Beggars Would Ride
Indentured Serfitude
In the past three weeks, three good friends of mine – two of whom could be described as bike industry “lifers”, the other with a solid decade and a half of bike industry experience – found themselves abruptly unemployed. No warning, no severance, no valid explanation as to why, exactly, they were being punted so suddenly into unemployment. You’re done. Hand over your laptop. This nice HR person will escort you from the premises now.
The words “economic downturn” are mighty popular right now, but the unconnected, coincidental firing of three friends in such a condensed period of time has cast my mind to thinking about the bike industry, its long term habits, the unconscious heartlessness that accompanies many of the “business decisions” that are made when there is even a hint of hardship in the air, how this has happened so many times to me and so many of my peers, and how we keep on coming back to work within this fishbowl like abused lovers returning to sociopathic spouses.
It’s fucked up.
The companies that we work for do not deserve much praise for their management of the human resource, but those of us who have spent our entire adult lives accepting less compensation than our peers in other industries are complicit in this. We agreed to work without any insurance or benefit packages, we submitted to the idea that “it’s just the bike industry” and therefore we don’t really deserve to get paid as much as other careers in other areas. We are just as responsible for this widespread undervaluation as those who hire us for 2/3 salaries and fire us without a second thought while padding their bonus packages. We weren’t blind. We knew going in what the old truisms were.
“How do you make a million bucks in the bike industry? Start with two million…”
Maybe that had some ring of authenticity back when high end bikes topped out at a couple grand, when ebikes were not even a glimmer on the horizon, when accessory options consisted of any color Lycra shorts you wanted so long as they were black and a choice between Italian shoes with wood soles or repurposed hiking boots. Back then, bike shops were tradition-steeped enclaves of siloed knowledge, curated with profound devotion by rabidly passionate, deeply committed, monastically awkward keepers of the flame who were in all likelihood overeducated in more than a few areas but also completely out of step with the evolving retail landscape. This may be a gross generalization of the 30-year-ago bike shop retail experience in the big picture sense, but I don’t know. It was absolutely true of three of the four bikes shops I cut my teeth in. And just like dinosaurs squinting at that bright, rapidly approaching asteroid, we were not ready for the coming changes.
The first bike shop I worked at, I was paid $5 an hour while I learned how to be a mechanic. By the time I could build wheels and cold set frames, and was finally allowed to use the Campagnolo facing tools, I was making the princely sum of $7.25 an hour. This was around 1990, when it was still possible to rent a room in a sketchy neighborhood of San Francisco for about $350 a month, if you didn’t mind roommates who were in bands, or the smell of spilled bongwater. But still, it wasn’t much.
Just prior to dropping out of college to embark upon the anti-capitalist career path of apprentice bike mechanic, I had been working for a tree service in Burlingame, where I was in charge of grinding tree stumps, rebuilding blown up chipper clutches, and repairing the houses and yards of our clients after the tree crews had concluded their vortex of mayhem. I was getting paid $20 an hour under the table. $5 an hour in San Francisco in 1990 was about level with stocking shelves at the Gap, or working at the McDonalds on the corner of Haight and Stanyan. But $5 an hour was basically par for the course for starting out at any of the eight bike shops within three blocks of those particular golden arches. It was expected that if you paid your dues, developed a decent skillset, you could top out at around $10-12 an hour, or maybe slide into a management position and bust your ass hard enough to be able to afford to eat something other than ramen and peanut butter.
Everyone I worked with at my first two bike shops had college degrees. Every one of them had left some other career path and gone to work in bike shops because they were seduced by bicycles. Some of them were taking a break from the high pressure, high income world. But most of them were lifers, or on their way to becoming lifers. They had made a conscious choice to ditch the career track and enter the bike industry through that shimmering portal known as retail.
That first decision – to accept a lower level income because we wanted to immerse ourselves completely in a scene that we were in love with – I believe now that it set a fateful precedent. For me, and for many others. We willingly sacrificed compensation for experience, for knowledge, for the lure of early access to and discount prices on the newest and latest shiny objects of our desire. This industry that we entered into via our willingness to work for less was filled with people just like us, and so a foundation was in place.
This image never once entered into my thought processes when considering my chosen career arc. It may have been central to some of the various venture capital funded corporate intermediaries who had a say in how that arc was defined, however.
A few years later, seduced by yet another dazzling prize, I was making a lateral move into cycling journalism. At 10 cents a word. That ultimately paved the way to working for BIKE. Being from the surf and snow world, they were new to the bike industry and therefore unaware that they could pay people half the going rate. It was a shock to start making real money, to do something I loved, and actually get a glimpse of the bottom of the middle class. Seemed like it was too good to be true.
