Pereira Cycles

[lavi]

Can't wait for short track! (did I say that already?) It's like cross, but it's fun.

Short Track is my favorite 6 weeks of summer racing! Such a good series.

[the bottle ride]

Really nice story Tony.
One of my favorite aspects of this forum is this feature- I like hearing what moves the builder and what got them to where they are now.

[pereiracycles]

Tony:

Great to see you on here, and to read your story. I think the respect shown here by so many other builders speaks volumes.

I met Tony at the 2006 NAHBS while wandering around the show with a vague desire for a custom 'cross bike, chatting with the builders in their booths and realizing how much I didn't know. After seeing Tony's bikes and, more importantly, chatting with him a while, he had a customer. It took a while to get the bike (I was part of the 2007 post-NAHBS crush Tony mentions above) my Pereira has been my race bike ever since. Even shipped it East for D2R2 last year. Great bike and an even better experience with customer service. Tony deserves all the success he's gotten.

Here's my question for the thread: how detailed do you get with the fitting process? Do you more or less go by experience or are you more formalized with taking measurements for each customer?

/Greg

Greg,

Thanks for the compliments. You were a pleasure to work with. I'll get that fork to you asap. No more mountain bike races on your cross bike!

I have all my customers fill out a fit worksheet or come to my shop for body and bike measurements. Most people have their fit pretty well sorted out or can describe an issues they have and I can sort them out. I don't go by an rigid algorithms to arrive at final position. I don't think it can be broken down that scientifically. Everyone likes to sit on their bike a different way and my approach is to set them up the way that works for them. I take their body measurements and existing bike as a baseline and tweak it from there. After years of setting people up on stock size bikes I have a pretty strong intuition for what works. I go with my gut and my customers are happy. If someone has some weird biomechanical issue that is outside of my realm of expertise I will refer them to a fitter.

[Thylacine Cycles]

I've made about 10 batches of Pad Thai and I think I've got it pretty well down. I mostly worked off of Pim's recommendations (Pad Thai for beginners « Chez Pim) BUT (that's a big but and I hope I don't get crucified for saying it) I added ketchup to the sauce. Not too much, but it adds an element to the sauce that I really like. My old shop was across the street from a place called Pad Thai Kitchen and I used to eat there 3 times a week. I really love their pad thai, but since I don't get over there too often I thought I'd make my own. After trying ChezPim's "recipe" a couple of times I went back to Pad Thai Kitchen and asked for a little sauce on the side. Also asked what was in it and since they know me pretty well they were happy to tell me. I could taste a little hint of ketchup, but didn't want to believe it. Sure enough, ketchup--"just a little bit" they said.

Ketchup?

Anyway, while I reel in horror, the definitive Western Thai (As in a Thai cookbook, written by a Westerner) cookbook is David Thomsons' 'Thai Food'. It's the size of a phonebook, but it has everything you could ever need when it comes to cooking Thai food. If you like Thai food, you have to get this book. I've been going to Thailand periodically for 20 years and one of my best friends is Thai (spent a Summer with him and his family way back in 1992) so I consider myself a bit of a aficionado. I even have the hospital wristband to prove it!

[pereiracycles]

Hey Tony,

Love the bikes, especially all the integrated lights and locks. I was looking at the gallery for the Frame Build Sequence and couldn't help but notice the size of your alignment table. Are you still using that one or have you upgraded to a larger size in the new shop? Any major difficulties working with the small table?

Thanks,

Jayme

Jayme,
Thanks. The little alignment table works very well. The only drawback is that you have to move the frame around to check the front and the back. I'd like something bigger someday for convenience, but it's small size makes it easy to move around when I need to. It also doesn't take up much space.
My old boss at Wild Rose gave me the table. Back in the day we used to check all the frames that came into the shop before we built them up. I'm sure that some knuckleads that didn't know what they were doing "aligned" a lot of perfectly good frames that didn't need it. Eventually the table was just collecting dust until I started building frames and one day he said, "you might as well just take that home with you." I was pretty stoked!


I love the owner's manual cover:

[pereiracycles]

Ketchup?

Anyway, while I reel in horror, the definitive Western Thai (As in a Thai cookbook, written by a Westerner) cookbook is David Thomsons' 'Thai Food'.

I know, I know...ketchup sounds horrible. It really adds a nice tang to the sauce though. It tastes good, so it works for me. At least I use more fish sauce than ketchup! Maybe I should use tomato paste so that it doesn't sound so awful.

Thanks for the cookbook tip. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

[conorb]

Thanks Conor.
</snip>
Lastly, I build what I like.

That turned into a bit of a ramble. I hope I answered your question.

Not a ramble at all. Building what you like is paramount to being able to "do it" and I fully agree with the sentiment.

Thanks,

Conor

[Thylacine Cycles]

If you like a tomato-y tang in your noodles, you should try Mee Goreng, which actually does have Ketchup in it.

I'll email you David Thompson's Pad Thai recipe....

[pereiracycles]

I'm getting hungry.

[Jayme]

I love the owner's manual cover:

That's awesome; Thanks Tony!