Good Days… Bad Days…

I had a busy Saturday at then bike shop, so I didn’t have much time throughout the day to keep up with goings-on in the cycling world. I got home after work, opened up the social media feeds and saw two rockstar mechanic pals with stories on opposite sides of the good day/bad day spectrum.

One of the pro mechanics had the best day ever. His rider won the UCI XC Marathon World Championships. Hugs at the finish line, gold medal and rainbow stripes for the rider. The bike worked to perfection, until a flat tire near the end of the race. The rider had such a big lead that the flat tire didn’t matter.

Being a team mechanic and having a rider win a big race (not to mention THE BIGGEST RACE) is such a good feeling. I was lucky enough to work with some extremely talented athletes, and had the opportunity to experience such wins on the domestic road racing circuit and at UCI races. You can’t beat those days. There is SO MUCH pride in having a winning bike, whether your legs did the pedaling or not. You did your job well. The machine performed as intended. The top step of the podium for your rider is the best.

Not a lot more to analyze on the winning performance. The plan worked. Pop the champagne. Great work.

Another of my pro mechanic friends had the worst day ever. He was working as a neutral support mechanic for a big US event, which drew some big teams and high-profile UCI ProTour riders from the US. One of those riders needed a wheel, his team car was already up the road, and my mechanic buddy jumped out of the car to assist. The wheel he took to do the change (correct wheel for the job), had some end caps fall out and go missing during the jump. He went back to the car for more wheels, and in a panic, grabbed the wrong wheels for the fix. He went back to the rear again to grab a spare bike, but it was too late. The rider started running until he could get to his team car. Race day was over for him. No chance for a good finish, at that point.

I have been on that side of the race day, as well. Once upon a time, I had a team rider that was in contention for a big win on the final day of a stage race. She powered up the hill and a chainring bolt fell out and she bent the ring, dropping the chain, rendering her out of contention. She was upset about the result, as was the team director, and I was to blame for not checking the chainring bolts when prepping the bikes the night before. Totally my fault, but couldn’t change the day or the result.

How do you recover from a bad situation like that? Here are a few things to do when your day goes bad:

  • Figure out what happened – What went wrong? If you didn’t have the right tool for the job, made an error, did something less efficiently than you could have…
  • Find a way to prevent it from happening again – Get the tool, find a way to fix the error next time, develop a more efficient way to get the job done.
  • Don’t get in your head about it – If you think you’re the first one to make an error of that magnitude… you’re not. You won’t be the first, and you won’t be the last. Your victories, wins, and accomplishments FAR outweigh the blunders.
  • Don’t EVER read the comments! – In today’s world, social media is extremely prevalent. Everything is on video, and everyone has an opinion about what happened, what should have happened, how bad you suck, how they would have done it differently. Don’t obsess over people’s words. They weren’t there. They don’t have any idea what your pressure situation looked like, and they definitely couldn’t have handled it any better.
  • Wake up the next day and GET AFTER IT! – Get up and keep moving. We live to fight another day. You won’t forget the blunder, but you are a professional. It’s your job to get back up and put it behind you. Just like professional cyclists have bad days, so do professional mechanics, and so does everyone else. Don’t let your bad days hold you back. There’s too much good work to do to let one moment at one race get in the way.

Because the bad days are few, those amazing days are plenty, and the next one is right around the corner.

Back In the Saddle Again…

I’ve been a USAC Race Mechanic since 2005, but have been busy with the day-to-day family and bike shop operations life for the last several years. Recently, I had the chance to dip my toes in the waters of domestic professional bike race mechanic work again. The first two races of the SpeedWeek criterium series were in Greenville (my city) and Spartanburg (20 minutes away).

There was no neutral support mechanic crew for the series, so I traded a Cat 4/5 race entry fee for my help in the wheel pit.

