A Parent’s Guide to Buying Kids Bicycles

We are stocked up for the holidays with the largest selection of kids bikes available at any Gainesville Bike Shop. Here is hopefully an informative guide about buying your child his or her first or next bicycle.

There are literally hundreds of brands of kids bike choices. We at the Super Cool Bike Shop only carry what we would feel comfortable putting our own loved ones on. We take great pride and care in every bike we build. In addition to meticulous building standards, we stock all of the necessary safety equipment any adult or child would need. Whether you buy a bike from us or not, there are some things to be conscious of.

November Updates

The Super Cool Bike Shop is pleased to feature Gainesville Florida’s largest cycling shoe inventory. We have your size and style. Whether road biking, mountain biking, riding for exercise or spin class we have a choice of styles.

Our shoe selection is just one part of our all new back room, where you will also find a large selection of cycling apparel. This week, we will also be receiving a huge shipment of Giro and Bell helmets. Both companies offer many comfortable, stylish, professional grade helmets at all prices.

All these improvements are just in time for our new partnership with Gainesville Health and Fitness. We are offering Gainesville Health and Fitness Members 10% Off apparel, parts and accessories and 5% Off new bike purchases.

Spin Shoes

In addition to Clipless Pedals and Shoes for all Applications, The Super Cool Bike Shop proudly stocks over 8 styles of Spin Shoes in all sizes, with special order access to dozens more.

With Offerings from Mavic/ Adidas, Cannondale and SixSixOne we are bound to have the style and price show you are looking for. These are just another addition to our backroom where we stock a wide selection of helmets, jerseys, bike shorts, gloves and other apparel.

To kick things off, we are offering a 10% discount on Apparel (including Spin Shoes), parts and accessories to Gainesville Health and Fitness Club Members.

Mavic Aksium Wheels

Bang for the Buck, new wheels represent the best value in bike upgrades for most riders.

Shown here are the 2010 Mavic Aksium Wheelset. With much of the technology of Mavic’s top of the line wheel sets, these entry-level priced Mavic wheels offer a substantial performance advantage to most any stock wheels on any sub $2000 Road Bike.

Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail Review

The longest paved trail here in Gainesville, the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail alone is 16 miles long; the trail also connects with the Depot Avenue Trail, the Waldo Road Greenway and the Gainesville-Downtown Connector to make 22 miles of continuous car-free trails.

Starting from Gainesville’s Boulware Springs Trail-head the bike route winds through a mesic hammock forest that borders Paynes Prairie. The trail has a fair bit of twists and turns during the Gainesville sector along with a fair bit of elevation changes. Most of climbing and descending is very short and is due to numerous sinkholes in the trails corridor. During the being sections of the trail there are also a few overlooks of Payne’s Prairie and the La Chua Trail-head. The overlooks are worth a stop by; you might even get to see Gainesville’s very own heard of wild Buffalo and horses! After the sinks there is one ‘major’ hill that might catch a few people off guard…it lasts for a several hundred meters and climbs close to 100ft. The rest of the route is mostly flat with a few slight undulations in grade. There are several high-speed road crossings along with several bridge crossings(BE CAREFUL AND STOP AT THE CROSSINGS). The trail provides benches along the length of the route and water is available at both the Gainesville and Hawthorne trail-heads. If you ride the full length of the trail you are likely to see a variety of wild creatures including: deers, rabbits, snakes, buffalo, horses, wild turkey, and all sorts of other little critters. All and all this is a very peaceful place to bike in Gainesville.

Hawthorne Map

Directions
The Gainesville-Hawthorne bike route can be accessed from various points of entry.

-From Gainesville I recommend starting the trail near the University of Florida Campus. On the weekends a great place to park is Norman Hall… there is a parking garage and several ground level spots generally open and free. From Norman Hall I recommend following SW 8th Ave east until it Ts with SW 9th St in which you will bare right until it connects to Depot Ave.
The bike route parallels Depot Ave and can be accessed immediately at the intersection of SW 9th St and Depot. Follow the rail trail, it will intersect SW 6th St and SW Main in less than a few miles. The next major intersection will be SE 4th St, there is a bike memorial right before the intersection, do not miss it! You do NOT want to cross SE 4th(it is the Waldo rail trail), rather you want to take a right and follow SE 4th for about 3/4 of a mile. On the left will be the continuation of the Hawthorne trail. No more directions… just follow the trail now!

-The main entrance for the Hawthorne Trail is at Boulware Springs and can be reached via Hawthorne road and taking a right onto SE 15th st. (see map)

-From Hawthorne look for signs on 301 and the trailhead is located at 300 SW 2nd Avenue.

LocalCarsDealers.com, local auto services.

Thomson Stems

One of the nicest upgrades you can add to any bike would be a Thomson stem. Thomson stems are CNC machined in the USA. They are just simply stunning to look at, especially when matched to a Thomson seatpost. In addition to looking beautiful, they offer the functionality of being lighter than stock stems as well as the safety of being stronger.

Almost all of our employees are using Thomson stems and seatposts on one if not all of their bikes. See them below, or stop in and have a look at them, because they are only more impressive in person.