He'd gone into an LBS (where, a few weeks earlier, he spent $120 on bike gear) after he noticed that he'd lost a couple screws off his shoes. He asked for, and received, two screws for his cleats. The shop guy actually took his shoe and fitted the screws, thereby verifying that the screws indeed fit.
The shop guy then charged him two dollars for the screws.
The rider went and found the same kind of screws at a big box department store for a lot less, I think $1.13 for four more such screws. I think this made him think that perhaps the LBS had ripped him off, or was expensive, or something. It just didn't seem right. So he posted his question online.
He got a bit of a response to his question, ranging from folks questioning his financial status (why worry over a couple of bucks), the amount of free time (questioning online the value of two screws), to the predictable HTFU.
I've been on both sides of the counter on transactions like this. Let me point out that my bike shop failed in part because I was too nice to the good customers. They didn't make me do it - I'm the one that gave them the discounts, priced the product, etc. But in the scheme of things it's the little things that add up to whether a shop stays open or closes.
So, are two screws worth two dollars?
First, figure the shop guy's time is worth, say, $60+ an hour. That's conservative I think, but that's what mechanics needed to make the shop 10 years ago. If he spends 2 minutes finding the screw (i.e. he is helping you and only you out, not keeping an eye on the store, not assembling a bike while chatting, etc), then his labor needs to be covered. $2 is about fair for 2 minutes at $60/hour. At $90/hour (seems like the standard car mechanic rate around here) it's worth 90 seconds of rummaging.
If the shop is a mess then you subtract a little, but if it's spotless, figure it's worth a bit more money (since they're "more efficient").
Second, the screws are a little unusual (they were screws for Carnac shoes, ones that require a bit more length than normal). A quick way of getting them would be to strip a pair of shoes for its screws, then hoping that someone that buys them gets pedals that doesn't require those exact screws.
But that's not the best way of doing it. Buying the screws separately (and not stealing them from another complete product) is "correct".
And to do that costs money.
For them to order a couple screws (from a bike distributor or even a McMasters) will cost them probably more than just $2. I work now in a hardware store (little one, not a big box one). We ordered screws for a very, very good customer, one comes in 1-3x daily, four boxes total. One box of screws wholesales for $13.72 and retail for $15.12 (Midwest brand, the ones that you find in the little pull out drawers). Okay, so we can't give the 10% discount, right? The kicker was the $9 in shipping (!!) for 4 boxes. Now the boxes cost us almost $16 each (forget about ordering time etc) and they retail for less.
It comes to that saying "You can have it fast, good, or cheap. Pick two of the three."
Our customer got the screws at $18 per box ($20 - 10% discount). He waited 3 days for them. The original online questioner got his two screws at $2, and waited, hopefully, a couple minutes for them. The convenience of not having to walk through Home Depot on a ride is worth something, maybe a not-stolen-bike, not slipping on the floor, something. The cost of the screws are not the point, it's the time efficiency and the fit (of the screws).
However... I've also been a customer. Even at large bike shops (Supergo somewhere in CA) I understand that things are not free. I bought 5 chainring spacers there when I realized I'd lost the spacer (but not the bolt) off the 5th hidden chainring bolt on my Record crank. The shop gave me a plastic bin of spacers to rummage through (took 10 seconds for the guy to pick it up and hand it to me). I know that this bin costs something like $50 wholesale, no shipping, not worrying about minimum orders, and the place that sells them requires, typically, a $600-1000 minimum order. After a minute I found the chainring spacers, took pretty much all of them (I think I needed five of them), pointed this out to the mechanic, and asked him how much for the spacers in my hand. I felt a fair market value was $5 ($1 each), a discounted price $2 (40 cents each), and a high price $10 ($2 each). I decided I'd pay $5 for the five spacers.
"A buck."
I protested. This was below even a "good" price.
"A buck? It's got to cost you 20 cents a spacer. It's got to be more than that."
"A buck."
I've never seen him before, never saw him since. Since he stood his ground, I let him. I went to the register and let the guy know there that the mechanic told me it was a buck. Because I felt bad about basically stealing from the shop, I also bought energy bars and tried to convince myself that I needed some carbon fiber dropped bars (they didn't have my size). I also came back to buy a cheap mtb frame (house brand, $150 for the frame) but they didn't have my size in that either, but I was too far away to carry it on my back while on my ride when I got the chainring bolts.
I know that the original questioner spent about $120 at the shop a couple weeks before, but that's not a huge transaction in the scheme of things - a couple tanks of gas now, or one tank a month ago. It could have been huge if he had engaged one of the smarter employees in some discussion about his love for cycling, how he's looking to buy an electronic DA bike in a month, etc etc. Then, if the shop (and its employee/s) was smart, he'd be on the very short "potential good customer" list. But if he was not engaging, not outgoing, shrugged when someone asked if they could help him, then he didn't make it on that list. He's a "regular guy" to them. Therefore there are no exceptions made unless that's how they are regularly.
Keep in mind too that even huge bike shops are closing due to various economic forces. That guy who helped out the original questioner might have just gotten a big lecture on how "we're letting the shop bleed money from the little nuts and bolts we give away for free". And then the guy comes in and ask for two screws.
I don't think that the $2 is the point here. It's the principle of the transaction. It seems to me the guy hadn't thought about the other side of the counter, and apparently, after he got a bunch of responses, he hadn't. At this point he's happy.
But when he found the screws at Home Depot, he wasn't.
He was a disappointed and upset customer, the kind you do not want to have in any kind of economy. However, by asking the question online, and even putting up the poll, he asked the rest of us to address the principle of the question.
My answer?
If he had ordered the screws and they came in a couple weeks later (i.e. the shop scrounged together a minimum order to cover shipping, or at least an order large enough to absorb the insane shipping costs nowadays), and they charged him $2, that might be on the high side. Better would be "Well, they're supposed to be $2 but we're charging you $1".
If he'd bought a bike or two there (and the pedals and the shoes, which seem to have been bought elsewhere), I bet the screws would have been free no matter how much the shipping ended up costing them.
If the guy helping him said, "Look, I know the price is high, but that's what I have to charge, I'm really sorry, you can buy them or I can put them back in the drawer", then I think the original questioner might have been soothed enough not to say anything.
The communication between the shop and the customer is key.
If effective communication occurred at the original transaction, the original questioner wouldn't have felt a bit ripped off. He wouldn't have posted his question online.
And this post would be... not here.
Showing posts with label local bike shop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local bike shop. Show all posts
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Life - Bike Shop Learning
Recently someone posed the question (albeit incompletely phrased), "How working in a shop changed you."
I immediately thought of one or two things, but as I started to type, I realized, hey, wow, there's a lot more here. I guess part of it is that I spent almost 15 years in the business, and if I didn't learn a lot by doing something for 15 years, I was doing something wrong.
I remember one summer I made something like $5000, worked my butt off, as many hours as I could manage. I had maybe $500 in the bank at the end of the summer but I had a 23 lbs mountain bike (for some reason I spent all my money on the bike I didn't race, and I didn't really race my mountain bike) as well as my road bike and all its trappings. Back then it was all wheels and tires - it seemed like I was building up new wheels every few weeks.
First lesson - don't spend your money where you work!
