In 2001 some of my customers encountered an unusual cyclist way out in the country. He was heavily loaded, and flew the flag of Nepal from his front fork. They sent him to me upon learning his story and told me to give him whatever he needed, at their expense.

These customers were not wealthy individuals, but they were so impressed with the goals of this man that they wanted to help in any way that they could. He was Pushkar Shah, the remarkable Nepalese ambassador of peace who eventually cycled around the world.

He reached my store two days later. I was able to check over his bicycle and unlike most touring riders, he lacked nothing and his bike was in fine shape. While he was out with some of my customers, riding one of my bikes, I threw some extra cables and a chain into his stuffed panniers.

I estimate that he was carrying eighty pounds in his four Ortlieb panniers. All of his equipment had been stolen during his sojourn in the Pacific Islands some weeks before, so Sir Edmund Hilary had replaced it all! Many of us remember Sir Edmund Hilary was forever indebted to the climbers of Nepal and has sworn to protect the people of the Himalayas in any way, especially the Sherpa. I estimate that he was carrying eighty pounds in his four Ortlieb panniers.

While Mr. Shah was out riding with my friend Steve Grills, I rounded up some folks including my father, who I knew would want to meet this amazing traveller. He was delayed in returning, however. It seems that he was so used to riding an overloaded mountain bike that he fell while riding a light bike with no packs on his way home from buying postage stamps with Steve.

Later that afternoon, Paul Hetland happened to come by on a routine shopping trip. I never knew that Paul had been in the Peace Corps in the late ’60’s. Turns out that he spoke some Nepalese. Another customer came by shortly after that who also knew some Nepalese. I am never surprised by the amazing learned people of Rochester.

My father stopped in and he went over to Rowe Photographic next door to find a photographer. They just happened to have a professional there, of course, and I have some great pictures of that day.

Several weeks later, Mr. Shah was supposed to be in NYC to speak to a large group of Peace people. He missed that rendevous due to oversleeping, however, so was not present at the World Trade Center the morning of September 11. He was in many ways a lucky man. One does not easily survive a ten year journey on bicycle with only five dollars starting money without much luck. One can not have this much luck without merit. Check him out on google. Or ask me.

One day I got to work early in the morning just as the sun was rising. I noticed a bicycle next to my front entrance, and there was this note on it. The bike was an old Peugeot, but it was very nearly unused. It had steel rims that were still shiny although they were a weird French size (650B). The plastic shift levers were snapped in half, and the fixed cup was partially screwed in but cross threaded. It was going to be at least $150 to fix this. Here is what the note said:

“9-25-04

Dear Sir,

I’ve respected your little shop for many years, and the idea that you can survive in this day of massive stores, discount pricing, internet purchasing. You’ve definitely filled a niche in this neighborhood.

I found this bike and thought it might be of some good for me if I invested a few dollars into it. Who was I kidding?

I only got my wife mad. “What are you going to do with that junk bike?”

“But love, it’s a Peugeot!”

Anyway, I thought you might know of a family in need of basic transportation. Maybe a few scrap parts can give the bike future life. I bequeath it to a professional to fix.”

It was not signed.

Scott Cox was an undergrad at RIT in the early years of this decade. Some students come in every year and ask to shoot pictures of my store or of me. I think that the composition possibilities of a cluttered store and a disheveled merchant make for a good photo.

Scott was very modest and insisted that I not feel at all compelled to pose, but we had had several conversations about bikes and traveling, and he was an interesting person. I was eager to see his work. It was October and he thought it would be a good shot if we could go somewhere outdoors where there were lots of yellow leaves on the ground. I took him up the street to Mount Hope Cemetery which has 200 acres of rolling hills and valleys.

Some parts of the cemetery can truly be said to be nearly wilderness in that you can see no city clutter on all four sides. It was gratifying to be the person to introduce an artist to this wonderful location, and we did two days of shooting that resulted in this photo and one other which shows the rising sun from the east and my red outfit with a red racing bike. He used an old fashioned view camera that uses full size glass plate negatives, and a huge flash unit that barely fit into his little car. His eye for detail and for deep focus is hard to discern on the computer screen, but if you come to the store you can see a real good print he made me. He also made prints for my sister, my wife and my parents. This was expensive for a starving student!

