...the truth about Three Sixty Bike Shop

"we could dance our tears away, emancipate ourselves" Anyway, now that I've left you reading, waiting, for the gossip of all gossip... here it is.

First, let me remind you that we were located in downtown Zanesville for ten years before moving to our new location at 503 Brighton BLVD. One comment that we currently get a lot is, "You don't look open." I can understand that. I can understand that for many reasons.

First, we're not like the mall or Wal Mart with 400 cars in the parking lot. In fact, we may not even have a car in the parking lot at all. No, it's not because we're all suffering from dui's, it's because we're able to ride our bikes to work. So if you don't see any cars in the parking lot, don't freak out. Second, we have a serious lighting/set problem. No, I don't mean that our electrical connections are constantly sparking. It's more that our front windows face away from the sun all day, never does the sun come into our front windows. On the outside of the windows are an overhang, so they are basically shaded. Then, on the inside, there is like a window box of some sort, which seems to prevent light from the inside hitting the glass.

These circumstances mean that we can have a lot of light on the inside, and on the outside it still looks dark inside, even on a sunny day. On overcast days we experience a mix of lighting visibility. These circumstances have also created many photography problems. It's been absolute challenge to design the lighting here for many reasons.

We need lighting where we need it and not so much in other areas. For example, if you're trying on a bike helmet you don't need surgical lighting, yet, when we're working with detailed parts of the bicycle, we need near surgical lighting.

Next, our floor plan has to serve multiple if not too many purposes. We have to have a decent store area that meets the expectations of a civilized society, and that floor plan has to look good on the inside and also, if you're able to see in, it has to look good from the outside. Also, the floor plan has to meet our needs in the way of not only are we just being a store and repair facility, but we're trying to produce bicycles as well. Realistically I think we're doing pretty good and as time goes on we'll be able to sort out the details to the point where everything makes sense. I know we could hire a sign twirler to stand out by the road, or maybe have someone out there in the parking lot juggling, or even put a light up sign in the window, but the chances of us doing that are close to zero.

We did hand paint a sign that says open that we sat outside, I mean that should be adequate, I'm not sure what standards we could ever truly meet as we've experienced a lot the last 13 years. We try our best, and perform pretty well, a strict adherence to our stated hours guidelines. If we're supposed to be open, unless there's a serious circumstance or a holiday weekend, we're open. Also, I can't control the story inside your head. When we were downtown people would come up with all kinds of stuff that made no sense. For example, one time a person called, wondering if we had went out of business, because apparently every time he had drove by previously he had seen a bike in a window, which had been removed.

Honestly, if there was a bike in the specific window he was talking about it was a 50/50 chance for ten years, but to him, this was a part of reality. I get it, I'm a human, I look around at different business and make different conclusions. I'm honestly trying hard to make our property look professional and civilized and I'm getting there. To be clear, there will always be something that someone comes up with and I've already learned I cannot satisfy everyone's doubts, fears, and concoctions. With that said, I know we're not doing horrible. I take feed back seriously and try and make sure I'm doing what I can. I guess to end it, I'll apologize in advance that yes, sometimes our building looks closed when it's open.

Here's a regular cell phone shot from inside the store, while, it makes outside absolutely beautiful, it's an example of the lighting challenge we face, and we're simply not stage lighting experts. In reality, it's brighter than daylight inside the store, all the lights are on, specifically, 24 lights bulbs are on, but you cannot tell. This photo is terrible, it's poor taste and not classy at all and I'm ashamed to post it because when you're in the store it's not lit like this at all. I suppose we'll figure it out one day.