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I’ve mentioned roots of the bike industry, and that’s a subject I’d like to explore, but to start I’ll describe what my roots are as a bike mechanic. Knowing where you came from helps to determine what direction you want to go in. And my writing my history in this way will probably help reaffirm where I want to go—this writing is probably more beneficial to me than to anyone reading it.
As far as I can remember I’ve worked on my own bikes, one early memory actually is the “discovery” of what a presta valve was, admittedly I do recall having myself taken to a bike shop to get some help on it. But I was fascinated. I was told it was a “French” valve, and for a period thereafter I had a certain pride everytime I needed to inflate my tires. Pride in my bike and how “unique” it was with its fancy french valves. I have memories of riding out to the Rockledge neighborhood in my suburban Maryland town to build some monster bmx bikes with my friends Bill and Dan. I probably was riding my 6spd Centurion back and forth from our houses, and to the bike shop on Rt 197. A few years later, I traded my super awesome Centurion road bike for a Scott Peak mountain bike, delved off-road for a while—no regrets really, not until I regained interest in road bikes again many years later. It was probably an inevitable transition considering the fervor mountain bikes were building at the time. I only wish I committed deeper and got something with suspension so I could really tear it up.
Sometime in my late teenager years I got a car and chased after the freedom being a motorist for many years before I learned this freedom doesn’t exist. I learned that I can’t—ever—drive my car at a hundred and forty miles per hour, without a single other car on city streets, leaving a wake of theatrically destroyed pavement behind me. All I recall from these days was a lot of money lost, and many a headache from sitting in traffic for too long. The prolonged frustrations and inhibitions of working on my own car finally culminated in its sale. The majority of which went directly into the Fuji Cross, which I promptly installed road slicks onto in lieu of its knobbier cross tires.
The Fuji really got me into working on bikes on my own—primarily because of some of its faulty (or faultily installed) factory components. I learned about Octalink cranks the hard way and I just began learning about the detriments of poorly built wheels—I broke more spokes on those wheels than ever before or after. The self-reliance I gained by working on my own bike was emphasized by the poor customer service and mechanical advice I received from a shop in Seattle. I made the decision to no longer rely on any shop for assistance: I’d do it myself—at which point I began buying my own tools. (Any and all resentment from that shop has long passed, don’t ask me what the name of the shop is, I’m not telling).
Click more to continue….
My time in Seattle grew more bike-centric over the years and at some point I became a member of the co-op at Wright Bros. where I first learned to build wheels and overhaul bearing assemblies. Best of all at Wright Bros I learned that working on my bike right-side up in a stand is superior to most alternatives. Sometime during this period a friend of mine, at the time, and I started publishing a bike culture magazine. As this project began to fade, it began to dawn on me that working directly in the bike industry would probably fit me pretty well. I was mechanically inclined (previous jobs in the manufacturing field with a background in CAD) and my interest in being glued to a computer as my primary means of income was also fading—being a desk jockey wasn’t in my well-being’s best interest. Good combination: hands-on and computers—seemed logical to me, still does. I asked Charles at Wright Bros if he needed any help around the shop.
He did. Part-time work seemed to find its way into full-time work, through reliability, and good sweat I can only guess, and I was happy to learn what I did there, two nearly full seasons and a winter in between I certainly learned most of what I know now during that time at Wright Bros. I do have a lot to thank Charles for in that regard—all in all it was a good time too.
The only real time I took off from that shop was the two weeks needed for my trip to Ashland, OR for certification at UBI, an accomplishment I wouldn’t have necessarily gone for if my near future plans didn’t have me moving to another state at the end of the coming summer. I wanted to prove to any prospective employer that I was committed to the industry and had skills and certification to show for it. Pride or some other such BS caused a rift in my relationship with Charles because of this venture in “formal” education—as I always admitted to him, I learned more mechanically from my time at his shop than I did at UBI. He never seemed to understand that, or my best interests for that matter.
That rift grew and eventually resulted in me resigning from Wright Brothers a few weeks before my departure, not wanting to have any significant gap in mechanical employment, I filled in at Free Range Cycles around the corner. Kathleen has a great little shop there, I thank her a plenty as well for giving me a chance; it was a nice experience seeing how another, different, shop was run.
I’m now currently working at a shop where I’ve landed the position of shop manager/head mechanic at a new location of theirs, sort of by default, as there are no other employees and I’m the only mechanic, hopefully that will change come Spring when we hire some more wrenches. At this shop, I am seeing a bit of what they described at UBI when they mentioned the “need” for bike shops to be more of a “retail establishment that sells bikes” and less of a “mom & pop workshop” in order to stay in business. I’m not too sure what I feel about this “metamorphosis” and its predictable loss of personality and excitement in an industry that has such a rich history. If it’s not about the bike, and it’s all about the $$$$, then where’s the fun? There must be a middle ground.
It’s more of the factors towards the end of this post that I want to explore with this website. I’ll try to keep it from being too ranty or gripey, much of what I hope to write will be observations and questions.
One observation that is evident in this history is my lack of racing experience. For some reason I’ve never formally raced (outside of any alleycats or the like), I’ve had the occasional desire to but for some reason I fear it’ll add an element of stress to an activity I enjoy so much as it is already. But I bring up racing for another reason. What am I observing when I feel I notice a lot of people in the industry have inherent knowledge/experience/preferential treatment simply because they’ve been in the industry a long time or simply because they race? This “boy’s club” atmosphere is something that I’ve never felt I’ve been accepted into. Have I put my finger on it with the mentioning of “experience”? Is the preferential treatment just a misguided observation or is it merely envy?
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