On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

I heard today that Bike Nüt closed a few weeks ago. Sad news. I always enjoyed stopping there. It was a good destination for a long run, or a good place just to stop and say hello and see what new bike jewelery Huseyin, the owner, had inside his glass case. Plenty of shops sell high-end stuff to build up a bike to the highest standards of the boutique fashion weenies. The number of shops selling custom Seven, Parlee, or Serotta cycles in or near San Francisco is nothing short of staggering. Bike Nüt, however, didn't sell custom frames. Huseyin's philosophy was that frames are commodity: that the Taiwanese factories have produced a high, uniform standard, so save your dollars there. Instead you want to spend your money on good wheels and quality parts. On the frame area, until a year ago he was buying frames from Giant, then sending them out to have the paint stripped and clearcoat applied to reduce them to the raw, black bare carbon. In a way this seems silly: Gi...