.
Thanks for reading, and we are looking forward to a creative and inspired 2012!
-Michelle
Happy Holidays from Six-Eleven!
As many of you are winding down for a long holiday weekend, we wanted to take a minute to thank you all for your support of Six-Eleven Bicycle Co. We’re so grateful for our clients, friends, and fans of Six-Eleven, and we wish you all a happy holiday season and a joyous and prosperous 2012.
The shop will be open normal hours Friday, 12/23 and Monday, 12/26. So if you’re in Roanoke for a trip home to visit family, please stop in and see us. We’ll be here 10:00 - late both days.
Also, be on the lookout for several new bikes on the blog next week and the first week of the new year. We’ve had a hold up at paint, and have 3 bikes being delivered tomorrow. So we’ll get photos and descriptions up soon! We’ve got a beautiful set of his and her road bikes and a unique lugged frame, fork and stem with some interesting details to get to you. Sorry for the delay!
NAHBS bikes are in full swing, and you’ll hear it here first: we’ve got a cx, road bike, track frame, and city bike planned for this year’s NAHBS, all with a little something special thrown in. It’s a busy time of year!