I heard from another student some months later that Scott had received some nice commissions after graduating and that he was traveling in Central Europe. His work on Scott-Cox.com is very special. If you see his self portrait I think you can get a good idea of what he is like as a man. His demeanor is calm and he is a good listener. I expect great things from him in the future and that he will make a contribution to the world of documentary journalism. His pictures of the hard working people in these scenes shows real talent.

It used to be that bike shops hired and trained skilled and semi-skilled craftsmen who built the bicycles mostly from scratch. But retail is no longer seen as a lifetime career by most owners and employees. People who own bicycle stores do not want to take the risk of training skilled mechanics and offering them lifetime employment and good wages. (This is not unique to my industry, as we all know.) The bike industry has complied with the desire to make bikes easier to build and sell by assembling them in mass quantities on an assembly line, usually in China. The work they do has vastly improved in the last decade, actually. Wheels, for example, are spoked tight by the automated wheel machines. They were really bad back in the 1980s.

Because bikes are assembled in the factory, bike shops can just take them out of a box and in less than twenty minutes, sell them to you. But the mass assembling of bikes in factories is still done with poor practices; nuts, bolts, spokes, brakes and derailleurs are screwed on with no lubrication, control wires are installed similarly dry. They can corrode easily . They are stiff and soon wear out.

I totally renovate these parts by hand. That is fairly simple and takes only a few minutes to take apart and reassemble. The most complicated renovation in my process is the overhaul of internal ball bearing assemblies. These parts are also factory-assembled with hardly any grease inside them. Hubs and other components that have ball bearings have to be dis-assembled and each of the parts must be visually inspected. I then re-build them. I can vastly improve them with cleaning and by replacing the ball bearings with much more precise ones.

This is time consuming and it probably triples the cost of my assembly, but this process makes bikes run smoother and makes them totally resistant to wear. The rider will thus enjoy more riding time and the components will need almost no adjusting and repair. The owner will save enough over the life of the bike to pay for the bike.

I thus can create what I consider to be a hand built craft piece out of each bike. I do make one of a kind custom bikes, but not many people can afford them. I would love to sell hundreds of custom bikes, but by re-buiIding every bike like it was a custom, I am able to, in effect, make hundreds of hand made bikes each year. It is a pleasure to work this way, actually. The skill required to do this work is lost if one does not do the work often, so I can keep my skills honed and be quicker than if I were only doing it once or twice a month. Employees at most other bike shops never get to make even one hand made bike. They mostly are underpaid and are often poorly motivated and most of them do not know what they are missing.

The best thing about being a one person store is that I no longer have to work among a group of men with bad attitudes. Bike shops tend to be staffed by smokers and burnouts. I have not been around people like this for over 25 years.

This is so much better for my passion for work. This business is then able to communicate a passion for quality to the customer. In businesses that are staffed by people who own and invest in the business, the customer will have a better experience. An owner operator such as myself can motivate customers to desire quality and hence spend more and see it as a much better investment.

I believe that my shop is seen as a place that values fine arts and crafts and that I have a desire to connect to the historical traditions of folks who make fine craft products like, for example, jewelry, fine machines, clock works, pianos and furniture and other things that last for generations. I really believe that a hand made bike will similarly last for a hundred years or more.

In this climate, bicycles require extra cleaning and lubrication. The rusting of painted frames and components such as suspension forks and threaded internal parts can only be prevented by using both internal and external means, since rusting is said to start from inside. If internal components are heavily gresed and have their threads sealed properly, dirt and moisture can not get in. (Also see discussion on overhaul and greaseing)

To prevent external rust, the painted suface must be kept clean and the inevitable paint chips must be dealt with. Model airplane paint and nail polish are common substitutes for the paint your bike has from the factory. Unless you have a black bike, the colored paints rarely match exactly, so a touch up with colored paints will still draw attention to the scratch unless the scratch is widened, feathered, painted with primer and matching color coat and top coated with clear enamel. Therefore it is easier to use clear nail polish to seal the scratches.