Because of my time in a shop, I appreciate small businesses. It's different when one or two people do all the back office work. Payroll, insurance, medical, taxes, purchasing, marketing, and let's not forget budgeting, it can be overwhelming in more than one way. It takes money to do all this. You can add time to take some money away, i.e. instead of hiring one more person you just work later, but ultimately someone has to pay for everything - the owner/s of the shop. Time or money, you take your pick.
I appreciate margins - I don't ask for a break unless I need it, and I'll ask to be charged full price unless it'll take more time to convince a shop to skip taking 10% off retail than it will for them to just give me 10% off. The discount, while I appreciate the gesture, doesn't make a financial difference to me, but to the shop it can add up. I do ask for breaks when I need it, but I try to make it such that the shop will benefit.
See, as a former shop person, I know it helps to have filler items when ordering from places with high minimums. I also know that if you're ordering a lot of stuff from a distributor that's far away, they'll expedite shipping (Next or Second Day) for free if the order is big enough. So I'll ask the shop to order something from one of those desirable distributors (i.e. good products, good selection, gives bonuses for big orders), pay for it in advance, and let the shop tack on stuff to my order. Since my base order will be substantial (I'm nice but if I want to order $1-3k of stuff, I need a break at that point - my $50-250/visit amounts are manageable and usually pretty spontaneous), the shop can earn expedited shipping, terms, and other things that help them do business. I never take anything out of their inventory, and if I hold off on picking my stuff up, the shop may be able to sell it first (that's part of the agreement - they just buy me another one).
I appreciate the fact that bike shops usually attract hugely overqualified people and that they aren't typical "I don't care about my job" type folks. The "senior" staff are enthusiastic, intelligent, dedicated, and usually have strong opinions on what works and doesn't work. The "junior" staff are usually smart, well raised kids, doing the best they can. They're enthusiastic, happy to be important, eager to help, and full of raw idealistic ideas and opinions. That's awesome.
I love the social aspect of the shop. I like being able to help someone in a genuine way. I sold all my old bikes to folks on an "as needed" basis. My Schwinn and Dawes (steel, 27" wheels, etc) both went to guys who lived at a shelter and commuted on bikes because they couldn't drive. One I sold for $20 because the guy wanted us to replace a tire - $14.95 tire plus $5.00 labor. But he really needed two straight wheels, spokes that weren't about to pop, and a drivetrain that had less than a half decade of everyday use on it. My relatively pristine Schwinn Traveller III went to him for the price of that tire change, and I went over it before I handed it over to him. I even moved all his accessories onto the Schwinn, his rack, lock holder, and some other miscellaneous stuff. The last time I saw him, about 5 years later, he was still on the bike.
The Dawes also went to a guy who needed it. I put the original wheels back on (I'd swapped them out for super narrow "race" wheels) and sold it to another slightly distressed individual. I don't remember this transaction as much because I remember the guy for a funny exchange we had across the shop. He opened the door and hollered to the back. I think it was 67 feet to the wall separating the front and rear, so we were even further away. With very tall ceilings you really had to holler.
"You got a pin?"
"Pin?" We looked at each other. "Pin? Why's he want a pin?"
"Pin! You got a pin?"
"What kind of pin?"
"Pin?"
Our guy was obviously a bit frustrated. "Pin, you know, PIN. P - E - N. Pin!"
"Oh, a pen! Yeah I got one."
I ran up and gave him a pen.
So, no, I don't remember anything about selling my beloved Dawes Lightning, but I think I sold it to him for $40, the price of whatever repair he needed at that time.
I do remember one thing vividly about being in the shop - I was so poor, so so poor. I was shredding some very old statements the other day and saw my bank account balances - I remember thinking things were good if I had more than $100 in the bank. $200 was exciting. Yikes.
Someone who bought a nice jacket brought it back when the sleeve thread broke or something. He was yelling at me, really upset because it would take time to get a new one (and it ended up that the company stopped making them for the year). "You ever buy something at a store and it just breaks????" I thought about it and realized (to my horror) that I had not been able to buy anything at a store for something like five years. My then girlfriend (and, before her, the one before that) bought me my clothes and stuff, I begged my food from the bagel place or traded for it at the deli, and I drove a totally beat up car that I worked on at my friend's garage. I didn't say that to him though. I just said yes and tried to get him another jacket from the rep, from another store, anywhere. No luck. I still feel bad about that, and it took me about 11 years to buy another Pearl Izumi product (last week, actually).
I also know that I never want to work in a shop again. I am totally and completely burnt on working in a shop. I have volunteered at shops, done as much free work as I can in the time I have (usually a day or maybe an early-to-late evening), refuse anything in return, but man, I just cannot do that as a job again.
After I first closed my shop I didn't even want to change a flat so I just swapped wheels for a few years until I started puncturing really expensive and virtually new Vittoria tubulars. When I started training on a Seta (silk) tire I realized I'd hit rock bottom. It took maybe 10-15 rides on the Seta before I changed a few tubes (I had them, just didn't change them) and started back on the road to recovery. It took a bit longer for me to actually degrease my chain - by then it looked like something out of the bottom of an old rusty oil tank.
What's interesting is what I learned after I closed the shop.
Keep in mind that I started working there pretty much as soon as I was driving, and although I worked in other places, none of them were retail oriented. Okay, a super market is technically retail, but a gallon of milk is a gallon of milk, and it didn't sell "Parlee with SRAM Red" equivalent beef or anything. Therefore I had very little exposure to other people's spending habits.
I learned that (some) people have a lot of money, that the way I spend money is not the way others do. So although I'm a relatively frugal person, I know that there are those out there who have tons and tons of money. And they want to spend it.
I made more money in the first 2 months after the shop closed than I did the previous year. Granted I made 1/2 as much that last year as I made the previous year, and 1/3 what I made the year before that, but still... I couldn't believe that someone thought my time was worth so much. And they paid for social security, state income tax, medical, even something called a "401k" (which I thought was a scam at first).
For someone used to doing payroll and deducting social security, insurance, taxes, and such, this was unbelievable.
I bought a new car in 2003, something that, when I owned the shop, I swore I'd never do. Cars were $2000 max when I had the shop, and I never got comprehensive insurance because I could never afford it. A new car? Forget it.
I learned that there is a bigger world than Campy vs Shimano, mtb vs road, hardtail vs full suspsension, Ritchey tires vs Panaracer. I learned how much someone sacrifices to pick up a bike at 5 pm, and if it's not ready, why they are so upset. Ditto picking up bikes for weekend rides. If I miss a ride, even one I forgot wasn't even being held, it's a big blow, a big disappointment. As a shop guy I just rode whenever I could, and that meant riding after whenever the last customer left the shop. In the spring and fall I'd ride in the dark, and in the winter I rode in the store, late late late.
I realized that upholding your word, no matter what the cost, is critical for a small business. People deal with you, not some vague corporate identity. They expect personal attention. From you. Over-promising is the worst thing you can do. So if the bike "might" be done on Tuesday night, say it'll be done Wednesday. Either that or make sure it's done Tuesday morning, before the shop opens and before things get so crazy that you can't finish it by 5 PM Tuesday.
I also learned to appreciate how much time and effort my friends spent helping at my shop. My teammates (and they were pretty much all friends of mine as well) would sometmes show up on Saturday after the morning ride to talk to customers, talk to them about what they knew about bikes and stuff ("Oh, if you want to carry your bike on the car, this is my car and this is the rack I have. The shop has them over here.").