I had a great time getting back after it. It had been quite a while since I had worked a pro criterium (when did thru axles become a thing???), but the cobwebs got dusted off pretty quickly, and I was able to get some riders back into competition when they would otherwise have a disadvantage because they didn’t have a team mechanic.

Now that I’ve got a taste of that scene again, I have this crazy urge to find more races to work. If you’ve ever been part of that scene, you understand the thrill of bike racing and the weird magnetic attraction that you can’t make go away, especially once you’ve had a taste of the good stuff.

We’ll see how this progresses…

“I Can’t Really Tell What You Do…”

About a month ago, I sat in on a NBDA Webinar. Following the webinar, the host reached out to me to see if we could discuss his product and whether or not we could develop a business connection. The first line of his email read, “In looking at your site, I am not sure what you do beside attend PBMA trainings and help B.R.A write their uplifting blogs.” Although I think that’s a HORRIBLE way to lead off when making an introduction to a potential business connection, I totally understand where he was coming from. I don’t update this blog nearly enough, and I haven’t kept up to date with everything I’ve had going on over the last several years. I guess it’s probably time for an update on what’s been keeping me busy…

My Family, September 2021
  • Family – I got remarried in 2019, to my lovely wife, Jessica. That brought our two families together, for a total of 6 people in our household (the two of us, plus my two girls and her two girls). In January of 2021, our son, Andrew, was born. I never thought I’d have such a big family (or have a newborn after my 40th birthday), but here we are. Definitely staying busy with our crazy crew!
  • Trek Store of Greenville – The COVID-19 pandemic has been very good our business. While others were forced to stay at home and work remotely, we were overrun with new bike sales and service. In 20 years of working in bike shops, I’ve never seen a boom like this. I’m sales manager at the shop, so it’s been an interesting few years.
  • Palmetto Cycling Coalition – From 2002-2004, I served on the Board of Directors’ for the PCC. After traveling around between race mechanic work, moving to Georgia and back, and other time-consuming tasks, I joined the Board of Directors again in 2018. After a few good years of service, I stepped into the role of Board Chair in July 2021. My passion for bicycling and pedestrian advocacy has never been stronger. We look to make big strides in advocacy in 2022-2023, and beyond.
  • PBMA – The Professional Bicycle Mechanics Association is an organization that I am extremely passionate about. For years, I have heard the repeated jabs of, “when are you going to get a REAL job?” A lot of people don’t regard the job of bicycle mechanic as a legitimate career. I would argue that it is a very important job, and have proven that you can make a living doing it. The goals of the PBMA is to promote the career of bicycle mechanics, develop them professionally, and advocate for better pay and benefits for bicycle mechanics around the world. I was chosen as the PBMA’s “Mechanic of the Year,” in 2007, and have joined the Board of Directors, as of July 2021.

In addition to those duties listed above, I have a few other side projects in the works, which should come to fruition in early 2022. Stay tuned for more updates…

WINNING AT RETAIL: 6 WAYS BRANDS & SHOPS PARTNER UP FOR GROWTH

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I had the opportunity to collaborate on an article about how brands and shops partner up to create successful relationships and stimulate growth. Thanks to Michael Irwin and Bottle Rocket Advisors for the opportunity.  Please read and leave a comment, if so inclined.

http://www.bottlerocketadvisors.com/bottle-rocket-blog/2018/3/6/winning-at-retail-6-ways-that-leading-brands-shops-partner-up-for-growth

PBMA Dulles Workshop – Days 2 & 3

20180207_075058[1]The second and third days of the PBMA Dulles Workshop were as packed with information as the first day, if not more so.

