Chicago Bike Blog

The Dignity of Bikes

This ad, found in a weekly circular of major home improvement center, is frankly insulting.

It is insulting to bicycle riders, bicycle advocates, bicycle shops, bicycle manufacturers, and all of us who have worked relentlessly to raise the profile of urban cycling. This ad undermines the very notion of the bicycle being a legitimate human-powered vehicle worthy of being used on the road.

Unfortunately, the people the above ad insults the most are those consumers who get lured into buying one of the items being advertised. It cheats them into thinking they're getting the real thing. It turns the noble Bicycle into yet another cheap and disposable thing, that brings only superficial smiles at Christmas, and can be discarded along with the heap of other unnecessary stuff before the wrappers have even made it to the recycling bin.

Now, it is true that a Bicycle, a real Bicycle, with a capital B, such as the Kona Makena pictured below, may cost as much as ten times the item being peddled in the ad above.

But you get so much more than an item to be shoved under the tree! A quality, professionally assembled Bicycle is a piece of finely tuned mechanical artistry that is powerful, reliable, durable and safe. And, there are many ways in which a real Bike can make your child a better human and better citizen.

1. It will teach your child independence. It is the first vehicle many children ever ride on their own. Don't treat it like a toy. Let your child learn about the freedom and responsibility associated with controlling a vehicle.
2. It will teach her autonomy. It offers a way to get from point A to point B without relying on the automobile. Children from a very early age can appreciate the difference, and older children can actually use the bike to chauffeur themselves around.
3. You can help your child learn the rules of the road using your Bikes on quiet streets around the neighborhood
4. You can sign up for a bike repair class with an older child to learn practical skills, and further boost the sense of responsibility and autonomy in your kid.
5. You can use the Bike to illustrate some principles of physics (many online resources are available).
6. A Bicycle is a vehicle for social change. You can discuss how Bikes are used around the world to alleviate poverty and and offer mobility solutions in developing countries (for some ideas, click here).
7. A Bike will help your child build awareness. Unlike a car, which isolates us from our surroundings and fellow humans, the Bicycle puts us in touch with the environment & people around us. It's hard to space out on a Bike. You have to pay attention. And when you are not looking out at the world through a smoked glass window, you notice things like prowling cats, sparring squirrels, dragonflies, homeless people under a bridge, the weather, nasty smells exuded by cars, and other interesting things you might otherwise miss.
8. It will teach your child about health and fitness. He will learn how using his own body, and the food he has consumed to fuel it, can produce the energy to propel him efficiently from one place to another. We would all enjoy better health if we committed some of our daily travel to a Bicycle.
9. The Bicycle can teach your child economy. The cost of a Bicycle and its maintenance, spread over the number of years the owner will enjoy it, adds up to a very affordable annual expense. If we use a Bicycle in place of a car or bus, the savings increase dramatically.
10. The Bicycle can teach your child the value of unstructured exploration, and how to unwind and relax. 

And, as Christmas gifts, Bikes are unbeatable. A bike doesn't need batteries. A couple of strong legs, and a little air and oil once in a while. That's all. It won't scatter small parts all over your house. And it is the most fun your kid will have without being plugged in.

For most kids, it is simply THE BEST gift you can give. A Bicycle, especially The First Bicycle, is different from any other gift. It represents a coming of age, a new independence, a right of passage. Owning a Bicycle creates new transportation options, and your child will instantly recognize the new independence. Because of this, a Bike is a gift that will keep on giving. It will not be discarded or forgotten. Your child will use it enjoy it for a long time to come.

But, you say, it's winter. SO? Your child will actually WANT to go outside in the cold. Trust me, I've been there. So a Bike is really a gift for your whole family. Now you can enjoy cycling outings together. Or you can walk or jog, while your child cycles along.

It is a fancy gift that's worth it's price. Think of a price of a popular doll with a couple outfits, a fancy box of Legos , or a video game system, and you will see that the price of a quality child's Bicycle is actually quite reasonable. Plus, it makes a very effective presentation. Imagine this giant package under the tree!... Or rolling it with great fanfare from the garage... wow!

And that's the best reason for putting a Bike under the Christmas tree: the expression on your child's face. As they say: priceless.

Navigating the suburban wasteland with my son

My son, who is 12, recently asked if he could ride his bike alone to Games Workshop, where he could indulge his passion for playing Warhammer, without the inconvenience of having me wait for him and tap my foot.

