Part II - We were running a MINISTRY disguised as a BUSINESS, while they were disguising their business as our ministry

The truth is, most of us did not come to work in what they call “the bicycle industry” in order to make large sums of money. We were instead drawn to our local bicycle shops by the wonderful mechanical machines displayed in their windows. The distinct scent, and you all know it, sorta felt like a second home to us. Magazines we saved up and subscribed to, lead us to seek out the objects of our desire inside of some dingy chaotic oddly houred time capsule of a building with glass display cases, awkwardly stocked pegboard walls, and rows of bicycles to the ceiling and beyond. The often grouchy, but begrudgingly helpful ones who were on the payroll, wearily looked up in fraught anticipation from whatever metal monstrous beast they were fighting whenever the loose mass of bells on the door clanked against each other, and they tolerated us. As we matured and began pestering the staff more often, they one day relented, and offered to let us build a bike in some forgotten corner work stand with the worst of worn out and missing tools hanging off loose pegboard hooks.

You may have heard phrases coming out of mountain bike culture like, “dirt church”, or “disciples of dirt”. Likewise, cyclists sometimes talk of zen, or finding their happy place while on the bike.

“Jordan Crider a mechanic at Cal Bicycles in Livermore tunes a children’s bicycle Wednesday.”

-The Valley Times Friday, May 11, 2007

This whole procedure of how most of us came to work in the bicycle industry, was more like discipleship than employment recruiting. The financials of many of these shops were abysmal, wages the same, and passion often lead over business acumen. You see, we were running a ministry, disguised as a business. Those who found themselves selling comfort bikes by the pair, cruisers destined to live upside-down most of their crusty lives, and every once in a while, a machine worthy of the lavish parts hung on it, most definitely did not stay for the money. We loved riding, enjoyed tinkering, made friends we still keep, and continually cataloged future parts purchases in our head. Before we realized it, this was apparently our career, and we began making disciples in our own image. Young kids coming up reminded us of ourselves at that age, and we fed their excitement, showed them the ropes, and passed on the secrets of the trade.

“Put that coffee down! Coffee is for closers only. You think I’m f***ing with you?!

Handing out refreshments

and encouragement

-Bike to Work day West Seattle 2010

While we were faithfully tending to the flock, there were corporate dispassionate packs of wolves who noticed a lucrative opportunity and donned suits of white wool. They hired marketing teams from slick car magazines who deciphered our code, rewrote our story in their own cheap words, and then sold it back to us at a heavy markup. They disguised their business as our ministry. Don’t believe me? Joe Breeze meticulously and thoughtfully hand-brazed some of the earliest dedicated mountain bike frames, as did Tom Ritchey, but it was the Gary Fisher’s and Mike Sinyard’s that ditched their saddles for marketing departments the minute they saw the red glow reflected in the welding goggles of those forefathers. Throughout the 1980’s, a gap widened between riders who beget riders, and patent office clerks who figured out how to work the system. By the 1990’s we all knew the handful of asian manufacturers who made every brand name tire; it was common knowledge which few asian hub makers laser etched other companies logos on hub shells. Everyone understood what was coming out of Taiwan was generally good, but we only settled for it. What we really wanted, were bike parts made in the USA by other riders themselves, or even parts made in Japan, U.K., Switzerland, or Italy.

When in doubt, trademark your way out.

Volunteer mechanic for the Sunday Parkways masses

Portland, OR Sunday Parkways 2011

Most of us who worked in shops, for distributors, or even in the manufacturing sector, were taken along for the ride. We eventually got slightly larger paychecks as our hours increased, but many of us built businesses that were not our own. Some ventured to open up shops or companies themselves, with varying degrees of successes. The pie has always been notoriously small in the bicycle business world, and I genuinely admired those who cleaned up, learned how to run a business, took this shit seriously, and made a decent living out of it. I know that I did just that. I finally learned how to manage myself properly, learned the rules to the game, played nice, and adopted their language to communicate appropriately with them. I wound up turning down lesser dead-end job offers, just to land the one that I knew I had always wanted. I then stayed there over thirteen years, because I was allowed to flourish, challenged by new opportunities, the business was profitable, and the owner was genuinely generous.

This model year we have three new colorways, bluesign approved, and newly trademarked technology!

Volunteer mechanic for BDO games bicycle race

Ogden, UT 2014

These days, so many in the bicycle industry, don’t really know what all the fuss is about over bicycles. Some of them don’t even like bicycles. Others, sell and support widgets or units on a spreadsheet. And you & I are now a line item on column “B” of their Excel or google sheets. Their formalized terms that you or I would never have used with each other began reluctantly showing up in our vocabulary when we had to interact with their machine. “Specialty Retailer”, “Bicycle Goods Manufacturer”, “Independent Bicycle Dealer”, “Specialty Channel”, “Road Segment”, “New Colorway”, the list goes on and on. These people do not care about you. These people do not even like you. These people do not care about bikes, or parts, or tools, or routes, or trails, or independently owned small businesses. These people care about money, not bringing up the next generation of passionate riders. The objects that inspire you are just tradable commodities to them; hell, you are a commodity to them. Your assets are liquidity to them that they will leverage against you in a heartbeat. The special relationships they made with you, were no more special than the deals they made with others behind your back.

It turns out, the bicycle industry never existed. There is just one group of passionate, innovative, pioneering, infectious bicycle riders… and then another group of rent-seekers, who found ingenious ways of exploiting the passions and pocketbooks of the first group.