undeniably superb

My love of bike shops is no secret; I'll stubbornly stand in cleats around bike stands, even with a knee that's throbbing and begging me to sit down, to kill time with the best mechanics around, whether in NYC or Boston.
I never thought, though, that I'd have the opportunity to watch a new bike shop develop from gutted out space to awesome concept shop. But every few weeks since early July, that's exactly what I've been doing at a particular spot on Beacon Street.
Yup, that's right. It's open. Superb, that is.

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I've hinted at it. I've posted a few vague pictures. I even designed a t-shirt for the shop! But renovations were still going underway at that point, and despite my itchy fingers desperately seeking to post about the shop, I had to resist until it was officially open.
And yeah, it was totally worth the wait.

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Back in March when Jason first told me about the new shop, I got excited. But it was that vague kind of excitement where you don't really know what you're getting excited about, just that the person talking to you has some awesome ideas and is actually going to follow through on them. I had no idea what to expect, really, except that the shop colors were going to be gray, teal, and purple.
That drastically changed in July when the real work started in the space formerly known as Boston Bicycle. And as damask was painted onto the walls, new cabinets build, chandeliers installed [possibly my favorite part of the shop], and a fainting chair assembled, my constant exclamations of "oh my God, this is AWESOME!" started sounding almost lame.

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Because honestly, it's such an understatement. "Awesome" doesn't do justice to a shop that's clearly been well thought out, and executed with even more care. Stocked with cassette and Gage & Desoto t-shirts [I'm not biased, I promise], vintage jerseys, narifuri bags [possibly the only place you can get these babies in Boston], Phil Wood deliciousness, and Campy peanut butter wrenches, Superb is living up to its name. Add to that a bike inventory that is limited to steel frames [geared and otherwise] and you have a concept shop that has really good taste.

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But that doesn't mean that it's inaccessible. Like its brainparent, Jason, Superb is - while almost intimidatingly hip - quietly confident, courteous, and perhaps most importantly [for a bike shop], non-judgmental. Everything from hybrids to track frames walk through the door; drawn to the velodrome display window or just to get a flat fix. And on one recent visit to Superb, a customer paused before heading out with a properly inflated tire:
"You guys did a little rearranging, huh?"
We all blinked. Yeah, you could say that.