Sure enough, it was. And soon after Surfer Publications got absorbed by Petersen, then EMAP, then Primedia, then American Media, then, oh fuck, I forget, I found myself in a fire/hire cycle that punted me out the door no fewer than six times in as many years. Each time I got hired back, it was at a lower rate, or with fewer benefits, or as an “at will” freelancer, or with two jobs instead of the one that had been there before.
And each time, I went back. Thank you! Yes, I am happy to have a job! I love bikes!
So, point the DeLorean back to the here and how. These days, there is a bike for any kind of riding you want to take on, tires and saddles and handlebars specific to whatever terrain you want to tackle, whatever shape buttock you sit on and whatever the cut of your jib might be, so to speak. And there are outfits to go with whatever splinter sect of cycling you identify with. There is money to be made. And there is money being made.
Along with that money being made, the bikes we ride are almost as sophisticated as dirt bikes and often in need of dedicated, well-trained, knowledgeable support. Shit, there are bikes costing close to 20,000 of your Canadian dollars out there, being sold by purveyors of $400 matching pant/jersey combos, coordinated with $300 shoes and helmets. However, the expectation of that retail experience, from a customer, is somehow lacking respect of that high dollar experience. The customer still sees the bike shop as a place where the work is not to be valued, and the price is always to be haggled down. It has been this way for so long that the devaluation is almost reflexive for most consumers.
Give me a deal, bro. Do I get a discount, bro? C’mon, I just spent $100k outfitting my Sprinter so I can go spend the winter kiteboarding at my third house in La Ventana, and I’m broke, bro. I can get it online for less, bro.
Poached from instagram, this is a snap of the always entertaining chalkboard of service rates, random wisdoms, and occasional insults at Dirty Fingers Bikes in Hood River, Oregon. You might need to zoom in to catch some of the angst, but it is there. This photo is here to honor bike shop employees everywhere, for the shit they have to put up with from well-heeled asshats like those described in the sentences above this image.
Those of us inside this bubble don’t help ourselves here, since we all have Stockholm Syndrome. We all are so used to undervaluing our work that we do it out of habit. During the past decade, I have hired electricians, plumbers, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, upholsterers, and car mechanics. I am pretty sure that if I had tried to haggle my neighbor Brad down in price on his remodel work he would have either quickly rapped me on the side of my head with a framing hammer or quietly dismantled his work and set fire to all the lumber I had paid for, right there in my driveway. The work is the work. It is sophisticated and demanding. The price is the price. It is to be agreed upon and respected. Paying someone what they are worth for the work they do is a way to get good work done, and a way to respect the person doing the work.
But here we are in the bike industry, and the work is so often not respected. Not by the public at the retail level, and often not by our own companies and our own bosses. I was texting one of my freshly unemployed friends about this column, how I didn’t know how to wrap it up, how I didn’t know why we keep coming back for more when we could go do something else, somewhere else, and we were having a bit of a cry on each other’s shoulder, when I said; “Maybe we are addicts. Maybe we are too easily seduced by charismatic narcissists. Maybe we give it up for love, too easily, too often. But this industry that acts like somehow we are all in this together, just barely getting by, sure does a great job of keeping us in that loop, perpetuating that lie while maximizing profits and minimizing costs.”
Admittedly, that is a highly emotional, not entirely rational take. My freshly unemployed friend said; “There’s your ending paragraph.”
There has to be some kind of outward connection though. So, let's go with this:
Be kind to your bike mechanic. Value your bike shop. Pay retail. Honor the work.
Comments
Vik Banerjee
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Coming at it from the consumer end of things I have had a lot of terrible LBS experiences. Just a typical example my GF calling me from the LBS [major store in a decent sized CDN city] to inform me the salesman wants her to buy brand new brakes as you can't buy replacement pads for her 2 year old SRAM brakes. **sigh** I told her to come home and we ordered the pads online for 50% of the local cost and got them in 3 days at our door. It felt like we were being punished trying to support a local shop.
Stuff like that makes it very hard to want to pay a lot for advice/service at a LBS unless you know the person you are working with is actually going to deliver.
As a counterpoint I had a buddy who ran his own one person bike shop and he was amazing. Paying him $100/hr + parts to work on my bike would be a good investment and totally worth it. The machine always rode so much better after he worked on it. Since he was the only one working on bikes you knew what you were going to get from the business.