The Games Workshop is located in a suburban shopping center, perhaps three miles from our house. There are several major arteries that have to be crossed, as well as an interstate, but there are also plenty of signaled crosswalks, a bridge over the highway, and a number of small neighborhoods streets that I imagined could conveniently be used. So, I thought that with a couple of trial runs with me, he could handle it on his own.

I decided to follow a route along residential streets that we sometimes take to our martial arts class. With a light at Peterson and a push-button light at Devon, this route would take us about half-way there. Then, I was planning to show him the special shortcut I like through suburban Lincolnwood.

Like others, I look back with longing and nostalgia on the days when kids could easily go off on their own with little or no parental supervision, but these romantic visions don't seem to find any reflection in modern day reality that I see before me from the saddle of my bicycle. And, what I thought was going to be a fairly simple undertaking turned out to be much more complex and fraught with difficulties, partly having to do with my own nervousness, partly with my son's inexperience, and hugely with the inconsistent, unpredictable, haphazard traffic patterns, city planning, street signals and bicycle/pedestrian facilities in place on the border between Chicago and its neighboring suburbs of Lincolnwood, Skokie and Niles.

Although I have ridden the first part of the route with my son many times previously, my nervousness kicked into high gear when I realized that I was now prepping him to ride without me, to make his own decisions and rely on his own judgment. It was one thing to have him ride on the pavement behind me, and quite another to imagine him trying it on his own. Suddenly, things that I do through force of habit acquired over 20 years of street-riding experience were not so obvious. After all, he doesn't have that experience to guide him.

The frustration with the urban-planning aspect of the ride began as soon as we got to Devon. A bicyclist riding on the street is too light to activate the green light. The push-button activator for the green light was placed with pedestrians in mind. If I was riding alone, I would simply wait for the gap in traffic, and ride through regardless of the traffic signal (gulp!). But with my son, I insisted we cross with the light. Thus, we had to duck-walk our bikes onto the sidewalk to push the button to get the light to change.

Things got even worse when we turned onto Devon. With two lanes of curb-to-curb each traffic way, I had already planned to ride a few blocks on the sidewalk, thinking we would again use the push-button crosswalk signal at Cicero. Well, I am here to tell you that that is the most poorly designed set of signals in the city, and while the right-turning vehicles get their own special green arrow for the entire duration of the green light, pedestrians have to wait out a full light cycle to deserve their own signal. My nervousness increased as I was having visions of my son getting impatient, and running the light while traveling on his own, with all those right-turning cars just waiting to run him over.

We proceeded along the sidewalk on Devon over the Edens Expressway, and arrived at the very pleasant street called Sauganash just on the other side. A broad, quiet, tree-lined residential street runs on a soft diagonal through the posh Lincolwood suburb. The kind of street bicyclists dream about. If the route consisted of only streets like this, I would have absolutely no qualms about my son riding alone. Alas, after several blocks of this paradise, the street ends abruptly at Central, with no bicycle or pedestrian crossing to make things easier. There is a light half a block down at Pratt, but there is no sidewalk, and not enough shoulder for a young bicyclist to safely reach it. So, we make a run through a gap in traffic for the sidewalk on the other side of Central. But I can't have my son do this when he's riding without me!

Now, we're pretty much home-free. The sidewalk continues down toward Touhy, and curves around the shopping center to deposit my son safely at the Games Workshop. Because we are riding on the sidewalk, I still admonish him to look over his left shoulders for any cars who may be turning right out of the parking lots.

By the time my son is done playing games, and I have scoured the shelves of the local second-hand book store, I have completely revised my riding strategy. Although I have always believed that cyclists should ride with traffic and behave like traffic, I find that my convictions do not hold when the safely of my child is at stake. Sidewalks in this part of town are rarely used by pedestrians, and they might as well be used by budding cyclists. On the way back, we forget all shortcuts and finesse. We ride in straight lines on sidewalks to major intersections with dependable pedestrian signals, we make only right-angle turns, and we arrive home safely, in one piece, and with little stress.

Dream of independent travel

You probably often walk into your local bike shop for quite prosaic reasons. Maybe you need a tube, or you need the drivetrain cleaned, or help removing the frozen seatpost, or pedal, or bottom bracket. And we help you out with that, because that's what we are here for. But if our job description read "removing stuck parts from bikes", life wouldn't be very exciting for us, and chances are, you'd receive mediocre service.

