High Visibility and Exceptional Performance

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As much as we’d like to deny it, our shifting seasons mean not only colder temperatures, but shorter days, as well. Early morning and evening rides are often in dusk or darkness. If you’re instincts for self-preservation are in tact, lights and brightly-colored apparel are smart choices. As pioneers in technical apparel, Assos and Rapha each offer a wide variety of High Visibility (“HiViz”, in industry-speak) articles for cycling, and Signature Cycles is excited to offer the best from both this Fall and Winter season.

Read on to learn about a few of our favorite HiVis pieces!

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Fall Foliage Ride 2012

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October 21st

Fall Foliage Ride 2011
Signature Cycles Greenwich

Our favorite ride of the year is the ever-popular Signature Cycles Fall Foliage Ride. This year the 3rd Annual Fall Foliage Ride is scheduled for Sunday, October 21.

The scenic 40-mile ride through Fairfield and Westchester counties will begin at Signature Cycles new Greenwich location at 14 Railroad Ave. The incredibly scenic ride will wind its way up to Armonk, NY with a rest stop at Adopt A Dog. After a brief refueling, riders will ride back to Greenwich on some of the best roads the area has to offer.

Ride leaders will accompany various groups accommodating paces starting at 13mph and up. Road bikes are required for all group riders. Cue sheets will be available for any riders wishing the tackle the route on their own.

Registration begins at 7:15am at Signature Cycles, 14 Railroad Ave. A $25 donation will go directly to The Greenwich Boys and Girls Club and to Adopt A Dog to support their untiring efforts to better the lives of families, children and pets in our area.

RSVP/Questions : lori@signaturecycles.com

Behind the Scenes with Serotta’s Howard Berkowitz

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Serotta’s Howard Berkowitz

Serotta has pioneered almost every custom bicycle frame innovation over the past forty years. They have always set the bar for accuracy, build quality and finish for all others to compare. In May this year Serotta made a big shift as interim CEO Howard Berkowitz stepped in for founder Ben Serotta. Ben continues with the company focusing on their creative vision and innovation, and now that Berkowitz has taken the helm, we wanted to learn more about him and the direction he’s looking to take Serotta.

At 47 years old with 25 successful years in corporate sales and management, Berkowitz considers himself the black sheep of the family. He comes from a family of teachers, doctors and nurses, so moving up the ranks working with Fortune 500’s wasn’t exactly the track he was expected to follow. It turns out that ultimately the work he found most exciting had something to do with making a difference for others anyway. At his previous position with Zimmer, a medical device distributer, he found himself consulting with physicians, observing hi-tech surgeries and even meeting patients. Continue reading →

Passoni Behind the Scenes

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Matteo Cassina

Earlier this year Signature became one the first US studios to offer the exclusive Italian bicycle line, Passoni. Passoni manages the details of finish and ride qualities that open a door to the possibilities of bicycle form and function that were never available before. Luxury, art, performance, the perfect dance partner…clearly it is Italian. We spoke with partner Matteo Cassina and Chief Operations Officer Danilo Colombo recently about what makes Passoni the experts in both elegance and high performance.

Cassina explained that well before he invested in Passoni, he had admired the beauty of their bicycles. As a 19 year old he remembered seeing his uncle’s Passoni and falling in love with it. He wanted one right then but his father said “When you have your own money, you can buy one for yourself.”

Passoni’s heritage of style and excellence

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Paul’s 2012 Guru Photon – Caffery’s Take

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Handmade in Canada, the Photon’s fit and finish are top-shelf.

As elementary particles, photons spend their careers careening through time and space at absurd speeds, blazing true paths, and literally illuminating those who experience them. It would be fun to juxtapose the 2012 Guru Photon here and say that the bike is a different story, but alas, it is not. It’s a remarkable machine, handmade in Canada, that does essentially all of the above.

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Signature Cycles at the Heath Wellness & Sports Expo

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tmk_h&w_Chelsea_2012_Final
Signature Cycles will be at the Health Wellness and Sports show at Chelsea Piers Connecticut on September 22nd and 23rd from 11am to 5pm.

Please visit us and over 75 other exhibitors including alternative medicine, integrative nutrition, weight management, children’s health, pet wellness, fitness programs, spa and beauty treatments, financial health, green technology, lifetime sports and more.

The event will also feature celebrity athletes, raffle prizes, fitness and dance demos, and much more.

Chelsea Piers is a new 400,000 sq. ft. world class multi-use fitness facility offering everything from rock climbing to triathlon training. Additional information and directions can be found here.

New Staff at Signature Cycles

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caffery1-wpIf you have been in our Manhattan or Greenwich studios recently you may have noticed some new faces. We are delighted to announce the addition of Caffery Garff to the Manhattan studio and Darren McNeill to the Greenwich studio. Caffery and Darren bring with them a wealth of knowledge and industry experience.

When not in the Manhattan Studio you’ll find Caffery ondarren3-wp the podium at the local Prospect Park Crits and look for Darren competing at this season’s cyclocross events. Both of them will be riding for team Rockstar/Signature Cycles. To learn more about our newest staff members, you can watch Caffery’s video bio here and Darren’s here.

D2R2 2012: The Rugged and Scenic Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnée

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This weekend Signature’s own Justin Bagnati rode the D2R2 (Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnée ) with about 1,000 other cyclists on a summer day that couldn’t have been more perfect for this event. The D2R2 was conceived in the 1990’s as a favorite dirt road loop in the hilltowns of Franklin County, Massachusetts. Organized as an event in 2005, it’s hailed as one of the hardest, most scenic, most traffic-free rides around. According to ride designer Sandy Whittlesey, the idyllic quality of D2R2 is no accident: “We designed D2R2 by placing pins in the map where the covered bridges and coolest sights were, then connected the dots with dirt roads. When the ride was originally developed we expected it to be nothing more than a quirky event for the fringe cyclists known as “randonneurs”. However, the event got national press, with riders raving about how fun, challenging, and beautiful it was.”

Justin Bagnati (3rd from left) with friends at D2R2

D2R2 riders choose from five distances: 40 mile, 100K, 115K, 150K, and 180K. Lots of families and those looking for a relaxed ride choose the 40-mile Green River ride which is about 50% dirt roads, mostly flat and twists along the beautiful Green River. The 100K offers a real back road challenge with LOTS of hills, and the 180K (112 miles) is considered one of the hardest rides in the country with 11,070 feet of climbing. Continue reading →