I don't know how to reconcile the two types of experiences. At most shops I can't control who works on my bike and my results are pretty mixed from amazing to terrible. It's hard to agree on a high upfront price for something that's not reliably good at the other end. OTOH I agree it's shitty to underpay quality people delivering a great service/experience.
I have settled on leaving a really big tip for excellent/fast service. Hopefully a lot/most/all actually goes to the person helping me and they can at least get some $$ as well as knowing I appreciated their efforts. That said I'm not a fan of tipping as a way for people to pay their bills. It's not fun when your income isn't steady.
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Briain
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Not so much bike shops. But it is a constant debate that if my partner has to go anywhere to get mechanical work done cars, bicycle, building etc. The usually guys take the piss and inflate the price talk down to her if she questions anything. So I do wonder if your example was just a bit of good ol fashioned sexism as opposed to workmanship/ knowledge on the shops part.
So while I now do 90% of any mechanical work myself I do drive to the otherside of my city when I need a bikeshop and have never found a reliable mechanic for motorbikes. I would happily pay for those things if I could go somewhere and get the work reliably done
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adnauseam
5 months, 3 weeks ago
I'm sorry that has happened to you.
Any bike shop worth their weight should give you a break down of potential costs and tell you why they added a 10-20% 'padding' fee to the estimate. Find another bike shop :)
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TristanC
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I'm temporarily living and working in Schweinfurt, Germany. I can see the SRAM building from my office window. I've gone on some rides with folks who work there, and I asked them if they think working in the bike industry is worth it. They've all said yes, they love it, they get to think about bikes all day and work next to people who also like thinking about bikes all day.
I'm a mechanical engineer in an automotive-adjacent field, and have a fairly low-stress job that I leave at work every day, and then I go home and get to ride or work on my bike. I think that's what will always stop me from jumping from automotive to bikes - bikes are a fun hobby for me, and I use them to decompress. If I had to think about them every day, I don't know if I would like them anymore.
Also, $30 for a fender install is a flaming bargain, that's at least a two-beer job for me.
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Pete Roggeman
5 months, 4 weeks ago
If you can drink two beers that fast, I know I'm not up to the task of drinking with you.
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TristanC
5 months, 4 weeks ago
You must be much better at fender installs than I am, last time was a solid two hours plus a trip to the hardware store!
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Kos
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Critical distinction is whether you are installing or re-installing fenders. The first time around can definitely be a two beer job!
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Jerry Willows
5 months, 4 weeks ago
sound about right for an engineer....
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Pete Roggeman
5 months, 3 weeks ago
You know, my mistake - I was thinking of a front fender for a mtn bike, not proper fenders for a groadie/commuter. Maybe we can drink a beer together after all ;)
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Sebov
5 months, 4 weeks ago
As a German who grew up near Schweinfurt I have to add something: In Germany employees do have much more rights and are highly protected by law. So hire and fire is not that easy as in the US…
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Timer
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I’d guess the engineers at SRAM in Schweinfurt are also taking quite a bit of a pay cut compared to their colleagues in automotive or heavy industries.
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luke_sky
5 months, 3 weeks ago
I had a job offer as an Engineer in the industry that would have relocated me from Germany to Switzerland. Pay cut against my current field of work would have been about 30% (also, more hours, less holidays, less working from home). I knew the pay would suffer but not by how much.
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jesreson
5 months, 4 weeks ago
As someone with family and close friends that worked in the Bike industry, I have to agree with you. I tend to disagree with the old adage: "Do what you love for work and you'll never work a day in your life." In my experience, if you do what you love for work, you will very quickly fall out of love.
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Morgan Heater
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Yep, it turns out that every job turns into a job.
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Kyle
5 months, 3 weeks ago
SRAM is one of the few companies I think actually treats their people well. I worked there briefly, and leadership took a pay cut to pay out everyone's bonuses on a down year. I will forever respect Stan & Co for that move.
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hankthespacecowboy
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Getting a job in a bike shop was my life line of deconstruction as I was getting kicked out of a private Christian college, and realizing there wasn't much of anything Christ-like left in the evangelical right. So I suppose that is my trauma bonding the bike world.
So here I am 20 years later in the same predicament you just described, but as a trail builder, having to make long, careful explanations as to why the latest flow-rizzle trail across a steep desert landscape should cost more than a roll of mid-tier wallpaper.
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Cy Whitling
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Hanging out in a bike shop when I was in middle school was definitely the first step down my road to deconstruction. They told me to stay in school if I wanted a safe career, and they weren't wrong.