I had one kid "working" for me. I couldn't pay him so I told his parents I couldn't hire him. But they wanted him to work for me, and they were willing to pay for it. So they paid him for the whole summer, his mom or dad calling every now and then to make sure things were okay with him. The next summer I paid him but I remember being really puzzled with the procedure, like, "Hey, this doesn't seem familar to me."
One friend spent a couple months doing my books, a day a week. This was after he designed and built our enormous loft in the second location, a project that took him out of "real life" circulation for about two months. During the build he managed to fall off the second floor deck, landing in a pile of scrap below (luckily he was only out for a few days). He even had a piece of wood fall on his face (and I happened to be snapping pictures when it happened). He helped with the Bethel races as well, doing a lot of the gritty paperwork that I love to hate.
And, get this: he even led me out at races! That's a friend.
Another guy spent probably five years helping with Bethel, and he helped paint the shop (he painted for a living). The landlord gave us paint, we painted. Because he's a pro, he painted everything that required a ladder, and he even brought a co-worker to help him out. I learned after many, many years that he's the one that gives me discrete little pushes up the hill at Bethel. If you ever saw me at the top of the hill at Bethel, looking around with a puzzled look on my face, that's what just happened.
Another friend would show up, out of the blue, on a day off, and put in an hour or 8 of hard work, grin, do the whole gangster knucks/slap/whatever thing to say they're taking off, and drive away. He worked with me for years, starting off as a kid, finishing off as a young adult ready to take over his family's business. When he was starting to get into racing, we'd ride after work every day, returning to the shop to detail our bikes in excrutiating detail. We'd discover new polishes for aluminum, waxes for the frame, and spend countless hours using such stuff on the bikes. We even used a drill press to drill out a bunch of chainrings, but when I realized how flexy they were, we stopped that experiment.
A decade down the road he's running his extremely successful business, his dad still lending a hand every now and then. It used to be the dad introducing the son. "Hi, Mister So-and-so, this is my son." Now it's the other way around. "Hi Mister So-and-so, this is my dad." Amazing.
And, yeah, he also rode his brains out for me, at least until he was so strong he could ride me off his wheel.
I didn't realize what they gave me until I got into the position where I wanted to offer the same help. When I worked an unusual three day a week shift, I knew what I wanted to do on my days off. I called my friend and told him I could help out a couple days a week. I didn't do very much, I don't think, mainly taking out garbage and cleaning stuff up, but I got to help work on some very cool things. When my time at that job ended, so did my short stint volunteering at my friend's business.
At some point, when I recovered from my extreme bike shop burnout, I'd offer a hand at the shop I patronized, spending a hour or two, maybe more, talking or wrenching or something. I trued a wheel at one busy shop while everyone was running around, built bikes at another, and did some repairs and assemblies at yet another. I haven't done this too much. I am very, very selective of where I make my work offers, and I've done so only at shops that support the local cycling scene. My volunteer work keeps me fresh, lets me see things from a slightly different perspective, and reminds me to appreciate the (good) local shops.
The last thing is important because of one overriding reason. Everyone starts at their local shop, and for that reason alone, it's critical to have them around.
Ultimately that's what I've learned from having a shop.
I immediately thought of one or two things, but as I started to type, I realized, hey, wow, there's a lot more here. I guess part of it is that I spent almost 15 years in the business, and if I didn't learn a lot by doing something for 15 years, I was doing something wrong.
I remember one summer I made something like $5000, worked my butt off, as many hours as I could manage. I had maybe $500 in the bank at the end of the summer but I had a 23 lbs mountain bike (for some reason I spent all my money on the bike I didn't race, and I didn't really race my mountain bike) as well as my road bike and all its trappings. Back then it was all wheels and tires - it seemed like I was building up new wheels every few weeks.
First lesson - don't spend your money where you work!
Because of my time in a shop, I appreciate small businesses. It's different when one or two people do all the back office work. Payroll, insurance, medical, taxes, purchasing, marketing, and let's not forget budgeting, it can be overwhelming in more than one way. It takes money to do all this. You can add time to take some money away, i.e. instead of hiring one more person you just work later, but ultimately someone has to pay for everything - the owner/s of the shop. Time or money, you take your pick.
I appreciate margins - I don't ask for a break unless I need it, and I'll ask to be charged full price unless it'll take more time to convince a shop to skip taking 10% off retail than it will for them to just give me 10% off. The discount, while I appreciate the gesture, doesn't make a financial difference to me, but to the shop it can add up. I do ask for breaks when I need it, but I try to make it such that the shop will benefit.
See, as a former shop person, I know it helps to have filler items when ordering from places with high minimums. I also know that if you're ordering a lot of stuff from a distributor that's far away, they'll expedite shipping (Next or Second Day) for free if the order is big enough. So I'll ask the shop to order something from one of those desirable distributors (i.e. good products, good selection, gives bonuses for big orders), pay for it in advance, and let the shop tack on stuff to my order. Since my base order will be substantial (I'm nice but if I want to order $1-3k of stuff, I need a break at that point - my $50-250/visit amounts are manageable and usually pretty spontaneous), the shop can earn expedited shipping, terms, and other things that help them do business. I never take anything out of their inventory, and if I hold off on picking my stuff up, the shop may be able to sell it first (that's part of the agreement - they just buy me another one).
I appreciate the fact that bike shops usually attract hugely overqualified people and that they aren't typical "I don't care about my job" type folks. The "senior" staff are enthusiastic, intelligent, dedicated, and usually have strong opinions on what works and doesn't work. The "junior" staff are usually smart, well raised kids, doing the best they can. They're enthusiastic, happy to be important, eager to help, and full of raw idealistic ideas and opinions. That's awesome.
I love the social aspect of the shop. I like being able to help someone in a genuine way. I sold all my old bikes to folks on an "as needed" basis. My Schwinn and Dawes (steel, 27" wheels, etc) both went to guys who lived at a shelter and commuted on bikes because they couldn't drive. One I sold for $20 because the guy wanted us to replace a tire - $14.95 tire plus $5.00 labor. But he really needed two straight wheels, spokes that weren't about to pop, and a drivetrain that had less than a half decade of everyday use on it. My relatively pristine Schwinn Traveller III went to him for the price of that tire change, and I went over it before I handed it over to him. I even moved all his accessories onto the Schwinn, his rack, lock holder, and some other miscellaneous stuff. The last time I saw him, about 5 years later, he was still on the bike.
The Dawes also went to a guy who needed it. I put the original wheels back on (I'd swapped them out for super narrow "race" wheels) and sold it to another slightly distressed individual. I don't remember this transaction as much because I remember the guy for a funny exchange we had across the shop. He opened the door and hollered to the back. I think it was 67 feet to the wall separating the front and rear, so we were even further away. With very tall ceilings you really had to holler.
"You got a pin?"
"Pin?" We looked at each other. "Pin? Why's he want a pin?"
"Pin! You got a pin?"
"What kind of pin?"
"Pin?"
Our guy was obviously a bit frustrated. "Pin, you know, PIN. P - E - N. Pin!"
"Oh, a pen! Yeah I got one."
I ran up and gave him a pen.
So, no, I don't remember anything about selling my beloved Dawes Lightning, but I think I sold it to him for $40, the price of whatever repair he needed at that time.
