The Bozeman City Commission along with the Mayor voted unanimously in favor of our project. This was a very tricky application and we owe our success to Elaine Hawk of pLAND our land use/planning consultant. It was obvious from the comments made by the commission that her focus on communicating with the neighbors prior to and during the process was a key to our approval. We are also very lucky to have a commission and Mayor that are very thoughtful and fair. One of may main concerns was that  there would be a misunderstanding about what the nature of custom bike frame making as compared to more commonly understood manufacturing. There was some concern with the neighbors that we would be creating noise, dust, vibration, etc. As part of the process we did everything we could to communicate the the unique nature and low impact of producing frames by hand in small numbers. Fortunately they had a clear understanding of what we did, and how we operate. So now that’s in the books, and it’s a very big deal. We are getting very close to finally breaking ground. Once we start construction I’ll be documenting the whole thing right here.

So thanks to my world class kick-ass web guy Todd we have figured it out. After hearing your thoughts and one really good observation about being able to look back at past blog posts we have a solution. What we’ve decided to do is feed the face book posts to my home page and nest them in with the blog posts. That will save me from having to post the same thing twice. I’ll also continue to blog and it will feed back to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. So I’ll continue to post all custom frame builds on my blog along with any longer post and narratives and will post all the quick little things I do from my phone on my Facebook page. That way all the posts will be available both places.

Also, today is a big big day for Loretta and I. After more than a year of work we are going before the city commission this evening for approval of our new shop. We are asking to demo an existing garage, build a new much larger 1.5 level garage/Studio and operate our business from it. We live in a very special historic neighborhood with a lot more  restrictions than the average neighborhood in town, so there have been a lot of hoops to jump through. We have worked closely with our neighbors to insure them that there would be no negative effect on the neighborhood and have received the support of the planning dept and the deign review committee. We are pretty optimistic, but it all comes down to tonight’s vote, so keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks to those who commented on my thoughts on the blog. Currently my web guy Todd is testing a process that should seamlessly combine the two and hopefully make everyone happy. Once it’s ready I’ll post it and we’ll see how it works. I’ll let everyone know so they can share their opinion and let me know if there are any bugs.

I also wanted to let everyone know whey we haven’t been posting any of Loretta’s nice studio shots. In case you didn’t know we are currently in a temporary shop while we build our new shop. The temp shop does not have a studio. For the remainder of the time we here, we’ll post pics of everything, but it will be just quick shots from our phones. Once we are finally in our permanent home, we’ll start taking studio shots and adding new images to our website galleries again.

I’ve been thinking about getting rid of the blog. Currently I blog a couple times a week and the blog post feeds to Facebook. From what I can see many more people see my posts on Facebook than my blog. Problem is that when a post feeds to Facebook, it doesn’t get the views that it would if I posted directly to Facebook. So I’m thinking I’ll post to Facebook and feed to my homepage. That will save me from doing the same work twice. I’ll still post all my frame builds and assembled bikes, along with other things just as I do on the blog. Hopefully there won’t be much of a difference to those that visit my homepage except you will not be able to comment.  To comment you’ll have to go to the Facebook page. I know a lot of you aren’t on Facebook and that’s the rub. But currently I’m not getting the same info to both platforms or it’s redundant and there is twice the work. I’d be interested to hear what you think.

Also, here are some builds I did last week that were posted on Facebook but didn’t make it to the blog.