Rapid Transit Cycleshop is often described as the "urban" or "commuter" shop. I'm not sure that this does justice to what we actually do. What we did set out to do is to enable cyclists in Chicago to use their bicycles in ways that they envisioned, without judgment or intimidation. We wanted to participate in their vision. We have also always felt that transportation was a viable and appropriate use for the bicycle. And it simply happened that in a dense urban area like Wicker Park, there were quite a few people whose vision of the bicycle included transportation.When we opened the shop in 1994, we felt that much of the bike industry at the time, including bike companies and bike shops, were unresponsive to urban cyclists' needs, so we eagerly stepped in to fill the niche.

Perhaps the urban image that has grown up around us also has to do with our name. We deliberately called ourselves Rapid Transit, because we felt that bicycles were at least as sensible and efficient at public transit. For many years, we also used the tagline "We're Chicago's Transportation Alternative". Although this further played on the idea of comparing ourselves to the urban transit system (playing on the abbreviation of Chicago Transit Authority), what it meant to us, is that we offered folks who wanted to cycle real alternatives.

A bike, of course, is an alternative to a car, or train, or bus, or traveling on foot. However, we also felt that there were very few alternatives for the cycling public among the offerings of local bike shops. We wanted to change that. We were not after defining what a cyclist should be. We wanted to open up the possibilities of what he or she could be.

For example in 1994, with one Vision R40 in stock, we became Chicago's first recumbent bicycle dealer. Every year since then we have expanded or fine-tuned our recumbent offerings, and currently stock several brands and configurations of both recumbent bicycles and adult trikes. These are not traditionally considered "urban" bikes, yet a number of our customers use them extensively on the streets of Chicago.

For several years, we tried unsuccessfully to incorporate folding bikes into the mix. There simply were no US manufacturers or distributors who were set up to sell folders through a dealer network. Fortunately, several years ago that changed, and we now offer a selection of models from several different manufacturers, that give cyclists travel options simply not available with a standard bike.

Over the past fifteen years, we have seen many trends in bikes come and go. No one type of bike can fill the needs of a huge and diverse cycling population: not hybrid, not recumbent, not folding, not fixie, not road, not mountain, not Chinese, not even Dutch. Thus, we offer many different bikes, because there are many different kinds of cyclists.

Recently, we had a chance to revisit our old tagline, and really think about what it means. What does it mean to be Chicago's Transportation Alternative? It's not just who we are and what we offer. In fact, that's only a small part of it. What really matters is what you want, and how we can help that come about. Why do you want to bike? What are your dreams?

We noticed that many people coming in to look for a bike, to repair a bike, to get back on a bike, to find a different, more appropriate type of bike, were looking, in some measure, for freedom, autonomy, intependence. Freedom from traffic, from stress, from the city, from the car, from gas, from illness or injury, from convention, from routine. They expressed a desire to escape, in bigger or smaller ways, from something that was limiting or holding them back.

And our job, the way we see it, is to help them realize their dreams of independent travel.

The other side of the counter

By guest writer Sam Van Dellen

One of the things that's helpful in life is the ability to see things from the point of view of someone else. If you are a bicycle consumer, chances are you don't often get to look at bikes from the point of view of someone in the bike industry.

So here are some things from the other side of the counter about bikes, bike shops, bike shop employees, bike companies.

Let's start with bikes and the companies that make them.

A bike's a bike.  Bicycle manufacturer is a bit of a misnomer. Any bicycle with a brand name you recognize probably comes out of one of a small handful of factories in the Far East.  Thus, Kona, Trek, Marin, etc. are more properly called "bicycle brands". They commission the factories to manufacture bikes for them according to certain specs.

These different companies will have different ideas of how a bicycle should fit, or what parts are more important to spend more money on: some emphasize frame materials, or the components, or perhaps comfort features. But basically, any number of bikes in the range of money you are willing to spend will represent a comparable value, and quality, and work well for you. 

Bicycle companies are in the business of making money by selling bikes, so of course, each one is trying to get you to buy their bikes. This is not a bad thing.  The more bikes they sell, the longer they stay in business, the better bikes they can produce, hopefully getting more people on bikes in the process.