I do remember one thing vividly about being in the shop - I was so poor, so so poor. I was shredding some very old statements the other day and saw my bank account balances - I remember thinking things were good if I had more than $100 in the bank. $200 was exciting. Yikes.
Someone who bought a nice jacket brought it back when the sleeve thread broke or something. He was yelling at me, really upset because it would take time to get a new one (and it ended up that the company stopped making them for the year). "You ever buy something at a store and it just breaks????" I thought about it and realized (to my horror) that I had not been able to buy anything at a store for something like five years. My then girlfriend (and, before her, the one before that) bought me my clothes and stuff, I begged my food from the bagel place or traded for it at the deli, and I drove a totally beat up car that I worked on at my friend's garage. I didn't say that to him though. I just said yes and tried to get him another jacket from the rep, from another store, anywhere. No luck. I still feel bad about that, and it took me about 11 years to buy another Pearl Izumi product (last week, actually).
I also know that I never want to work in a shop again. I am totally and completely burnt on working in a shop. I have volunteered at shops, done as much free work as I can in the time I have (usually a day or maybe an early-to-late evening), refuse anything in return, but man, I just cannot do that as a job again.
After I first closed my shop I didn't even want to change a flat so I just swapped wheels for a few years until I started puncturing really expensive and virtually new Vittoria tubulars. When I started training on a Seta (silk) tire I realized I'd hit rock bottom. It took maybe 10-15 rides on the Seta before I changed a few tubes (I had them, just didn't change them) and started back on the road to recovery. It took a bit longer for me to actually degrease my chain - by then it looked like something out of the bottom of an old rusty oil tank.
What's interesting is what I learned after I closed the shop.
Keep in mind that I started working there pretty much as soon as I was driving, and although I worked in other places, none of them were retail oriented. Okay, a super market is technically retail, but a gallon of milk is a gallon of milk, and it didn't sell "Parlee with SRAM Red" equivalent beef or anything. Therefore I had very little exposure to other people's spending habits.
I learned that (some) people have a lot of money, that the way I spend money is not the way others do. So although I'm a relatively frugal person, I know that there are those out there who have tons and tons of money. And they want to spend it.
I made more money in the first 2 months after the shop closed than I did the previous year. Granted I made 1/2 as much that last year as I made the previous year, and 1/3 what I made the year before that, but still... I couldn't believe that someone thought my time was worth so much. And they paid for social security, state income tax, medical, even something called a "401k" (which I thought was a scam at first).
For someone used to doing payroll and deducting social security, insurance, taxes, and such, this was unbelievable.
I bought a new car in 2003, something that, when I owned the shop, I swore I'd never do. Cars were $2000 max when I had the shop, and I never got comprehensive insurance because I could never afford it. A new car? Forget it.
I learned that there is a bigger world than Campy vs Shimano, mtb vs road, hardtail vs full suspsension, Ritchey tires vs Panaracer. I learned how much someone sacrifices to pick up a bike at 5 pm, and if it's not ready, why they are so upset. Ditto picking up bikes for weekend rides. If I miss a ride, even one I forgot wasn't even being held, it's a big blow, a big disappointment. As a shop guy I just rode whenever I could, and that meant riding after whenever the last customer left the shop. In the spring and fall I'd ride in the dark, and in the winter I rode in the store, late late late.
I realized that upholding your word, no matter what the cost, is critical for a small business. People deal with you, not some vague corporate identity. They expect personal attention. From you. Over-promising is the worst thing you can do. So if the bike "might" be done on Tuesday night, say it'll be done Wednesday. Either that or make sure it's done Tuesday morning, before the shop opens and before things get so crazy that you can't finish it by 5 PM Tuesday.
I also learned to appreciate how much time and effort my friends spent helping at my shop. My teammates (and they were pretty much all friends of mine as well) would sometmes show up on Saturday after the morning ride to talk to customers, talk to them about what they knew about bikes and stuff ("Oh, if you want to carry your bike on the car, this is my car and this is the rack I have. The shop has them over here.").
I had one kid "working" for me. I couldn't pay him so I told his parents I couldn't hire him. But they wanted him to work for me, and they were willing to pay for it. So they paid him for the whole summer, his mom or dad calling every now and then to make sure things were okay with him. The next summer I paid him but I remember being really puzzled with the procedure, like, "Hey, this doesn't seem familar to me."
One friend spent a couple months doing my books, a day a week. This was after he designed and built our enormous loft in the second location, a project that took him out of "real life" circulation for about two months. During the build he managed to fall off the second floor deck, landing in a pile of scrap below (luckily he was only out for a few days). He even had a piece of wood fall on his face (and I happened to be snapping pictures when it happened). He helped with the Bethel races as well, doing a lot of the gritty paperwork that I love to hate.
And, get this: he even led me out at races! That's a friend.
Another guy spent probably five years helping with Bethel, and he helped paint the shop (he painted for a living). The landlord gave us paint, we painted. Because he's a pro, he painted everything that required a ladder, and he even brought a co-worker to help him out. I learned after many, many years that he's the one that gives me discrete little pushes up the hill at Bethel. If you ever saw me at the top of the hill at Bethel, looking around with a puzzled look on my face, that's what just happened.
Another friend would show up, out of the blue, on a day off, and put in an hour or 8 of hard work, grin, do the whole gangster knucks/slap/whatever thing to say they're taking off, and drive away. He worked with me for years, starting off as a kid, finishing off as a young adult ready to take over his family's business. When he was starting to get into racing, we'd ride after work every day, returning to the shop to detail our bikes in excrutiating detail. We'd discover new polishes for aluminum, waxes for the frame, and spend countless hours using such stuff on the bikes. We even used a drill press to drill out a bunch of chainrings, but when I realized how flexy they were, we stopped that experiment.
A decade down the road he's running his extremely successful business, his dad still lending a hand every now and then. It used to be the dad introducing the son. "Hi, Mister So-and-so, this is my son." Now it's the other way around. "Hi Mister So-and-so, this is my dad." Amazing.
And, yeah, he also rode his brains out for me, at least until he was so strong he could ride me off his wheel.
I didn't realize what they gave me until I got into the position where I wanted to offer the same help. When I worked an unusual three day a week shift, I knew what I wanted to do on my days off. I called my friend and told him I could help out a couple days a week. I didn't do very much, I don't think, mainly taking out garbage and cleaning stuff up, but I got to help work on some very cool things. When my time at that job ended, so did my short stint volunteering at my friend's business.
At some point, when I recovered from my extreme bike shop burnout, I'd offer a hand at the shop I patronized, spending a hour or two, maybe more, talking or wrenching or something. I trued a wheel at one busy shop while everyone was running around, built bikes at another, and did some repairs and assemblies at yet another. I haven't done this too much. I am very, very selective of where I make my work offers, and I've done so only at shops that support the local cycling scene. My volunteer work keeps me fresh, lets me see things from a slightly different perspective, and reminds me to appreciate the (good) local shops.
The last thing is important because of one overriding reason. Everyone starts at their local shop, and for that reason alone, it's critical to have them around.
Ultimately that's what I've learned from having a shop.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Story - A Short, Hard Bike Ride
In a different life I was in the retail bike biz. It wasn't an easy life but it had its moments. One such moment took during a nice sunny summer day. People were busy shopping. Our shop was humming. As bike shop people it's hard to get out when the weather is nice because that's when things get busy. As it turned out I was still able to get out for a quick, couple mile bike ride.
