What's UP with the C & O Bicycle Shop
 

Sorry for duplicating the post, but I wondered if the touring crowd knew any more..

Re: C & O Bicycle Shop

They initiated an essay contest several months ago. If they received 1000 entries ($250 / entry), then the winning 400 word essay would win their turnkey bike shop business on the C & O towpath. I was very intrigued. I was preparing my entry. But just recently I checked back at their site (www.candobicycle.com) and the rules have changed. Now there's no 1000 entry requirement, no 400 word maximum, and the winner only gets to rent the building. I'm certainly not interested in an unspecified lease and some leftover inventory. Anybody know what happened? I tried their "contact" page and it goes off to some strange error link.

I'm answering my own question: I was taking the family to DC and happened to be passing within miles of the C & O Bike shop -- so I stopped and asked them myself...

What a great place. Perfect location on the C & O bike path AND the Western Maryland rail trail. And they never actually intended to imply that the actual property would be given away. They give away ~$100K of inventory and a working bike shop business to the winner and offer a reasonable 5 year lease on the property (with 5 year extension option). Large building with lots of room for expansion. I'm definitely interested still but would have a tough time uprooting the kids if I won the business. Very cool.

Again this is very interesting. I wonder how many $250 essay participants they had.

The deadline is still 2 weeks away. They were very nice and I might have plied that info out of them, but George had already confided that several other bike shops had asked that question --and they had declined to offer the answer so far --so I didn't push for it either.

as the old saying goes " The best way to make a million dollars in a Bicycle Shop is to start with 2 million"