One of the ways they try to get you to buy their bike, instead of one built by another company, is to specify high quality parts for the bike in the places where it's important or that you will notice, and put lower quality parts where it's less important or noticeable. They do this to keep the cost of the bicycle at a "price point" which research has shown customers commonly are willing to spend.  Again, not a bad thing in and of itself, although sometimes they end up going cheaper on some things than they should.

In fact, in some cases companies specifically put on the cheapest reasonable item because they know customers have strong preferences, and will replace those items anyway.  So, the company can pack more value into the bike by skimping on, say,  tires or pedals.  The tires that come on your bicycle will be ok for a while, but it's assumed that you'll be replacing them before too long with something you or the bike shop employee helping you has found is the best for your purpose.  Higher-end bicycles often come without pedals, as most people who have been riding long enough to want a fancy bike have a specific style of pedal that they want to use, and rather than put something on that they'll just end up selling or trading in, they short-cut the process.

What does this mean to you when you are shopping for a bike? Don't focus on the brand, as much as on how you plan to use the bike. Discuss that with your salesperson, and let him or her guide you toward a bike that has put the most value into those features that will provide the greatest benefit to you.

Which brings us to: bike shop employees.

When you walk into a bike shop, you probably see a bunch of bearded, tattooed guys that look scary (and maybe cool?) and you may feel uneasy or intimidated.  In reality, they're not scary at all. You need to trust me on this: I work with these guys every day. They are probably friends you haven't met yet, who love bikes and want to share that love with you.  They are delighted to see you. You help make sure they get paid. They probably are cool in the sense that they care, not in the sense that they feel superior to you. If you're going into the sort of shop that has your best interests in mind, they want to help you get on the best bike for you.

I'll tell ya too, your needs for your bicycle are probably not the same as anybody else's, and a good salesperson or mechanic understands that.  They're really going to ask you a lot of questions and use your answers to get the best bike for you. 

Another thing you should know is that bike shop employees do not work for a bike shop for fabulous wealth. It isn't there to be had. The real reasons people work at bike shops are love of bikes and love of people.  You can't stay sane if you're doing it for any other reason, at least in a shop like Rapid Transit.

So on to the bike shop itself. 

There are all sorts of shops, so it makes sense to shop around a bit. And I don't mean price. While there are always places to get a cheaper bike, it's really important that you are aware that there is more to a bicycle than a price tag.  I cannot stress enough the importance of proper assembly and maintenance of a bicycle. Take the time to find a shop that takes initial assembly and follow-up maintenance very seriously. Ask if they allow test rides, what kind of service they do after you buy the bike and what hoops they'll make you jump through to get it, what sorts of things should you expect from your new bike, that sort of thing.  If you're feeling pressured to buy something, you should probably leave.

Some shops are better at what they do than others. Some are more focused on the sale than the relationship. In my opinion, this is not really what you want in a bike shop. If you plan on having any kind of relationship with your bike, you better plan on having one with a bike shop, too. At Rapid Transit, when you buy a bicycle, you're entering into a new, hopefully fantastic relationship with your bicycle, the shop, as well as the employees.  

Sam Van Dellen manages the Service Department
at Rapid Transit Cycleshop

A question of trust

A while ago, one of my closest friends was looking for a bike, a little comfort hybrid to ride around with her kids. She read some Consumer Reports, and had an idea of what she wanted. Her husband had purchased several bikes from us, so she came in to look around. She didn't spend much time, was vague about her needs and unwilling to try any bikes. She left, and bought a bike that we carried from Dick's. Ouch!

Another friend remarked during a recent visit, and with no malicious intent, that she buys stuff online, because you can't trust salespeople; they're always trying to sell you stuff you don't need.

A third friend related her experience about purchasing some specialty equipment online: she contacted an outfit that advertised the best prices, got pressured by the phone sales person to make a purchase, felt duped and cheated, and insisted on returning the order. She subsequently made a purchase through a trusted vendor, who offered good expertise, asked key questions to find out what she needed, and offered a fair price.

As consumers, we want to get the best deal. We are trained to distrust salespeople. It's easy enough to buy shoes, or books, or Legos anonymously. But technical equipment is another story. We don't want to feel dumb, yet we want good advice. Reading product reviews and talking to friends can be good starting points. But neither is very objective.