In a bike shop (or probably any retail shop) you develop a feel for "trouble". Someone out of place, perhaps reeking of alcohol, or maybe a normal person with glazed eyes, whatever it is, alarm bells go off. Usually you make a subtle gesture (like the spy guys do in the movies - touch a finger to your cheek just below an eye then at the "target") to the other employees to let them know that the guy up front seems sketchy. And you go greet them and hope you're wrong.
Normally nothing happens. But when things do, it can be a doozy.
On said summer day, we were enjoying a quiet moment. It helped us catch up with repairs, build bikes, clean up a bit, and, like always, talk about stuff.
A guy walked in who set off every alarm bell I had. He simply did not fit our "normal customer" profile. But when I greeted him he was surprisingly articulate with some of the subtle points of a bike shop. He told me he worked in a shop that sold brand T and G but not C and he wanted to check out some C's. He talked to me at length about good and bad floor pumps. And at some point he asked if he could take a C out for a ride.
In particular he wanted to take a beautiful, polished, 21" (he was a big guy) front suspension bike for a spin.
Normally we ask for a license but he claimed he didn't drive and so didn't have a license. Not unusual for a young shop employee (we've had a couple like that) so I told him he had to stay right in front of the store. He agreed and carefully wheeled the bike outside.
I watched him circle a few times and walked back a bit to talk to the guys in back. One of them, Josh, piped up.
"That guy wants to steal a bike."
"Yeah, but he seemed to know about shops. I told him to stay in front of the store."
"I don't know, I don't like it."
I didn't know what to say. Alarm bells were still going off but the courtesy you extend to others in the biz sort of overrode them. I lost myself thinking about this when J ripped me out of those thoughts.
"There he goes!"
Oh *@#&$%.
Now what. I ran to the front of the store to grab a bike to chase him down. We had leaned a lot of new bikes up by the doorway, one on top of the next, bikes which had been test ridden earlier that day. I decided to grab one. The first bike I touched was some huge road bike. I rolled hard to the side. Think of a pro in a race who tosses his bike to the side as the mechanic is handing him a new one off the team car. Anyway, I rolled the bike like that. It would have crashed into I don't know what except one of the guys, TallJosh (not Josh), caught it and carefully leaned it across the front of the "non-chase" bikes in the stands (hybrids or kids bikes).
The next bike was a BMX bike. I briefly contemplated it but realized I'd be spun out before I got out of the parking lot. I tossed that. TallJosh caught it and leaned it against the big road bike.
I think a hybrid was next. Tossed. Caught. Leaned.
Then the piece de resistance. A beautiful Stumpjumper, 18" (my size), just test ridden so definitely in shape for some hardcore bike thief chasing.
I grabbed it, dropped the seat a bit, and rolled the bike out the door. Sneakers on clipless pedals. It would have to do. I squished my way to the street (the parking lot sort of has walls around it and there were a lot of cars going in and out) and looked down the road.
Bad.
Back then it was a four lane road, one way (now it's three lanes) and we happened to be at the busiest intersection of the county or state or something (the landlord boasted about that all the time). So a lot of cars and a lot of different roads (5 roads). It was packed with cars trundling along at about 30-35 mph or stopped at lights. The sidewalks were packed with shoppers. There were people milling around everywhere. And I had no idea if the guy went down our road, down a different road, or cut through one of the dozen sidewalks around.
I rolled down the hill (I figured he wouldn't go uphill, plus it's all residential up there) and boom - I saw him. He was about 550 yards away according to the gmap-pedometer site and sprinting furiously around a bend in the road. That's far. It's far when you're trying to bridge to a break in a race. But it's even further when the break can take any route it pleases and is trying to hide from you.
I sprinted across some traffic and down the road. I came flying up to a UPS truck. Thinking it was "our" truck, I pulled up to the driver's side and started to yell to catch the guy while I held onto the truck (hey, it was worth trying). I looked up and it was a different guy - he must have thought I was insane.
I kept going and got to the bend where I last saw him. I was sure the thief was dumping the bike in the back of a truck or a van and I'd never catch him. I'd already passed a few parking garages which could easily hide a dozen bike thieves. And around this bend was a new shopping plaza.
Sure enough when I got there all I could see was the mass of humanity sprawled out, scurrying from one shop to another, crossing the streets, and cars mixed up everywhere. I thought it was over.
Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a red flash turn down a side street, another 400 yards down the road. Big mistake on his part.
I gunned it. I sprinted down the road, cut across the sidewalk, almost plowed into a woman holding some shopping bags. You could tell this was real because she didn't throw her new goodies in the air - she just shrieked a bit.
The turn was good for me - the next road borders an apartment complex, has good sight lines, and is reasonably quiet. When I got around the goodie woman I could see the thief in front of me, about 300 yards away, turning left down a main road.
I started feeling better about being able to catch this guy. He wasn't going to get away now and I was definitely catching him. The only problem was what to do when I got to him. He was over 6 feet tall and outweighed me by perhaps 50-70 pounds. I figured I would close in and follow him - if I was near him, the cops would find us and take over.
I also kept in mind a cop's friendly warning. The shop's plaza normally had a cop on duty during the busy times to help with traffic and security. They would walk over to say hi and having never grown out of the "I want to be a cop" age, I'd ask them all sorts of questions. Among other things I learned a fully equipped gun belt weighs about 35 pounds (we weighed his), a lot of cops carry two guns (primary, paid for by the department, and backup, a privately owned gun), they pay for all their uniform gear, this one carried two sets of handcuffs (he showed me why, and it makes sense), and when they get a new car with fancy flashing lights, they go to a deserted parking lot and play with the buttons to figure out what does what.
Anyway, the cop's warning was about guns. Specifically, what to do if someone pointed a gun at me. He said a couple things. First, if I'm more than 20-30 feet away, I should run. Most shooters can't hit anything beyond that range. And if I'm moving (and they are too), my odds are even better. Moving shooters rarely hit their target. Second, he told me don't try and do anything heroic. If someone points a gun at you, you run or do what they say. Unless things look grim, heroics don't pay. Finally, if it does look grim and you basically have nothing to lose, he told me to get closer than 20 feet and attack him. Apparently at that range a gun-bearer will be hard pressed to kill an attacker before the attacker is on them. He pointed out that you'll probably either die or get severely wounded but at least you'll have a chance of living and you'll go down fighting.
So keeping these warnings in mind, I decided that if the thief pulled a gun, I'd simply ride away, perhaps across the street, another four-laner. But in the meantime I followed him.
He seemed a lot calmer now, away from all the shopping hubbub. He was sitting, not sprinting. He rode with one hand on the bars, the other digging through his pockets. Not much except lint.
What would you do if you just stole a bike and had lint in your pockets?
Exactly. He started picking lint out of his pocket.
I watched him carefully dig into his shorts and pull out lint. He'd rub his fingers to dump the lint and repeat the process. We'd passed a few pedestrians who gave me a weird look - I must have looked really mad, really focused, or just plain crazy. Or someone obsessed with the guy's lint or something.
Eventually the sidewalk curved towards a crosswalk. And the thief must have seen a hint of me peripherally. He turned around, his jaw open in surprise. I didn't know what to do. My retail instincts kicked in.