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Dave Smith
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I had this same conversation while shooting this weekend.
I've been a creative professional adjacent to the snow and dirt world for over 25 years. My very first gig in the ad world was design work for an agency that worked for a major surf brand. When I naively mentioned how lucky I felt to work on this kind of brand when others were designing websites for Glad garbage bags my wizened creative director warned me to "be careful who I give my heart to". Year after year and project after project, as a graphic designer, writer and photographer those words of warning have been proven true. Yet, I keep getting sucked in...love sucks.
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Andy Eunson
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Loving your work is huge though. I worked as an insurance adjuster for too many years. Everyone was angry in that job. The insurer was angry because there was a claim, the insured was angry because someone made a claim, the claimant was angry because they had to make a claim. I was the anger sink. I had take in the anger and dissipate it. The bike was great for that. After a while I got good at what I did but there were a lot of stupid greedy people and I ended up unmotivated to do good work. I loved who I worked with and most of my clients were great but some of the stupid claimants and lawyers that represented them got under my skin so I retired early. I am fortunate that I was able to do that. I knew people though that you could see hated their work but had to keep doing it because life circumstances forced them to keep grinding on. Some were alcoholic. Many just did shitty work.
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Dave Smith
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Bikes are amazing and so are skis. They're not transportation, they're transportive as both a therapist and as a creative inspiration. I think that's why over the lifespan of my career that I've put the outdoor industry high up on a pedestal. Over the years, I've just learned the hard way that I can't put my heart up there beside it because it inevitably gets shouldered off and lands on the floor with a bloody splat.
What I took away from Mike's piece was an admiration for the resilience and sacrifice of people, like his friends, who do the work at a heavy discount to their financial and mental well being for the love of bikes. But the business of bikes is an alternate definition of tough love that's closer to self-immolation.
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Lacy Kemp
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Dave is speaking my language here. I keep using the word "heart" when I talk about my industry jobs. As a recently laid off "lifer", I've lived this self-flogging existence for a long, long time and I keep coming back. Just one more hit, man. One more bike. One more trip to some bro-fest in Monterey to see all my old pals (I love you guys for real!) I guess I'm just a junkie.
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Pete Roggeman
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Too true. Although in the bike world, substitute the word warranty for claim up above, and you have the same scenario taking place. Anger, frustration, disdain, regret. I know you're not suggesting there aren't crappy jobs within an industry full of people that like bikes. Work is work. Loving it is better than hating it, but even great jobs involve crappy work.
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Brad Nyenhuis
5 months, 3 weeks ago
My personal view is that loving your work is over-rated. And over-expected.
Yeah, I said it.
Very few people get to be astronauts, movie stars, or NBA players. The rest of us have jobs.
I'm not saying you need to work a job you hate, just don't expect to love your job. There's a reason they pay you to be there. We screwed up a generation with this whole, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life", bullshit. Your life fulfillment should come from the 16hrs away from your job, not the 8hrs at it.
What I always told my two sons was, "Find a career you don't mind doing that allows you to live how you want to live."
I moved to New Mexico from Chicago to open a bike shop. It was 50-60 hrs/week and I no longer had time to ride or travel to cool riding. But I loved the job.
I'm now an engineer at a National Laboratory getting paid well with lots of time off. I don't like the job near as much. But I love the life.
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Joshua
5 months, 1 week ago
I similarly left the industry after 13 years to go work in tech. The work isn’t as satisfying, the bonds of friendship aren’t there, and all the rest of those things are gone. It can suck to admit this, but it’s more than compensated for with 5x the salary, a month of paid vacation, full health and dental, etc.
These things which I swore at 21 would never matter to me, actually turn out to be important when you’re approaching 40 without a college degree or even five digits of savings.
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KavuRider
5 months, 4 weeks ago
My first job was working at a bike shop. I was 14, realized that if I wanted to get into mountain biking I would need to earn money, so I got a job cleaning floors and dusting bikes. That graduated quickly to retail, then repair. The owner would just hide in the back (I realized he was going through some personal issues later on), so I had to learn quickly. Then I showed up one day to find out that he had sold the shop to someone else and I was out of a job. That was the last time I was involved in the bike industry.
I don't go to shops anymore, but I do have to thank the terrible shops around me for pushing me to learn how to do 99% of the work on my bikes. The only thing I outsource now are damper rebuilds. And I would never trust an LBS for that.
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BarryW
5 months, 4 weeks ago
"I don't go to shops anymore, but I do have to thank the terrible shops around me for pushing me to learn how to do 99% of the work on my bikes."