Though frankly, objectivity isn't really what you want. Neither is good advice. What you really want is for someone with some expertise to guide you toward making your own subjective decision. And for that, you have to open up a bit, and trust someone.

It's difficult to put yourself in the hands of an expert, especially one who works on commission. Our staff at Rapid Transit Cycleshop do not work on commission. There are two main reasons for this. One is that rather than creating a conflict of interest between the salesperson and the customer, we want the salesperson to look out for the customer's best interests. The other reason is that the salesperson is only one person in the chain of events that brings the quality product to the customer. The entire staff, from the product buyer, to assembler, to the mechanic who checks the bike and takes care of the follow-up service, the manager who has trained the salesperson to uncover the customer's needs, everyone contributes to the process of putting the right bike in the hands of the right cyclist.

Do we get everyone to trust us? Certainly not, as illustrated by the story of my friend. Commission or not, we obviously still want to make the sale. But here's the thing, we don't want the sale at any cost, because the sale is not the end of the line. Rather, the sale is a begining of a relationship with a customer, and we want that relationship to be based on trust. 

Maybe that's too touchy-feely for some people. Perhaps they prefer that anonymous experience of buying a bike from a megamart. But if you're going to take biking seriously, you have to get a little touchy-feely with your friendly bike shop, or at least a friendly bike shop employee.

So how do you find one?
Go into a shop, and ask a few questions. Do they work on commission? Do they ride bikes in the way that you do? Do they sound like they are willing to answer questions?

If you've walked into the right bike shop, the conversation should change after you've covered some preliminaries. Now, they should be asking you questions. Whether you've walked in with no idea or a very specific idea of what you are looking for, the staff should try to learn more about your needs to help you explore the possibilities.
What was the last bike you rode?
How long have you had it?
What about it did you or did you not enjoy?
How much did you ride in the past?
How do you plan you use the new bike you will buy?
Are there any specific features that you need in a bike?

If they point you to a bike without having asked a single question, keep looking.

Biking for wimps

My morning began with a slap in the face.
In my previous post, I had imprudently revealed myself as eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring, and being tired of the trudge of winter. A reader took advantage of this weak moment, and accused me of having a "delicate constitution".
Humph.
I jumped up from the computer and took a few indignant paces across the living room. I must defend myself. I must protest and set the record straight. After all, not only do I have years of all weather commuting under my belt, I also have a proven track record of turning other people into...
But then the coffee kicked in and my brain started working again.
Where is it written that cycling is something that can only be practiced by people with strong constitutions?
Like it or not, the majority of people in this country still view cycling as a fair-weather activity whose purpose is primarily recreation, rather than transportation. There are many reasons for this, chief among them perhaps the long tradition of cheap, accessible and abundant fossil fuels, resulting in extravagant urban sprawl. Because of deeply ingrained habits and social conditioning, changing people's views to accept the bicycle as a viable form of transportation has been a bit of an uphill battle.
This battle has been fought on several different fronts, through advocacy, street happenings such as Critical Mass, even fashion. It has also been fought day in and day out in forward thinking urban bike shops, such as my own Rapid Transit in Chicago.
For the past fifteen years, we have been engaged in the battle for the hearts and minds of cyclists young and old, would-be and practicing, new and experienced, timid and die-hard, fair-weather and all-weather. And we have come to the conclusion that you can't win that battle with shock and awe. Chances are you will not entice a new cyclist by painting visions of snot icicles, foggy goggles, blue fingertips and admonitions about the importance of layers. You will not smooth the way for him by describing the joys of your 40-mile daily commute. I do not mean to deny that there is a contingent of folks who do find this appealing and fun. But if the point is to create more cyclists, than this is not a winning strategy.
The truth is that few people are warriors, and even fewer are warriors every day.
Most of us (including myself, my earlier indignation notwithstanding) are wimps. Different things is our lives make us wimps: habits, children, distance, weather, aches and pains, fear, sometimes age, sometimes youth, winter colds, whims, moods, barometric pressure, stress. And frankly, while the heroic feats of others may sometimes inspire us, they probably won't motivate us on a daily basis. If the bar is set too high, we won't even make an attempt to reach it.
So I make allowances. Bike a little. Bike when the weather is nice. Bike when you feel like it. I would rather have a million wimps rejoicing in biking one mile, than feeling guilty about not biking at all.