Do not buy a clear nail polish with additives such as gelatin (used to strengthen nails?). We want to use a quick drying cheap brand. First clean surfaces to be coated. Dab the stuff onto any scratches and also coat the plalces which are unscratches but which have bumpy surfaces under the paint since there may be thin spots. Water collects in the small indentations between welds, for example. The high spots around welds have the thinnest coating of factory paint.

Paint lightly, allow to dry, then repeat. Examine all surfaces whenever you clean your bike if you are so inclined. Check for cracks at this time, especially around the head tube. Paint rough surfaces a few times each year with clear nail polish and stay ahead of the rust. Some folks make notes about where they need to clear coat, so in the future they won’t miss a spot.

If you don’t do this, we will not criticize you. We know that folks who follow this minute detail may be said to have too much free time. But there are folks out there who will want to know about this.

Bicycles need a premium grease specifically designed for bicycle use. Mechanical metal on metal inerface situations requiring long service life and extended mechanical stability in both high or low heat make our choice of lubrication critical We fight against a lot of vibration, contamination potential and other characteristics, so no one grease works on all ball bearings. I use light colored grease becuase I want to know if any dirt at all is getting in when I open up a part and check it. When I look inside a component to see if it does need renovation, this is critical, and if breakdown of lube is evident, I assume that wear has occurred. I wish to overhaul components so far before they actually fail that in fact the grease is still clean. If so, I know that no wear at all has taken place.

I require high film strength to avoid ball-race welding (black spots) or metal to metal contact of any sort. Low friction, low rolling resistance and low wear are my goals. Salt from sweat or from road salt is the enemy. I worry about condensation in this climate, which can not be avoided. I want minimum sling, maximum interval between re-packing, tacky feel (up to a point) additives that resist pressure and minimum toxicity. The requirements of this situation are so complex that intelligent mechanics can disagree. We have a great responsibility and that is why I find my fellow mechanics to be THE SALT OF THE EARTH! We are privleged to serve you.

My shop has a reputation for not judging people. I don’t know if any local shops have a prejudice against people over thirty, but I know that our industry has long been perceived as a young, male, white and straight oriented group. I have had many folks come in and introduce themselves by saying. ” I know you will probably try to sell me a race bike with skinny tires and an uncomfortable seat, but that is not what I want.”

Actually, I want to sell most people a recumbent. My biggest seller is the hybrid category. I am fifty six years old and perhaps that is why I tend to attract folks in my own age range. Perhaps though it is because we are the majority of the population, and most young people already have a bike and don’t think that they need a shop to give them advice. I don’t know.

I have several customers who are in their eighties. One of them rode across the country about fifteen years ago, and it really mellowed him. There is one who comes in often who will not be named here, but I really enjoy his help. He originally got recommended to me by someone at the JCC. He is 87 years old and to celebrate his birthday this year, he rode forty one miles.

His first visit was a funny request. He had an upright bike, like a hybrid. It had tires that were average width, about thirty five millimeters. He wanted me to make his bike faster! He is in great shape, tall, looks about sixty, no hearing aids. I later learned that he is a private pilot. They are usually quite fit. But he has had more than his share of surgeries in the past.

So I told him to get me a written permission from his children. Just kidding. He replied, “that is easy. My son owns a bike shop, and my other son is a lawyer.” We have always had a great rapport since then.

By the way, installing twenty eight millimeter tires made him a lot faster.

I have been involved with several riders who had amputations, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, crushed spines and polio. Getting to know them is very rewarding. They have helped me a lot. We are all broken in some way, but not all of us show it. Or know it.

One who stands out in my mind is a forty year old man I’ll call Bernard. (Not his real name). He brought in a bike that was not worth fixing. It seems that he has an income from SSI, and does not want for anything. I later learned that he does not get much money, just does not have many wants. He has two guitars, two amps, lots of DVDs and can’t imagine taking a vacation because the people he worked for at that time were really dependent on him for office cleaning, and he did not want to let them down. So he decided to buy a new bike. Eventually he bought three.

I got to know him because he came in at least once a month to rave about how great his bike is and about how much he appreciated someone like me. I do respond to flattery! So I got the courage up to ask him about himself after a year or so. He told me about being a night time office cleaner. I said to him, “I’m sort of embarassed to have you see how messy my store is, since you are a cleaning professional.”