So painfully true. Bike shops (at least in my area) have all conspired to convince me not to ever use them for anything. So much poor service, so much bad advice and all while never having even the basics.
And I say this as someone who worked for far too long in the outdoor recreation field. I love real pros that know their shit, that have the passion to know that sport inside and out. I love me some brick and mortar retail. But for now it's online shopping and doing all my own wrenching.
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Skooks
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I think bike shops offer one of the very few opportunities for kids to learn technical skills. Not everyone is going to be a bike mechanic, but if you are interested and willing to learn its a great background for other technical jobs. My first job was as a shop grom, and my kid did the same thing when he was 14. Both of us ended up in engineering/technical careers.
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JT
5 months, 3 weeks ago
The number of engineers and auto mechs I know who I first met working with them at the bike shop confirms your post (to me at least).
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Mickey Denoncourt
5 months, 4 weeks ago
My parents had high hopes for me.
Then I started reading Grimy Handshake and Hug The Bunny, and now 30 years on I’ve never made it above the Federal Poverty Level.
I don’t necessarily see this as a problem, but my dad(the accountant) seems to think I am going to regret spending my entire adult life in the bike gutter.
As someone who has regularly tilted at industry windmills since highschool, I have found a nice niche getting paid to yell into microphones at bike races, time races, build trails, coach juniors and designing bikes. A big perk? I haven’t paid more than wholesale for anything, ever, and lots of stuff just shows up at my house for free without me asking.
I’m not full-time employable(too many gigs, too many valuable life experiences that you can’t pay me to miss), so the american tax system forces me to pay self-employment taxes… but I also get to write-off every single bike related thing I do, which obviously doesn’t make up for the fact that I barely work… But who needs work when you can sit around on the beach reading 25 year old bike magazines?
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axle
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Speaking of things showing up at your house for free without even asking, still in the market for a dirt jumper? Finally got that DNA back up to snuff but I find myself with a small collection of jump bikes and not enough time to ride them all.
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BarryW
5 months, 4 weeks ago
This is surprisingly real.
I used to be the assistant manager at a kayak and boat supply shop in my hometown. Super idyllic, right on the main road and on the waterfront. The owner is hugely wealthy (like has his own jet kind of wealthy) but we always got paid complete garbage wages. Even after he spent millions building us the coolest new building with an infinity pool to sit in kayaks. But no money for wages!
Ever though the entire business was a pet project of his, and he admitted that he never wanted the ship to earn true profits because it was an amazing tax write off. But apparently helping us by helping himself was not an option. He would rather pay us less than pay less in taxes.
But on the thought of anonymity it's something you don't realize until your go back to the 'normal' working world.
At the kayak shop I was THE sea kayak expert, had a coaching certification and everything. But anywhere I went it was assumed I was 'representing the brand'. And I did get discounts from the brands we sold, but wow did that get old. Every time I'm out playing for my own time there was an expectation of 'representing' the shop.
I did work at a cool kayak/climbing/hiking/camping shop before that, and while it was a great time, we all knew it was just a breather from making real wages that actually paid the bills.
Anyhow, back to another chronically overworked and paid less than most industries... Residential construction and remodels. But that's getting old and I see how much harder I work than literally all my peers. All while making less. Especially after these last few years. But I'm looking to get out and do something else after someone asked me if I like what I do. I replied: 'I'm good at it more than I like it.' And that's been running through my mind a lot lately.
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Lu Kz
5 months, 4 weeks ago
This comment has been removed.
Rick M
5 months, 4 weeks ago
'I'm good at it more than I like it.'
Yup, my sentiments exactly. If work was fun, it wouldn't be a four-letter word.
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Jerry Willows
5 months, 4 weeks ago
There is literally hundreds of dollars to be made in the bike industry!!!!
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Dave Smith
5 months, 4 weeks ago
10s of dollars
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mikesee
5 months, 4 weeks ago
"Back then, bike shops were tradition-steeped enclaves of siloed knowledge, curated with profound devotion by rabidly passionate, deeply committed, monastically awkward keepers of the flame who were in all likelihood overeducated in more than a few areas but also completely out of step with the evolving retail landscape."
Not overgeneralizing at all. As I read that I could picture the faces of the lifers (Kerry, Bryan, Pat, Mike) that suckled me at the teat of their grizzled-dom, and that -- in all likelihood -- are still wrenching on bikes somewhere today.
Albeit 30 years more bent, broken and crusty.