All the seminar attendees began Day Two with a panel discussion about the future of service in our industry. Panelists included Ed Reynolds (PBMA Board Member, Clemmons Bicycle Shop), Jenny Kallista (PBMA Board Member, Appalachian Bicycle Institute), and myself. It was a great discussion panel. Several members of the crowd participated, and several participants appoached us following the discussion for more conversation. The buzzwords around the discussion and the workshop seemed to be “service-only,” “mobile,” and, “consumer-direct.” Take that for what it’s worth. More thoughts to come…

Here’s a breakdown of what my group did on Day Two:

SRAM –  Great hands-on clinic.  We did a remote lever bleed on a RockShox Reverb dropper post, overhauled a Charger 2 damper for a RockShox Pike, and bled a new SRAM Guide hydraulic disc brake.  I learned a lot, and Ed and Simon had great tips on how to sell suspension service and upgrades to customers.

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Stan’s No Tubes–  We learned a lot about the history and technology that has led Stan’s to be the industry’s leader in tubeless products.  This clinic taught us a lot about different conversions, materials used in sealant, what makes a tubeless rim and tire combination work, and more ways to be profitable by selling tubeless technology to those that come in our shops.

Magura–  I thoroughly enjoyed the Magura session in Dulles.  Jude Monica, who is really a legend in our industry (and overall great dude), instructed us on how hydraulic brakes work, including some really in-depth drawings of a lever and caliper.  The Magura staff also showed us new technology, like their wireless dropper post (WANT), and instructed us on how to properly bleed a Magura brake.

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Ruckus Composites –  This seminar, although not really a hands-on period of instruction, was one of my favorites.  Carbon, one of the most widely-used materials in bike and component construction, is very mysterious to some people.  The guys at Ruckus spent time explaining the material, then showed examples of their carbon repair process.  The things that they can do to repair and salvage a broken carbon frame is RIDICULOUS.  If you can imagine it, they can probably make it happen, AND paint it to match the old paint job.  I was severely impressed.

We finished the evening with a networking event in the lobby. I got to spend some time meeting with new industry folks, catching up with old friends, and sharing war stories with seasoned mechanics. That was a really fun time, and I hope the PBMA continues to integrate that into their events.

Day Three began with a talk by Mike Reisenleiter (Winged Wheel Development), entitled, “Service Profits and the Future of Retail.” His talk took a look deeper into the state of bicycle retail, both now and in the not-so-distant future. The buzzwords kept coming back into the picture, but Mike presented numbers that demonstrated that brick-and-mortar stores are not all going away, but the landscape of how we do business is changing. I found his talk to be very interesting, and plan on discussing these topics with him more in the near future.

The next presentation was from Brett Flemming (Efficient Velo Tools).  A former service manager for multiple Bike Gallery locations in Portland, Oregon, Brett followed his passion for tools and founded his own company several years ago.  EVT has now become his main job, in addition to speaking gigs around the country with PBMA.  I heard Brett speak in Atlanta at a NBDA seminar around ten years ago, and the message remained mostly the same: your quality and customer service should never be compromised, and that will set you above the rest.  I thoroughly enjoyed the talk, and the conversation with Brett over the course of my time in Dulles.

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The rest of the final day concluded with two three-hour seminars.  The first was the PBMA eTech seminar, taught by Ed Benjamin of the Light Electric Vehicle Association (LEVA).  Ed is probably the BEST resource for general e-bike knowledge in the United States.  We learned a lot of basic e-bike knowledge, parts, and tools we would need to repair e-bikes.  LEVA also offers other advanced certifications to allow mechanics to level up their knowledge and be a better technician for our customers.

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The last clinic of the event was the Campagnolo Tech Clinic.  The Campy N.A. crew did a great job teaching us about the history of the company, EPS (Campagnolo’s Electronic Groupsets), the MyCampy app, and their new hydraulic road disc brakes (which is styled and functions a LOT like a Magura brake… ). I have never seen a rotor with a more rounded edge on it, which should silence critics of road disc technology.

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All in all, the PBMA Technical Workshop was a great event, and offered certifications and continuing education units that will be helpful in maintaining my mechanic certification and increasing my effectiveness around my shop.  I would highly recommend these events in the future, as I’m sure they will expand to other regions of the country and also modify the courses of instruction as time passes.