"Rides good, huh."
I think Clint Eastwood would have been embarrassed for me.
"Um yeah."
And whoever plays bad guys, they'd be embarrassed for him.
"We called the cops. Why don't you make it easier for all of us and just stop."
We got to the crosswalk. He rode slower and slower. I started getting a bit worried. Maybe he was going to sock me one. I've never been punched and I figured if he punched me it would really hurt. I was trembling with adrenaline, ready for something dramatic.
But nothing happened. He slowed to a stop, got off the bike, and carefully laid it down. He stood up, gave me one last glance, and suddenly sprinted towards the shrub line near the road.
Clever.
I had a choice. Lose the bike. Or lose the thief. And in the shrubs, with him on foot, I was definitely at a disadvantage. So I stayed with the bike.
I carefully rode back to the shop rolling the recovered bike next to me. The chase lasted just over a mile and left me physically and emotionally exhausted.
When I got to the store the cops were there. A couple cars were in front, flashing lights, the whole bit. The lights looked like they made sense - no yellow lights pointing to go left or some such nonsense - so those particular cops must have figured out which buttons did what. Flashing lights always gets my adrenaline going and this time was no exception. I was hyped up again.
The police had cars looking for him but couldn't find the guy. He just disappeared. There are a lot of places for this guy to hide so I felt no surprise. The cops asked me for a detailed description. Unfortunately it seems like adrenaline makes me forget everything. I wasn't much help in describing him ("Um, he was big and he wore a red shirt. And he didn't punch me.") and I just rode behind him for a good mile. Tom, TallJosh, we all had no clue.
But Josh... he was the 911 dialer and talked to the dispatcher. He claimed he didn't get a good look at the guy but offered what he had. Gave a physical description that was pretty accurate. He had it down to +/- an inch and +/- 5 pounds though. Red shirt (yeah, I got that too) with number 89. 89? Apparently it's some player's number. He noticed the color and brand shorts. And the sneakers, down to the specific model. What socks he wore. Stuff like that. He noticed everything about this guy. The cop said that if everyone was as observant as him things would be a lot easier on them.
Things suddenly seemed a bit better. The adrenaline, the rush, calling 911, it all hyped everyone up and got us revved up. We had the bike back unhurt. And a great story.
A few hours later a long time customer who hadn't been in for a while walked through the doors. Ex-military, tall, strong, funny, really nice guy. He was looking for a nice mountain bike. And he wanted it today because he wanted to ride it this afternoon. He needed a 21".
I pulled a beautiful, polished, 21" front suspension bike off the rack.
"This is a great bike. And it comes with a story."
He looked at me and smiled.
"A story?"
He picked it up that afternoon.
In a bike shop (or probably any retail shop) you develop a feel for "trouble". Someone out of place, perhaps reeking of alcohol, or maybe a normal person with glazed eyes, whatever it is, alarm bells go off. Usually you make a subtle gesture (like the spy guys do in the movies - touch a finger to your cheek just below an eye then at the "target") to the other employees to let them know that the guy up front seems sketchy. And you go greet them and hope you're wrong.
Normally nothing happens. But when things do, it can be a doozy.
On said summer day, we were enjoying a quiet moment. It helped us catch up with repairs, build bikes, clean up a bit, and, like always, talk about stuff.
A guy walked in who set off every alarm bell I had. He simply did not fit our "normal customer" profile. But when I greeted him he was surprisingly articulate with some of the subtle points of a bike shop. He told me he worked in a shop that sold brand T and G but not C and he wanted to check out some C's. He talked to me at length about good and bad floor pumps. And at some point he asked if he could take a C out for a ride.
In particular he wanted to take a beautiful, polished, 21" (he was a big guy) front suspension bike for a spin.
Normally we ask for a license but he claimed he didn't drive and so didn't have a license. Not unusual for a young shop employee (we've had a couple like that) so I told him he had to stay right in front of the store. He agreed and carefully wheeled the bike outside.
I watched him circle a few times and walked back a bit to talk to the guys in back. One of them, Josh, piped up.
"That guy wants to steal a bike."
"Yeah, but he seemed to know about shops. I told him to stay in front of the store."
"I don't know, I don't like it."
I didn't know what to say. Alarm bells were still going off but the courtesy you extend to others in the biz sort of overrode them. I lost myself thinking about this when J ripped me out of those thoughts.
"There he goes!"
Oh *@#&$%.
Now what. I ran to the front of the store to grab a bike to chase him down. We had leaned a lot of new bikes up by the doorway, one on top of the next, bikes which had been test ridden earlier that day. I decided to grab one. The first bike I touched was some huge road bike. I rolled hard to the side. Think of a pro in a race who tosses his bike to the side as the mechanic is handing him a new one off the team car. Anyway, I rolled the bike like that. It would have crashed into I don't know what except one of the guys, TallJosh (not Josh), caught it and carefully leaned it across the front of the "non-chase" bikes in the stands (hybrids or kids bikes).
The next bike was a BMX bike. I briefly contemplated it but realized I'd be spun out before I got out of the parking lot. I tossed that. TallJosh caught it and leaned it against the big road bike.
I think a hybrid was next. Tossed. Caught. Leaned.
Then the piece de resistance. A beautiful Stumpjumper, 18" (my size), just test ridden so definitely in shape for some hardcore bike thief chasing.
I grabbed it, dropped the seat a bit, and rolled the bike out the door. Sneakers on clipless pedals. It would have to do. I squished my way to the street (the parking lot sort of has walls around it and there were a lot of cars going in and out) and looked down the road.
Bad.
Back then it was a four lane road, one way (now it's three lanes) and we happened to be at the busiest intersection of the county or state or something (the landlord boasted about that all the time). So a lot of cars and a lot of different roads (5 roads). It was packed with cars trundling along at about 30-35 mph or stopped at lights. The sidewalks were packed with shoppers. There were people milling around everywhere. And I had no idea if the guy went down our road, down a different road, or cut through one of the dozen sidewalks around.
The view downhill.
I decided he wouldn't go uphill, and I hoped he didn't cross the street.
When I pulled up to the road from the FedEx van side, the guy was at the very end of this road, where it bears left.
I rolled down the hill (I figured he wouldn't go uphill, plus it's all residential up there) and boom - I saw him. He was about 550 yards away according to the gmap-pedometer site and sprinting furiously around a bend in the road. That's far. It's far when you're trying to bridge to a break in a race. But it's even further when the break can take any route it pleases and is trying to hide from you.
I sprinted across some traffic and down the road. I came flying up to a UPS truck. Thinking it was "our" truck, I pulled up to the driver's side and started to yell to catch the guy while I held onto the truck (hey, it was worth trying). I looked up and it was a different guy - he must have thought I was insane.
About where I left the UPS truck.
Note brown building at left, by the bend.
The view back from the same spot where I left the UPS truck.
I exited a parking lot by the 3rd car behind me.
Not the first car with headlights. Not the second. The third one.
I kept going and got to the bend where I last saw him. I was sure the thief was dumping the bike in the back of a truck or a van and I'd never catch him. I'd already passed a few parking garages which could easily hide a dozen bike thieves. And around this bend was a new shopping plaza.
The bend where he disappeared from view.
This is the brown building "at the bend".
The straight after the bend.
I didn't see him here.