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Andy Eunson
5 months, 4 weeks ago
My first work experience was assembling "bikes" for Kresges (sp?) department store in Winnipeg. I think I was 14. $1 a bike or something like that. Awful bikes. We could assemble maybe six or seven a night. I remember one that came with two left pedals. Couldn’t finish it of course. Store guy asked me to put the pedal in anyway. I told him it was the wrong thread. Can you put it in anyway? It will be cross threaded. It won’t work I said. Can you put it in anyway? I think I got it in about halfway and got my dollar.
I was a geologist for a few years during a really bad time in mining. Got a job at West Point Cycles in ‘83 when mountain bikes just came on the scene. Because I was young with no real responsibilities beyond food and rent I had fun. I got to work with the people that started Syncros, Rocky Mountain and Kona. I rode with Paul Brodie and other bike people.
Lots of shops and bike businesses go bankrupt because the owners are riders and not very good business people. Some are smart enough to grow their business to a sustainable level and just go with that. Many add shops or size up and think they must always grow and they go bust partly because of that. Those capitalists are the ones to blame for that belief. Fuck ‘em. I’m staying with a bike with no batteries. For several years before the bike is retired.
Bikes are still seen as kids toys by many and some folks won’t pay the rates to properly fix and maintain a complex modern bike. Ski shop employees are a similar scenario. Probably the same with many sports stores. But modern full suspension bikes are far more complex than skis or a tennis racket.
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Lu Kz
5 months, 4 weeks ago
"OH no, there's a massive bike shortage! We couldn't possibly do a staff deal now, we're making far too much money off each bike, demand is way too high! Maybe you could pay regular shop price, eh? You surely got a raise from your shop because you're busier than ever and all the fun has been taken out of shop life, right?"
....18 months later....
"Staff deal? You aren't staff anymore, buddy!"
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ackshunW
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Great words as usual Mike! Timely as well, over on the other site they published this today:
https://m.pinkbike.com/news/round-up-14-bike-industry-jobs-available-right-now.html
I can relate, spent 12 years building outrageous custom one-off furniture for the rich and famous (multiple 20, 22, 24 foot long dining tables…!?!). The compensation did not reflect the skill needed. But of course that meant I could enjoy not taking myself too seriously. With a growing family to support I jumped into the adjacent field of construction/ pre construction. 6 years later I’m earning three times what I was (which, haha, is still not that much for my area!!).
What was my point…? I forget a little… but those days were fun even if drastically underpaid. The experience and camaraderie really counted for something, but it’s hard to believe now I kept at it while struggling financially so much.
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adnauseam
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Wow. Great listing of jobs...With horrible pay! Check out the comments for more insights.
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JT
5 months, 4 weeks ago
20 years in shops, 10 on the industry side. Got out and discovered that the same skillset is worth a healthy bit more in other fields. The one thing I have enjoyed immensely is riding at locales and not having to put on a smiley happy public face for the company I was on vacation from. I had forgotten what it was like to not be on duty anytime we went trails. Anonymity is nothing to scoff at.
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Morgan Heater
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I dabbled a bit in the climbing industry, and it was the exact same story. I wonder if a union might be the answer.
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ake
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I've had this same thought - it's endemic to the outdoor industry as a whole. 2/3rds salary is the norm whether it's bikes, skis, boats, apparel, footwear, etc.
A dirty little secret I've noticed in the outdoor industry is that, at least in my experience, many people don't need to earn a competitive salary to survive... meaning, very bluntly, that they come from wealthy families who raised them as cyclists or skiers, who can work for love and not for money.
That makes it hard to organize. If you're not struggling, why would you want to rock the boat? As long as you get fresh gear every season, life is good.
I work at a manufacturer, and the last time I asked for a raise, my manager said to me (after denying my request), "I've never felt like I needed to ask for more from any employer I've worked for." He also told me he didn't take a paycheck from his last employer for a year, and worked for bike parts instead. His parents bought him a $600k house in 2021 that's now worth more than double. This has been the norm at each of the brands I've worked for.
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JT
5 months, 3 weeks ago
There were a couple industry jobs I was on profile a great fit for. Then I did the background work on what housing cost, and yep, I was no longer a good fit for the expected salary range. I remember meeting cats from Manitou back before they were sold to Hayes out of bankruptcy, and they were living three+ up in a one bedroom apartment.
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cheapondirt
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Another outsider perspective here.