He took this as a job offer! He said that it would take about three hours a week and that for the first couple of months, it would take about double that. And with that he was ready. I showed him the vacuum and the glass cleaner, and he was off. For about three years, he kept the place looking good. He talked a blue streak, and mentioned how lucky he was because he was getting his own apartment, and getting out of the Cornerstone facility where he was living.

However, after some time living on his own, he began to not take his medicine. He was not really able to afford to live on his own, but he did not like to surrender his freedom. He lost lots of weight, stopped wearing his teeth, had no money for cigarettes and began to do a poor job. Due to a misunderstanding, he thought I was firing him one day when I was trying to tell him about keeping himself clean. I have no experience in diplomacy, you see.

Now he is wandering the streets, out of control and collecting cans and bottles. The agency people say that he is not a threat to himself or others so he is still free, which is what he wants. But they also said that if medicaid would pay for high priced drugs, he would be able to be the way he used to be. It seems that the drugs folks like Bernard take have a tendency to become tolerated too much and sometimes lose their efficiency. Folks with good health coverage and who tell the doctor about their change in mood can keep trying better ones as they come on the market. Folks who fear being institutionalized tend to not complain. I wish that I had a happy ending here, but maybe there will be one someday.

I saw him downtown a lot this summer, and he did not look at me, or anyone. I hope that he is warm and safe, and that he can get help. If I don’t see him next year in the warm months, I will fear the worst.

There have been some very few people who know me well that have been surprised that I choose to do work that is not, shall we say, white collar or academic or highly paid jobs. I understand that it is unusual for students, such as was I, who score well on tests to become low paid guys with dirt under their fingernails. Folk who do manual labor that “requires no mental or book learning.”

Lately there have been a lot of good articles about the falsehood of such a division. One of the best authors is Matt Crawford who wrote a book that was published in 2009 called “From Shop Class to Soulcraft”. He had been a cubicle/office worker and was on the track to making big money, but now he is happier as a motorcycle mechanic. He discusses the wrong concepts we take up such as the idea of “meaningful” occupations versus “just working to make a living” and attacks the tendency of public schools to drop shop classes in favor of computer labs. Here is a quote from Matt:

“…mechanical work has required me to cultivate different intellectual habits. Further, habits of mind have an ethical dimension that we don’t often think about. Good diagnosis requires attentiveness to the machine, almost a conversation with it, rather than assertiveness, as in the position papers produced on K Street. Cognitive psychologists speak of “metacognition,” which is the activity of stepping back and thinking about your own thinking. It is what you do when you stop for a moment in your pursuit of a solution, and wonder whether your understanding of the problem is adequate. The slap of worn-out pistons hitting their cylinders can sound a lot like loose valve tappets, so to be a good mechanic you have to be constantly open to the possibility that you may be mistaken. This is a virtue that is at once cognitive and moral. It seems to develop because the mechanic, if he is the sort who goes on to become good at it, internalizes the healthy functioning of the motorcycle as an object of passionate concern. How else can you explain the elation he gets when he identifies the root cause of some problem?

This active concern for the motorcycle is reinforced by the social aspects of the job. As is the case with many independent mechanics, my business is based entirely on word of mouth. I sometimes barter services with machinists and metal fabricators. This has a very different feel than transactions with money; it situates me in a community. The result is that I really don’t want to mess up anybody’s motorcycle or charge more than a fair price. You often hear people complain about mechanics and other tradespeople whom they take to be dishonest or incompetent. I am sure this is sometimes justified. But it is also true that the mechanic deals with a large element of chance.”

I have a one-person business so I can do a variety of tasks, and I get to talk to all the customers. I am able to see my relation to the community at large, and the relationship between my giving things away and my receiving many more things back. It has been my observation that if commerce is done correctly, it can be the most rewarding form of human interaction. To me it seems logical that a very small business in which there is little or no division of labor is a sort of ideal.

Therefore, I thank all the folks that I have met over the last 30 years in this craft/business. For me, this passion I have seems to fulfill a lot of the unconscious needs I have had, and it is nice to read about its psychological dimension. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.