New bike store near Centretown

Keeping on the cycling theme of the last few posts, I was very pleasantly surprised on Sunday to learn that Kunstadt Sports just opened a third location at 680 Bank Street in the Glebe (its other locations are on Bank Street in the South end, and in Kanata):

In the front of the store are a bunch of bicycle oddities, including a Sociable bike.

680 Bank was known for a long time as Olympic Sports Shop, which closed and became the Pannier for a while. Tommy & Lefebvre used the shop as a temporary downtown location for a while after their flagship store burned down this spring.

I didn't realize they had vacated the space (which made seeing Kunstadt there even more of a surprize). Reconstruction of T&L's main store is ongoing and they're hoping to be back open by this year's Christmas season (I'm working on an update post).

The best part about Kunstadt being downtown is that the on-site mechanic is Mike Plummer, who has been in the business longer than anyone else in Ottawa (coming in second is Peter Conway of McCrank's Cycles, also in the Glebe). Mike is the guy other bike shops send you to when you want something over their heads. Mike indulged me in a photo:

This new store opening is timely, as Joe Mamma's is moving (location not yet confirmed). Their shop service is also top-quality, and if they move out of the downtown core, Eric's fast and personal service will be sorely missed.

On a personal note, I'm also pleased because I needed some work on my bike that only Mike could do, and I had been putting it off for years because I didn't want to trek out to one of the other Kunstadt locations.