I always knew shop jobs didn't pay great but had my moment of realization recently when I went in to get a wheel fixed up. The labor was... Really cheap. For what would've taken me two hours, they charged something like $38. Maybe it took the mechanic five minutes; I don't really care. The value has to be compared against that of my own time, and I didn't have two extra hours that week.
So, dear specific shop, whose owner and/or employees may read this and know who I am: despite my own username, I think you could charge a little more. Value your knowledge and experience, not just the perceived low skill required to do what some would wrongly consider simple tasks. I know it has to be held in tension with a large clientele of invisible riders, but I think for the enthusiast market your labour is currently undervalued.
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cxfahrer
5 months, 4 weeks ago
I thought that working in a bike shop is a safer place now because only bike shops can fix dead electronics on e bikes?
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NealWood
5 months, 4 weeks ago
It's not just the bike industry that lacks any commitment to it's employees. Just about any business owner or investor would axe employees to keep a penny in their pocket or the big end of your bonus. Or if its a public company there are all sorts of shareholders who need to be paid. The bike industry might just start out lower than most. To be fair, back in the 90's I actually got paid fairly well coming out of school to work at a bike company.
The bit that irks me is the part about at the first sign of not making record profits is when the layoff come. Forget the part about how there have been years of maximum quarterly profits, now that a company is still making money but just a little less it's time to let people go.
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Timer
5 months, 4 weeks ago
For much of industry, that’s not true anymore. Not because the suits have suddenly become human again, but because demographics are starting to bite. Labour hoarding is a thing now. With the boomers entering retirement age, firing someone during a downtown could mean that there won’t be anyone to fill this position during the upturn.
My company is planning to reduce staff by 10% over the next half decade. That’s a challenge: limiting the loss to only 10% will require a lot of recruitment effort.
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Brad Nyenhuis
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Mike, about 5 years ago, when I was the owner of a small bike shop in Los Alamos, NM, I wrote a letter to Bike Mag regarding an area of complicity you haven't mentioned.
Magazines, both online and print, supporting direct to consumer.
How the same magazine can bemoan the eminent demise of the LBS and then, in the same edition, do a four page glowing review of the new YT Jeffsy, without realizing the inherent irony , is beyond me.
Does YT make a decent bike? Sure. Would they be in the position they are if they had to compete, price-wise, on a level field? Not a chance. (I'm picking on YT but there are many brands that fit here)
At a time when bike tech has gotten to absurd levels, the LBS (and the techs who work there) is more essential than ever to the future of our sport. You and I may have no problem negotiating BB, headset, brake, and hub spacing standards but how is someone new to the MTB world going to manage this?
Granted, the genie is out of the bottle at this point. Direct to consumer is now firmly entrenched. I still feel that these brands should be shunned, or at least ignored, by anyone hoping to support the future of our sport.
When you support your LBS, you support the people who work there.
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JT
5 months, 3 weeks ago
In many aspects, shops have to take ownership of losing customers in their area to DTC brands. Simply put, most shops can't cater to all disciplines well. That changes by locale for certain, as every shop isn't in the midst of amazing terrain with a huge range of riding options. So they cater to what's in their hood as best as possible and will order what they can for you if you're looking for gear outside their norm. That bit is important. Demo days in my general vicinity are lacking, but especially from the biggies in the industry. I've seen more demos from small brands that do DTC or a mix of DTC in the area than from what the local shops carry from the big three. It's no wonder to me that I see a healthy mix of brands at the new jump trails that just opened up, most piloted by riders with some form of present or past industry affiliation. For me, as a pseudo educated bisickle connoisseur who knows what fit and parts spec I'm looking for, this poses a conundrum. I could purchase online and save a grand or I could order from the LBS. I used both Giant's and Specialized's click n collect model fro my last two buys so those local shops got something from the purchase, but what of harder to find boutique brands? For that, if I was yapping at a customer I'd go back to the dialogue I had with folx who came in with a clapped out Pacific/Magna/et al that was beyond repair viability and had issues with the price of the Trek 820 on our floor. In those instances, I pointed to buying the most expensive big box bike without suspension but bringing it to us for assembly. It would run cheaper than that 820 but they would have a build that had our guarantee that things were done right and when cables and spokes stretched they could bring it back to us to touch up. That works for someone buying the next wonder super bike as well. Lead mechs at any shop should be able to have that conversation and take stewardship of the customer at all points in their decision making pre and post sale. I had a service manager that was hands down one of the best mechs I worked with, but the bulk of his wrenching abilities rested on his ability to have these convos with a wildly differing economic class of customer and what they were looking to spend. Sell your service, your commitment to them as a partner, and you can sell them their next bike, their next upgrade. The 'net leveled a lot of the playing/buying field, but as things go the shop still has a huge hand that can be filled for them and the customer.
