Riding through Kendall Square and Wellington/Harrington today reminded me of the tremendous opportunity we lost in Crystal City/Pentagon City in Arlington VA
@bikepedantic my neighbor works for Amazon in Crystal City, and they just announced a program with Conte’s bikes that if you agree to bike to work, they will pay for an annual bike rental through Conte’s - anything up to a $7k road bike. Too bad the roads won’t be best in class…
@Will @bikepedantic the bike lease reimbursement has been in place for a while, just Conte's as an option is new. Previously the only offerings were direct with brands.
@bikepedantic @nikkid corporate America embracing bikes is unequivocally good , even if it offends one’s personal punk rock / never sell out sensibilities. Give me a thousand corporate deals between Deloitte and Trek/Specialized. You can still go curate a Crust bike in your spare time.
@bikepedantic @nikkid new collab to consider: Berkshire Hathaway buys which undervalued bike brand and makes it succeed by sticking to its core values, but capitalizing it to national scale?
Everybody go with your answer, and I’m sorry, but I already know the correct response.
@bikepedantic @nikkid correct. I could also see them buying SOMA or some other brand with nice steel frames made in Taiwan. Probably they would need to find someone with at least a small presence in eBikes, which QBP has.
@bikepedantic @Will even though Conte's is right there and they bring VeloFix to campus, I still spend my reimbursable dollars with Daily Rider. But I am also an anomaly in that I didn't shop on the big A before I worked there and still don't now that I work there.
@bikepedantic @Will vanMoof is a leasing partner so I was curious to see if A* would be a potential bankruptcy purchaser but I think ultimately it is too small. I am also a cynic and think the only reason we get bike reimbursements is because the localities eat it up.
@bikepedantic @Will biking the 15th street traffic sewer from Crystal drive to Eads gives me the morning adrenaline boost I need to skip morning caffeine!
@bikepedantic It's so beautiful
@bikepedantic Maybe I was spoiled living near the W&OD trail, but my recollection was that I could go all over NoVA and DC on bikepaths in a way we still can't do in Boston. There was little to no onstreet infrastructure of course -- this was late 2000s. I didn't have cause to go to Crystal City, but I did ride through a couple times. I wish there was a route to Logan like the path to National! Not sure if has changed, but DC riders were much better about not having strobes on the bike path.