Shop-Boy

In the past couple of months, Oude Granny has turned into quite the mobile blogging fool, a real roving reporter of the blog-o-sphere. So where am I blogging (reporting) from today?

Calvin College. In beautifully, cloudy, Grand Rapids, MI.

Ah, who picked this assignment???

Well, I'm here for some real-life business, you know the job that actually pays the bills. As I was driving in from Ann Arbor, I couldn't help but reminisce about a past life, one in which I found a true love, Ada Bike Shop.

So when I got close to my exit off of I-96, 28th St SE, where I needed to be, it didn't take much of the turn of the wheel, the steering kind, in the opposite direction to get to where I wanted to be, on Thornapple River Dr. headed up to Ada. I genuinely got "bike geeked out," knowing that I was just a few miles from one of my favorite bike shops.

So what you may ask is so special about this shop in particular? Well, I've kind of made it a habit to go into a bike shop in almost every town I've ever visited, even when I was in Sorrento, Italy on vacation, and of all those shops Ada Bike Shop (at least after a lot of the recent renovations) resembles the kind of shop I wouldn't mind opening one day.

Their motto, "making the best bikes better," is just part of Jim Ippel's philosophy of treating the customer as he would want to be treated. It's amazing how that little personal touch can make all the difference. So whether you want to go in and hang out in the lounge area to just talk "shop," bikes in this case, or feel confident that your bike will get fixed to your liking by one of the wrenches (yes, that's correct you Neanderthal, sexist cyclist, that's a female wrench back there putting your bike together, Rachel Ippel) its worth the trip to this small town just east of Grand Rapids.