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Brad Nyenhuis
5 months, 3 weeks ago
With an LBS, every day is demo day.
You can't support a DTC brand without hurting the LBS.
My point was that bicycle media needs to understand that. Don't bemoan the demise of the LBS on one hand and then support DTC brands with the other.
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Briain
5 months, 3 weeks ago
With every local bike shop near me. No day is a demo day also won't order a bike in your size we have what we have attitude. DTC has issues and it's great been able to go into a physical shop and look at things but the reality is how much extra are people willing to pay for that privilege for me it's about 20% extra it's probably a lot less for other people
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Brad Nyenhuis
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Yes, unfortunately there are shitty shops. I'm not referring to them.
To say that every LBS near you is a shitty shop? Hmmm, I'm tempted to call BS.
That said, you kind of made my point. You look at the LBS as a 20% premium.
It isn't. That price is the correct MRP. And that price is not making the LBS rich.
The DTC brand is simply undercutting the LBS brands because they have the advantage of a non-level playing field.
When you support them, you are the nail in the LBS coffin.
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Briain
5 months, 3 weeks ago
I actually think you have this backwards. Your right DTC doesn't have a level playing field but neither does a bikeshop in the middle of a big city compared to another in a rural area in terms of rent, taxes, labour etc. It's how you build your business model.
A lot of physical shops also run websites which I think is the way forward. But buying online is no different than me going to a couple of shops or just phoning them to price something, I just don't have to go anywhere to check.
As far as RRP goes it's an absolute scam, shops selling at RRP quite often have a lower margin than the online retailers selling way below that price. Ultimately the LBS is been killed by a lot of distributors who push up the prices and often provide a questionable service as they often don't even stock their own brands merely redirect them.
Saying people shouldn't go DTC is wrong it makes the sport much more accessible to a lot of people by lowering the barriers to entry price, not being talked down to staff in certain shops, and price competition in the wider market. The LBS serves an important function but in my eyes it's more for service and maintenance needs than parts.
Brad Nyenhuis
5 months, 2 weeks ago
Brian, you're obviously a consumer who wants those discounts that DTC gets you. There's a lot of rationalization in these posts. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
As a consumer, you really have a limited understanding of the industry. Regarding your claim that MRP is a scam, I'm not really sure what you mean. The manufacturer sets the price for the parts they make. The shop agrees to sell at that price. Pretty simple concept. Also, LBSs buy bikes from the manufacturer, not through a bunch of distributors. As for parts, there is one level of distributor, not several as you suggest.
Shops selling at MRP will always have lower margins than those without these restraints, that's the problem.
Typical new bike margins are in the 30-40% neighborhood. That margin pays the lights, rent, and payroll. No one is getting rich. When you buy DTC you strip your LBS of those things, including payroll, the subject of this article.
The irony level of arguing for higher bike shop salaries while supporting brands who are stripping the shop of revenue is pretty off-the-charts.
mtbfix
5 months, 4 weeks ago
Nicely put. I've done 3 decades in the bike trade and only now find myself otherwise employed as my previous employer went bust due to over stock and poor cash flow. Story of our times. After years of being paid a whisker above minimum wage, that's how you come to value yourself. Pretty sucky really.
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SixZeroSixOne
5 months, 4 weeks ago
So, Mike, does writing for NSMB mean you've finally found a well paying job or are you still being suckered? 😉
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Andy Eunson
5 months, 4 weeks ago
If NSMB are paying $5Cdn an hour, that’s what? Treefiddy US?
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Mike Ferrentino
5 months, 4 weeks ago
It means I am not going to get rich but neither are the people I work with or for, so we are all in the jaded poorhouse together. But the discounts, and the fame, they make it all worth while, amiright?
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Pete Roggeman
5 months, 3 weeks ago
I was wondering how you were going to answer that. Unsurprisingly you nailed it.
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danithemechanic
5 months, 3 weeks ago
Mike, it's been a week after you published this great piece and i still can't post a comment that doesn't span into a 1000 words piece itself.
I've been through lots of changes in the past three years about how i feel about my career, and they all made me realize i need to get away from "the biking industry".
I'm really happy though that there's a discussion going about these problems today, and hopefully with all the amazing people working on bikes a faction will break up with whatever industry we have and follow its own path.
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juanhernandez
5 months, 3 weeks ago
MF!
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