Another bend coming up.
At this point I thought I lost him.
Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a red flash turn down a side street, another 400 yards down the road. Big mistake on his part.
I gunned it. I sprinted down the road, cut across the sidewalk, almost plowed into a woman holding some shopping bags. You could tell this was real because she didn't throw her new goodies in the air - she just shrieked a bit.
I turned right through that little parking lot.
The turn was good for me - the next road borders an apartment complex, has good sight lines, and is reasonably quiet. When I got around the goodie woman I could see the thief in front of me, about 300 yards away, turning left down a main road.
Reverse angle view of same parking lot.
I came in from the right side of the picture, exited out the left side.
You can see that the next road is pretty quitet.
I started feeling better about being able to catch this guy. He wasn't going to get away now and I was definitely catching him. The only problem was what to do when I got to him. He was over 6 feet tall and outweighed me by perhaps 50-70 pounds. I figured I would close in and follow him - if I was near him, the cops would find us and take over.
I also kept in mind a cop's friendly warning. The shop's plaza normally had a cop on duty during the busy times to help with traffic and security. They would walk over to say hi and having never grown out of the "I want to be a cop" age, I'd ask them all sorts of questions. Among other things I learned a fully equipped gun belt weighs about 35 pounds (we weighed his), a lot of cops carry two guns (primary, paid for by the department, and backup, a privately owned gun), they pay for all their uniform gear, this one carried two sets of handcuffs (he showed me why, and it makes sense), and when they get a new car with fancy flashing lights, they go to a deserted parking lot and play with the buttons to figure out what does what.
Anyway, the cop's warning was about guns. Specifically, what to do if someone pointed a gun at me. He said a couple things. First, if I'm more than 20-30 feet away, I should run. Most shooters can't hit anything beyond that range. And if I'm moving (and they are too), my odds are even better. Moving shooters rarely hit their target. Second, he told me don't try and do anything heroic. If someone points a gun at you, you run or do what they say. Unless things look grim, heroics don't pay. Finally, if it does look grim and you basically have nothing to lose, he told me to get closer than 20 feet and attack him. Apparently at that range a gun-bearer will be hard pressed to kill an attacker before the attacker is on them. He pointed out that you'll probably either die or get severely wounded but at least you'll have a chance of living and you'll go down fighting.
So keeping these warnings in mind, I decided that if the thief pulled a gun, I'd simply ride away, perhaps across the street, another four-laner. But in the meantime I followed him.
He went left here. I followed him.
This is the reverse angle view of the left.
We came in from the left side, exited going against traffic on the sidewalk to the right.
End of apartment complex to the left.
Now it's office buildings to the left. Note that there's a merge lane, where the "X" is.
He seemed a lot calmer now, away from all the shopping hubbub. He was sitting, not sprinting. He rode with one hand on the bars, the other digging through his pockets. Not much except lint.
What would you do if you just stole a bike and had lint in your pockets?
Exactly. He started picking lint out of his pocket.
I watched him carefully dig into his shorts and pull out lint. He'd rub his fingers to dump the lint and repeat the process. We'd passed a few pedestrians who gave me a weird look - I must have looked really mad, really focused, or just plain crazy. Or someone obsessed with the guy's lint or something.
He followed the sidewalk, went to cross from about where "St" is on the picture.
Eventually the sidewalk curved towards a crosswalk. And the thief must have seen a hint of me peripherally. He turned around, his jaw open in surprise. I didn't know what to do. My retail instincts kicked in.
"Rides good, huh."
I think Clint Eastwood would have been embarrassed for me.
"Um yeah."
And whoever plays bad guys, they'd be embarrassed for him.
"We called the cops. Why don't you make it easier for all of us and just stop."
We got to the crosswalk. He rode slower and slower. I started getting a bit worried. Maybe he was going to sock me one. I've never been punched and I figured if he punched me it would really hurt. I was trembling with adrenaline, ready for something dramatic.
But nothing happened. He slowed to a stop, got off the bike, and carefully laid it down. He stood up, gave me one last glance, and suddenly sprinted towards the shrub line near the road.
Clever.
I had a choice. Lose the bike. Or lose the thief. And in the shrubs, with him on foot, I was definitely at a disadvantage. So I stayed with the bike.
I carefully rode back to the shop rolling the recovered bike next to me. The chase lasted just over a mile and left me physically and emotionally exhausted.
When I got to the store the cops were there. A couple cars were in front, flashing lights, the whole bit. The lights looked like they made sense - no yellow lights pointing to go left or some such nonsense - so those particular cops must have figured out which buttons did what. Flashing lights always gets my adrenaline going and this time was no exception. I was hyped up again.
The police had cars looking for him but couldn't find the guy. He just disappeared. There are a lot of places for this guy to hide so I felt no surprise. The cops asked me for a detailed description. Unfortunately it seems like adrenaline makes me forget everything. I wasn't much help in describing him ("Um, he was big and he wore a red shirt. And he didn't punch me.") and I just rode behind him for a good mile. Tom, TallJosh, we all had no clue.
But Josh... he was the 911 dialer and talked to the dispatcher. He claimed he didn't get a good look at the guy but offered what he had. Gave a physical description that was pretty accurate. He had it down to +/- an inch and +/- 5 pounds though. Red shirt (yeah, I got that too) with number 89. 89? Apparently it's some player's number. He noticed the color and brand shorts. And the sneakers, down to the specific model. What socks he wore. Stuff like that. He noticed everything about this guy. The cop said that if everyone was as observant as him things would be a lot easier on them.
Things suddenly seemed a bit better. The adrenaline, the rush, calling 911, it all hyped everyone up and got us revved up. We had the bike back unhurt. And a great story.
A few hours later a long time customer who hadn't been in for a while walked through the doors. Ex-military, tall, strong, funny, really nice guy. He was looking for a nice mountain bike. And he wanted it today because he wanted to ride it this afternoon. He needed a 21".
I pulled a beautiful, polished, 21" front suspension bike off the rack.
"This is a great bike. And it comes with a story."
He looked at me and smiled.
"A story?"
He picked it up that afternoon.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Your local shop
Today marks the middle of the middle of my semi-enforced rest period (for training). And this has very little to do with bike shops but let me explain.
Our house is getting its floors refinished in two stages. The first stage is almost done, after five days of work. The second stage will start in three days and involve the same amount of work. This totals ten days. Since we worked about four days before, and we'll work perhaps five or six days after, we'll be involved in this project for about four weeks. Since we're about halfway through the second week, we're in the middle of the middle of our project.
Since the project is severely curtailing my training time, this is the middle of the middle of my semi-enforced rest period.
The one day I might have been able to ride outside it was cold. Cold enough for snowflakes to drift around. I didn't feel like dressing up, riding, then going home to shower in a house that reeked of floor finishing fumes.
Instead, I went to a local shop to hang out. I raced with the owner a while back (well, technically I raced against him) but he's one type of rider and I'm another. So we both have respect for each other. He talks about how one of his first serious years of racing he was on my wheel going into the sprint and my first pedal stroke put ten feet of pavement between us. I actually don't have any stories of watching him demolish fields because I was so far back I never saw his strength - it's like asking Robbie McEwen what he thinks of Lance Armstrong's climbing. Like most of us mortals, McEwen probably never saw Armstrong climb in anger except on the Tour DVDs.
