[BikeMag]

While the bike industry may need more signatures over high-fives, we do not need them at a cost to our culture. Our character flaws and dysfunctions are what make our world desirable. We do not follow the formula or fit the cookie cutter mold of the business world...and that's a good thing.

The Bakery: Must Love Bikes

 

[wrightja]

Dear Bakery--

In response to your most recent news letter, Must Love Bikes, I felt the need to weigh in on the discussion. I always like what you guys have in the oven, bakin’, if you will, but this particular recipe left me with a particularly doughy taste in my mouth. Perhaps this dish was not ready to come out of the oven...I don’t know, I’m not in the Bakery; I’m in wine sales. Further, I am in love with riding my bike and despite my best efforts I have yet to be able to find a role in the mountain bike industry.
At age 14 and all through high school, I worked a bike shop because I was racing BMX, needed parts, and was way too cool for the BK Lounge. I got into XC Racing and eventually DH when I moved to Colorado and for years have had more money tied up in what is on my bike rack than the vehicle it is attached to. Even though I left the bike shop to go to college and began bartending, biking has been a part of my life since I was old enough to hold myself upright on two wheels. To this day I ride every day (as long as there is no snow). However, Yeti, Specialized, Trek, Moots, Niner, Kona, Gary Fisher and Felt have all either given me the cold shoulder or have told me that I need to be working in a bike shop in order to be qualified to enter the biz and join their ranks. Sure, I don’t know how to run a CAD program and I don’t speak physics all that well, but I have a Masters degree in Communication after studying Rhetorical Studies in grad school and Philosophy in undergrad. I am very good with people, details, product knowledge and, above all, sales. There has to be room for a guy that rides fat tires, has a good mouth-piece, a penchant for PBR and professional sales experience, right?!
To be clear, I understand that the culture of fat-tire-bike-biz is one that you need to love or leave. I get it, I love it, I live it; yet I am still unable to meld my passion with my profession. Eating ****ty pasta, drinking (sometimes) cold beer and living out of my truck just to get a couple days in Fruita, Moab, or Ashville is what I go to work for: so I can enjoy my passion when I’m not at work, but those moments are far too fleeting. It would be my dream to somehow make a living thinking about, selling and riding bikes, yet even though I have friends on the inside as shop owners or a Demo Rep here or there, I am still an outsider who would prefer a board room with a slight twinge of sativa resin to the sterile environ that most of us call work.
So, Mr. Baker, if you get the notion, please put this dish back in the oven and help people like me get more signatures so we can go and high-five after a lunchtime burner.

-wrightja, Denver