We had several orders from people planning to take their bike seat out onto the playa this year. Unfortunately the bike seats were scheduled to arrive at the fulfillment center without enough time for shipping before people left. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I already had plans to meet the new shipment when it arrived at the fulfillment center in Phoenix, since this is a new partner and it's always great to meet business partners face-to-face. In order to get bike seat orders out to folks heading to the playa, I filled up a minivan in Phoenix and road tripped north to meet them in Reno to give them their bike seats.

The new inventory arrived safely at the new distribution center on Friday of last week and I was able to review it all on Monday after arriving in Phoenix late Sunday night. The shipment looked great and all back-orders have been shipped out this week. I met with the team managing fulfillment now and they're good people and will take care of Companion Bike Seat well. It was pretty exciting to see the rows and rows of new bike seats (and backrests and ebike pegs) ready to ship out!

All in all it's been a pretty exhausting road trip after covering over 1500 miles of a 1700+ mile road trip, but well worth it at the end of the day. Most of our bike seat sales occur online today, so I get very few opportunities to meet with customers face to face, and this road trip has been awesome for that. Plus, bike seat orders are flowing again!

Every once in a while, we'll get a local bike seat purchase (local to the Bay Area) needing help with an axle-swap to install their bike seat, and I get the chance to personally meet them and help them with the installation of their bike seat.

This weekend I had the pleasure of helping to install a bike seat on a bicycle that's heading out to Burning Man later this week! The bicycle was already complete with furry decorations and LED light strings, but it wasn't equipped for another passenger until now. The bike had a quick-release rear hub, so the owner bought the proper replacement solid axle a week prior, and once it arrived, I came over to do the install. 

First I pulled the rear wheel off and removed the quick-release axle from the hub. I pulled all of the existing lock nuts, spacers, and bearing cones off the hollow (quick-release) axle and assembled them onto the new replacement solid axle. After greasing it up with some axle grease, the new axle was then inserted back into the hub of the rear wheel and everything was tightened down. Making sure the ball bearings are seated properly while inserting the replacement axle can be a little tricky, but after doing this three or four times, I've found an easy trick: just hold the wheel horizontal and use your finger to hold the ball bearings in place while the axle is inserted back into the hub. The entire process of swapping the axle from quick-release to a solid axle took no more than 30 - 45 minutes.

Once the solid axle was installed and the wheel was back on the bike I had the bike seat installed onto the bicycle in no time. First the pegs were tightened down onto the new solid axle, then the bike seat clamped onto the pegs and the seat post. We took this picture once the installation was complete and then took the bike out for a test ride ... success!

Next stop: Black Rock City to gift rides to fellow wayfarers!

We concluded our Bike Seats on the Playa bike seat giveaway at the end of last month and are shipping out free bike seats to all the winners first thing tomorrow morning. Due to Burning Man's policy against photos from Black Rock being used for commercial purposes, I can only publish a handful of the pictures submitted, though I've included several of the comments that folks sent in to us.

There were all sorts of custom rigs at the park, from functional to artistic and everything in between. I included some photos here of the best ones from the afternoon.

Taken at Burning Man this year (thanks Star and Troy). This particular bike seat later provided transportation for a man who had just fallen out of the sky (not shown).