Related posts:
Biking goals
Some of us are wimps. Others - ninja warriors.
Bike if you want to
How to get more people on bikes
50 ways to leave your car
Riding motivation

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Art credit:

At spring's door

Any day now.

One morning, we will wake up, look out the window, and all the snow will be gone. Crocuses will be erupting from the sodden turf and the robin will await the worm with cockeyed anticipation.

Riding a bike might seem like fun again.

To some, of course, riding a bike is never unreasonable. Cutting a singletrack trail through freshly fallen snow has its unquestionable charms, and arriving at a destination with one's own power, and icicles forming under one's nose, can be quite ennobling.

But it's hard to be a hero every day.

Day in and day out winter commuting takes it's toll. It's impossible to be footloose and fancy free in heavy boots, windpants, snow-caked gore-tex, balaclava and goggles. And, as happened with me, my bicycle, usually a symbol of freedom and fun, becomes an obligation, the thing whose accusing gaze I avoid as I slink past it on my way out the door.

So here's what I'm looking forward as I await the crocuses and the robin: shedding the winter weight of excessive clothing layers; replacing the winter tires on my bike with skinnier ones, colorful grocery panniers (like these perhaps); leaning the bike against the wall of my front porch, so always ready for spur of the moment biking; being able to carry more groceries than I can when walking; riding in whatever I've got on; filling my trailer with gardening supplies; riding home with freshly picked veggies wrapped in newspaper; not minding getting caught in the rain on my bike...

Are you impatiently awaiting spring?

Anniversary & Anticipation

Today, of all days, is the 30th anniversary of my arrival in the United States.

On this occasion, I would like to rerun a post I wrote just about a year ago on my other blog. Those few of you who read both may feel a bit shortchanged, but I think it bears repeating, if only to see if it rings differently today:

(A sign spotted on the back of a freight truck in Kentucky.)

My USA

Offers comfort and shelter to those who can't find these in their native land
Opens opportunities to those whose lives would otherwise be without hope
Weaves its multicultural heritage into a quilt of many colors
Speaks in many voices and languages
Listens to its people
Fiercely protects the inalienable rights of the individual
Guards individual freedom
Understands that there can be no freedom if the soul is not free
Values freedom above selfish gain
Supports each person in pursuit of his or her own happiness
Gives liberty and justice to all
Upholds the self-evident truths upon which its foundation was built
Trusts its citizens to make independent and informed decisions
Is for the people and by the people
Practices what it preaches
Holds other nations to its own standard, but guards and preserves their sovereignty
Is bountiful, generous and kind
Cherishes its land and natural resources
Provides for its poor
Is compassionate
Is not vengeful
Distinguishes between a threat to our freedom, and a threat to our profits
Does not send its children into harm's way
Values humanity before all other values
Does not destroy lives
Does not replace god
Offers its hand in peace
Stamps out poverty, cruelty and injustice around the world
Is my land, and it is your land

Our USA, where art thou?

Today is the day my faith in this country is restored. Let's Polka!

Why learn what we already know?

Whenever we travel to the annual bike expo or other industry events, we have an opportunity to better ourselves by attending workshops on variety of topics, from business finance, advocacy, industry trends, staff training, to merchandising. Because we have attended many such events over the past fifteen years, and have seen many of the same speakers, we know which workshops we can safely skip. We know which speakers address primarily the concerns of shops located in suburban shopping malls. We know which ones think of bikes as simply expensive toys or trophies. We know who thinks of bike shop staff as a bunch of body-pierced underachievers, and of customers as gullible suckers to be picked up by their ankles and shaken free of their money.

And then, there are those workshops which somehow manage to help us learn something new, no matter how many times we attend them. Workshops like Brett Flemming's on optimizing the operation of the bicycle service department. Brett himself runs the service department of a large six store operation in Portland, OR, called the Bike Gallery. I know he will hate me for telling you about him, because he is one of the most modest and unassuming people I have ever met. But, if you want to know more about him and his accomplishments, you can click here.

There are so many reasons I like Brett as a spokesman for the profession of bicycle mechanics. He has clearly been one for many years, and has the bike grease under his fingernails to prove it. Consequently, there is never a hint of condescension in his tone. Indeed, he is passionate about raising the profile of bike mechanics everywhere, and often talks of belonging to a "noble profession".

