Hi!
I'm Eric.
If you're here, you probably already know me. But, in the off chance you don't, or you're just wonding what this is all about, welcome to the party!
I've been racing all kinds of bikes since high school, and working on said bikes for the same amount of time. I love bikes, but then again, I'll bet you do too.
I like bikes enough that now I feel like I could do with a little side gig. So here we are!
Why I love working on bikes
I've been working on my own bikes for years at this point. Like any broke college kid, it started with me having no money to pay someone else. Fortunately, the university had an open shop, with tools available for d.i.y. work. Once I knew what I was doing, it became work of love an perfection though. Nothing more satisfactory than a bike set up exactly how you want it, snapping a pic, then going out and smashing a ride. Not waiting on somone else and wondering what nitpicks you'll have.
At this point, I've done every service under the sun. Build a new bike? Sure. Transfered parts from one bike to a new bare frame? Done that. Wheel trues, bottom brackets upkeep, suspension overhauls, cable routing for hours, chain waxing, tubeless messiness. When you've owned 28 bikes in the last 10 years, there's plenty to work on.
It's about trust
It was a few years back when I was riding on Col du Pantoll, and on the way back to the city a couple of riders said, "Eric, I'd pay you to work on my bike for me." We'd been chatting about the classic annoying maintenance issues on modern bikes, from a persistent creak here, a rubbing disc there. The question was raised, "Who works on your bikes?", which for me is just me. So while I have recommendations for almost everything, I don't really have one for a shop or a mechanic.
Here's what really stuck with me from that conversation: Racers have high standards for their equipment. We spend a lot of money to save a few grams here and a few watts there, and we expect it to all be working while we put in thousands of miles. At the same time, there aren't many shop mechanics out there who still race, who are still a part of the community in the same way. The one's who are, well they're busy, understandably. The typical bike shop business model isn't quite built to service perfectionist racers; the margins are in selling bikes, and for maintenance, things like flat fixes and basic adjustments; get the bike rideable and back out the door. But rideable and race-ready aren't quite the same thing. And at the end of the day, with loads of bike shops in the area, I still get constantly asked for a 'mechanic you trust.'
So with that in mind, I figured there might be a better way, just for our little community of racers. A business model purposely small, low volume, and a focus on quality over quantity. A business model bulit primarily on trust – you know me, I know you, and we make sure your bike is as fast as it can be for every race.
