The Lost Intro

A behind the scenes peek at the shop's guide to professional bike repair

I like writing nearly as much as I like wrenching. Writing tends to be more gut wrenching. I don’t agonize about torque specs the way I do making words fit my meaning. My torque wrench actually sees a bolt head only once or twice a year.

Since January, I’ve forced myself to find time to sit in a chair and write out an advanced guide to bicycle repair. Returning to wrenching after pulling paragraphs out of my brain feels like a reward. No questions about active or passive voice, no concerns over being repetitive: lever pulls cable, cable pulls arm; pedals turn chain, chain turns wheel. Ahhhhhh.

guide art by Xinrui @xynree ❤️

The heavy lifting is done as far as shoehorning 15 years worth of shop experience into a standalone repair guide. Its format evolved through writing. The early sections are chaos compared to the sections on hydraulics and wheel work that I finished last week. Repeatedly reducing repair work to words made it easier to imagine and write for a student using the guide. I’m happy with the result and excited to make it better with edits. It should be available to view at the shop in the next couple weeks.

One section I found easy to write is copied below. Chances are slim it finds its way into the final guide. It was easy to write because it’s personal. Spending time in shops has shaped my personality and my personality shapes my approach to bicycle repair. It felt natural to connect the two in an intro.

I asked a couple friends to read the intro, one who pointed out, gently, graciously, that the personal tone doesn’t align with the guide’s professional aspirations. I think my friend is right but I also think the tone is right for this newsletter.

I’ll thank you in advance for reading and leave the text below, its opinions and revelations, without any additional commentary. If you have a reaction, I’m all ears. Drop me a line or a text me at 206-963-9584.

Introduction

You’re holding the result of 15 years spent in bike shops that eschew convention: shops whose prices fluctuate, shops that shun new parts, shops that only open in the evening, shops run by neophytes and drug users, shops who set aside space for the homeless to sleep, shops where wayward enthusiasts connected with people who welcomed them in.

These shops operated out of unusual spaces: a tony storefront in Paris’s 2nd arrondissement near the Opera, on the bare concrete floor of a Brussels parking garage with flimsy walls made of found lumber, on tilting wooden floors of a condemned building south of Seattle in a space shared with a squirrel family. At my current location, a storefront in Seattle’s Little Saigon neighborhood, the shop operates shoulder to shoulder with perhaps the city’s most notorious black market for drugs and stolen homewares.

People who knew me when I worked in these various places understood the place I was referring to when I mentioned the shop. There was never any question either that they all laid claim to a lineage dating back to the 1890s, when the word shop transitioned from being a place for mercantile business to a place where consumers could take mass produced items for repair.

In the shops where I have worked, I have helped cut bicycle frames apart, frankensteined them back together, repaired bikes inexpertly, seen bikes stolen and bled on, cursed at certain bikes and underestimated the value of others. I do not think I ever treated a bicycle with disrespect and never deemed one worthless, even if they were bought off the floor from Walmart(™). All bikes were treated as an object that held or could hold significance to a rider.

Every shop where I have worked has done what I think every bike shop does: concentrate tools, parts and knowledge resources for riders, define a space according to the most efficient way to store and repair bicycles, offer the chance for riders to connect with each other and mechanics and the chance for mechanics to dream up how to work bicycles into some new business scheme or community organizing project.

At this point, you may be wondering whether this repair manual was written by a radical. It’s an attribute that at different times in my life I was happy to own although not one today that describes me or my approach to bicycles and bicycle repair. This guide I hope will speak for itself as far as my approach is concerned but to state it plainly: I believe the best bicycle shops are ones that turn a profit. While I have seen bicycles used in a way that I think is revolutionary, I do not think a revolutionary mindset is entirely consistent with what makes someone a reliable mechanic. I find do-it-yourself style bike kitchens create more barriers to entry into the world of paid bicycle work than they dissolve, although I think they are an important and valid part of the bicycle shop ecosystem. Finally, to put it simply, I do not like the non-profit model for a bicycle shop.

I have made friends in bicycle shops as well as, if not enemies, at least antagonists. I met my wife in a bicycle shop and I’m pouring my energy into a different shop today as we navigate a tricky separation. I have hosted dating events in bicycle shops, I have hosted politicians, I have consumed drugs in bicycle shops and I have felt at times like I never wanted to spend another minute in a bicycle shop. What sustains my interest in shops and what motivates me to write this guide is the potential I see in shops to provide access to job training and employment.

Streamlining and standardizing access to bicycle mechanic work has been both a dream of mine and a constant source of frustration. This frustration arises from the difficulty encountered when trying to separate all the reasons why being a bicycle mechanic and person represents a core pillar of my personality. I also feel it every time I confront how to reduce a practice that developed in me through years of trial and error and resistance to seeing myself as a professional mechanic. Finally, I find the dire financial conditions of many bike shops and the low pay offered to many experienced mechanics shocking given the simple utility, convenience, joy, independence and access to communities that bicycles offer.