Anyway, I think this guy is a lot better than me.
When I was there he seemed to be short a mechanic so I told him I'd give him a hand. I went home, ate, got my mechanic's gloves, returned, and waded through a few repairs and bike builds. Nothing fancy - a couple girl's bikes (complete with streamers and a white basket) and some nice road bikes. I spotted a few things and fixed them, made myself useful, and hung out with him for almost six hours.
It was great.
We shared bike shop stories, talked about life, and played with mega-thousand dollar machines. I got my hands dirty on the first FSA crankset I ever worked on, bumped my head into some ti/carbon fancy bike, and fiddled with some Dura Ace things (as a Campy-phile, I never touch Dura Ace).
I realize now what I didn't know when I was in his shoes and I realize how fortunate he is to be where he is now. I think he realizes this in an abstract way but with my life lessons happening after I was out of the business, the reality of his situation really hit home with me.
He faces a lot of obstacles.
Shops are hard to maintain. They're hard to grow. And they easily fall victim to entropy. Yet shops have a unique role which no other organization or group could replace.
They're responsible for getting people into bike racing.
Without a local shop most teams would simply not exist. There would be no racers around to have a team. The guy who wants a bike because the doctor told him it's good for him, and then enters a race a year later (because it's in his hometown and seems like a fun thing to try)... That guy may have bought his bike online but there is nothing online about fitting a bike, trying different stems, riding with someone (and noticing a odd hip or knee), and getting someone to go on their first group ride.
Shops do that.
Online places, eBay, places like that, cannot replace hands on experience.
Riders who patronize my friend's shop probably don't realize how fortunate they are to be fitted and advised by a rider that cares about his customers, his riders, his people.
The trouble is that shops often lose those riders once the racer "knows enough". There are other sources for parts, for expertise, for fancy deep rimmed carbon wheels.
I'm honest when I tell him what's available online and he tells me to get it out there - it's no use for him to sell me something significantly below his cost. His battle is with his suppliers on that one.
Likewise, he's honest when he tries to find me a friendly priced frame or bike or whatever. I bought my little brother a nice mountain bike (a family present to the brother who commutes to work on a bike). The shop owner found me a scratch and dent bike for a third of retail. I made him take a 45% margin on that bike. But when I was jonesing for a wattage trainer and he offered me a leftover demo one at cost, well, I took it at cost.
When I finished with my work the other day, I asked if I could place an order I'd discussed with him earlier. It was significant enough that he could piggy back off of it and get free second day air on his stuff. That's a good thing. I made him charge me sales tax and his credit card percentage - why should he eat 1.5% when he's not making any money on me? He charged me appropriately.
We both know I don't buy everything there. I try though and when I do, I try and make sure I treat him right.
Because you know what happens to good shops you don't treat right?
They go away.
(Note: this is by no means a reflection on how anyone treated the writer when he was in the bike biz. I truly appreciate my time at the shop and am thankful for the enduring friendships, the eye-opening experiences, and finally the fact that I'm out of it. However, for those in the business now, there must be nothing more frustrating than watching someone blossom into a competent rider under shop tutelage and suddenly forget who got them into the sport.)
Our house is getting its floors refinished in two stages. The first stage is almost done, after five days of work. The second stage will start in three days and involve the same amount of work. This totals ten days. Since we worked about four days before, and we'll work perhaps five or six days after, we'll be involved in this project for about four weeks. Since we're about halfway through the second week, we're in the middle of the middle of our project.
Since the project is severely curtailing my training time, this is the middle of the middle of my semi-enforced rest period.
The one day I might have been able to ride outside it was cold. Cold enough for snowflakes to drift around. I didn't feel like dressing up, riding, then going home to shower in a house that reeked of floor finishing fumes.
Instead, I went to a local shop to hang out. I raced with the owner a while back (well, technically I raced against him) but he's one type of rider and I'm another. So we both have respect for each other. He talks about how one of his first serious years of racing he was on my wheel going into the sprint and my first pedal stroke put ten feet of pavement between us. I actually don't have any stories of watching him demolish fields because I was so far back I never saw his strength - it's like asking Robbie McEwen what he thinks of Lance Armstrong's climbing. Like most of us mortals, McEwen probably never saw Armstrong climb in anger except on the Tour DVDs.
Anyway, I think this guy is a lot better than me.
When I was there he seemed to be short a mechanic so I told him I'd give him a hand. I went home, ate, got my mechanic's gloves, returned, and waded through a few repairs and bike builds. Nothing fancy - a couple girl's bikes (complete with streamers and a white basket) and some nice road bikes. I spotted a few things and fixed them, made myself useful, and hung out with him for almost six hours.
It was great.
We shared bike shop stories, talked about life, and played with mega-thousand dollar machines. I got my hands dirty on the first FSA crankset I ever worked on, bumped my head into some ti/carbon fancy bike, and fiddled with some Dura Ace things (as a Campy-phile, I never touch Dura Ace).
I realize now what I didn't know when I was in his shoes and I realize how fortunate he is to be where he is now. I think he realizes this in an abstract way but with my life lessons happening after I was out of the business, the reality of his situation really hit home with me.
He faces a lot of obstacles.
Shops are hard to maintain. They're hard to grow. And they easily fall victim to entropy. Yet shops have a unique role which no other organization or group could replace.
They're responsible for getting people into bike racing.
Without a local shop most teams would simply not exist. There would be no racers around to have a team. The guy who wants a bike because the doctor told him it's good for him, and then enters a race a year later (because it's in his hometown and seems like a fun thing to try)... That guy may have bought his bike online but there is nothing online about fitting a bike, trying different stems, riding with someone (and noticing a odd hip or knee), and getting someone to go on their first group ride.
Shops do that.
Online places, eBay, places like that, cannot replace hands on experience.
Riders who patronize my friend's shop probably don't realize how fortunate they are to be fitted and advised by a rider that cares about his customers, his riders, his people.
The trouble is that shops often lose those riders once the racer "knows enough". There are other sources for parts, for expertise, for fancy deep rimmed carbon wheels.
I'm honest when I tell him what's available online and he tells me to get it out there - it's no use for him to sell me something significantly below his cost. His battle is with his suppliers on that one.
Likewise, he's honest when he tries to find me a friendly priced frame or bike or whatever. I bought my little brother a nice mountain bike (a family present to the brother who commutes to work on a bike). The shop owner found me a scratch and dent bike for a third of retail. I made him take a 45% margin on that bike. But when I was jonesing for a wattage trainer and he offered me a leftover demo one at cost, well, I took it at cost.
When I finished with my work the other day, I asked if I could place an order I'd discussed with him earlier. It was significant enough that he could piggy back off of it and get free second day air on his stuff. That's a good thing. I made him charge me sales tax and his credit card percentage - why should he eat 1.5% when he's not making any money on me? He charged me appropriately.
We both know I don't buy everything there. I try though and when I do, I try and make sure I treat him right.
Because you know what happens to good shops you don't treat right?
They go away.
(Note: this is by no means a reflection on how anyone treated the writer when he was in the bike biz. I truly appreciate my time at the shop and am thankful for the enduring friendships, the eye-opening experiences, and finally the fact that I'm out of it. However, for those in the business now, there must be nothing more frustrating than watching someone blossom into a competent rider under shop tutelage and suddenly forget who got them into the sport.)
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