And, maybe most importantly, after many years in the bike industry, I feel his views on the whole affair are very closely aligned with mine. At the beginning of some of his presentations, he will say: "At this point in the game, I just don't care much about bikes. I care about what bikes do for people. I care about what they do for our customers, and I care about what they can do for us. It's an awesome, virtuous business to be in, the bicycle business." As we sat around in our living room a couple of months ago, watching this presentation on video with some of our staff, I realized that we had to get Brett into our store.

And here he is. Sitting on one of our display bikes, busily taking notes. Taking notes on us, on who we are, and what excites us about bicycles. "Anything, anything at all," he nods encouragingly.

And we go around the circle, one and all, mechanics, sales people, managers, and we too, the owners, answering the question. And, remarkably, it turns out that what excites us is not the "stuff". Some of us are excited by the freedom that bikes offer: freedom to travel, freedom from fees and taxes, freedom from gas, autonomy to move whenever fancy strikes. Others describe it as a continuation of a more sustainable and responsible urban life. Other like the simplicity of bikes, and their adaptability for various types of use. Still others love to hear peoples' stories, solving problems, and being let in on customers' secrets of why they bike, or why they don't and why they would like to, and being part of helping them realize those dreams.

On the surface, we spent those hours with Brett discussing systems. How to write up repair tickets more effectively. How to prepare more thorough and accurate estimates. How to schedule repairs and arrange the service area to maximize efficiency and minimize turn-around time, while maintaining quality control. We also talk about customer relations. We share stories of drawing out reluctant customers. Of diffusing potentially tense situations. Of the dangers of making assumptions or drawing conclusions before we've asked some key questions. We even talk about appearances. Why is it important to put a bike in the stand before proceeding with an estimate. Should mechanics' area be visible, or invisible to the customers. And why we should remove scotch tape from our windows.

But what we're really talking about is more visceral. And here, I think, is the answer to the question Brett repeatedly asked me and Chris before he left: have I provided value? We have felt from the beginning, even before he arrived, that the value would only partially come from the advice and the wisdom of experience from many years of running a successful operation. We had hoped that the real value would come from our staff rallying around the idea of making Rapid Transit better. 

We had not quite counted on the degree to which Brett intuitively recognized the intrinsic value and quality of our staff, and fell into step with them. Our exchange validated the work that we do as being worthwhile. It gave credence to the idea that it is OK not to be indifferent, but to care genuinely about both the work you do, and the person you're doing it for. It allowed us to see that in helping our customers fulfill their dreams, we are, along with Brett, building a useful, valued and noble profession.

To shop, or...?

Snow's on the ground again...
Christmas is coming. The patriots are shopping. And I?...

I am wondering if I really like the way this blog is looking. The "SALE!" stuff. The "click and save"? I dunno... I do like the idea of Bush being dragged away with a candy cane. But the whole shopping thing makes me mad, and I'm sort of loathe to play any part in it. And yet, retail is, quite literally, bread and butter for my family and my intrepid staff.

"Patriotic shopping", or any kind of bonanza shopping, makes me mad for so many reasons, that I don't even know where to start. Giving more money to corporate behemoths? Money we don't have, and they have too much of anyway? Consumerism as a defining feature of our American character? Filling our homes with stuff, of which there is never enough, as we seek some kind of therapeutic release for our frustrations that often have to do with too much stuff?

And then, there is the fact that rarely, if ever, are we encouraged to support small, local businesses based, heart and soul, in our communities. Businesses that provide products and services that can really make a difference in your day, your week, your life. A cup of freshly brewed coffee, served by a person who knows just how you like it. Bread that was baked with character this very morning. A comfortable place to hang out with your friends, or alone, or with your laptop. Aisles of books that smell like books and have prices discretely penciled on the inside of the back cover. Clothes that have outlived their usefulness for someone, but are just the thing you need to liven up your wardrobe. The pharmacists who greets you by your first name (yes, I have one).  The mechanic who understands the inner workings of your vehicle. Bicycles that fulfill your dreams of independent travel...

And people. People who care whether you come in or not.  Who take pride in their workmanship, or the service they provide. Who help create the culture of the community. Who believe that how well they do their job will affect how well your day goes.

How willingly do we trade that for crowded parking lots, disposable goods, lowest prices, and a trampled worker at Walmart?