I Got My Own Thing Now - TrailWerks Cyclery is Coming!

After a few decades in the bike industry, I've come to the realization that it's time to open a bike shop.

There are a bunch of market-based reasons, various and significant opportunities, but it all boils down to one thing: my family.

Maybe it's my advanced age. I'm not a kid anymore. I've lived a life of the stereotypical man-child. A mechanically-inclined Seth Rogen who really loves to ride bikes with friends. And now all I can think of is sharing. Mostly, sharing myself with my kids, at work, with friends and strangers around. It's about showing them that it's always best to do the right thing, when people appreciate it or not, deserve it or not. It's about who you choose to be in this world and how you make your way through it. I want to make sure that they become good people and I want to be an example for them.

I want to continue to raise my kids into adults. Susan and I spent their early years nurturing and loving them. We made decisions with only them in mind as we shifted jobs, moved out of DC, organized our lives around being with them as much as possible. Now that they are really little people, capable of compassion, caring, helping, comedy and lifting heavy objects, I'd like to be able to give them what little I have left: the mechanical understanding of the world and materials that comes with working with your hands, the amazing interactions that you can have with strangers that starts them on the path to becoming friends as well as customers and a solid work ethic that values honesty.

My wonderful kids have been watching as I have struggled through the paperwork, the phone calls, the thousands of emails involved in starting a business. They have watched me work in the garage while TrailWerks Suspension Service was established. They have done their homework next to me as I have bled FiT cartridges and cleaned out lowers. And they are excited to work on bikes, fix flats and learn to work the cash registers.

And my wife. My poor, long-suffering, self-proclaimed bike widow. She, of course, is excited. I think she said something to the effect of: "It's about damn time". I'm going to take that as a positive statement...

So, in just a few weeks, TrailWerks Cyclery will be open. We've got a great physical space in a great location, right next to another business committed to fitness, wellness and nutrition. There's trail across the street for a mid-day singletrack fix, roads with shoulders in a few directions and plenty of food options within a mile for random lunches and stocking up from the grocer.

This really will be a family affair. You'll see the kids at work with me, especially during the summer. I'll have to teach them about scary stuff like working with a grinder and various cutting tools as well as the gentle touch of helping a customer find the next love of their life in the shape of a bicycle.

I hope that I see everyone in TrailWerks in the coming months. I'd love to welcome you into my shop. It's a shop that I've spent 22 years building in Salisbury, San Diego, Moab, Grand Junction, Fruita, Vegas, San Jose, Frederick, Annapolis, Snowshoe, Mountain Creek, Harrisonburg and a few dozen other amazing places. It's a shop that would have never happened without the full support of my family, and they'll continue to be there right beside me. All of my hard work will be for them and with them. This will be the defining moment of my kids as they transition from kid-ness into young adults and leave their mom and me for college just a few short years from now. This is the part where I wax about "where has the time gone" and that nonsense but I can honestly say I know exactly where the time went. The time went right into the two amazing little people Susan and I have been raising to the best of our limited ability since early 2001. More importantly, I have decided that "what am I going to do now" has been answered with TrailWerks Cyclery and the continuation of TrailWerks Suspension Service, side by side with my wife and kids, as much as they can stand...

I invite you to come along for the ride. Let's get some butts on bikes, get out for an adventure and discover some smiles.

And thank you.