The rantings of an irrelevant old man

 My frank appraisal of the backroom bike operation in town caused considerable angst in the upper management, who fears malicious reprisals of some sort. He grew up in this town. He has long experience with the kind of vindictiveness and long-held grudges that shape so much small-town life. I moved so constantly and lived in communities of such different sizes that I got used to being anonymous and quickly forgotten. I relate to ideas much better than I relate to people. I tried to assure him that the people involved in the subculture in question quit caring what I think shortly after the fat bike flap of several years ago. They've comfortably written me off as a decrepit old fart who is no use to them in any capacity. Why should they feel the slightest distress? I'm irrelevant.

Mountain biking went from a way to expand bikeable territory to a way to limit it when the machines evolved to the point where they function best on contrived courses, many of which are very expensively built. A highly advanced trail network was being built in town last fall, thanks to a deep-pocketed donor who expected to benefit directly from it. Construction ceased with the onset of winter, and other issues. I don't know if there are plans to resume. Other than that, trail support groups have joined the long lineup of nonprofits constantly fundraising to do what we used to do for free. We just happened to do it on the existing unpaved roads and trails that were already out there. Some of those fell under the protection of snowmobile clubs, to which a fair-minded rider might contribute with money and labor, but other lines sprawling over miles of countryside were old Class 6 roads and logging roads. These included public rights-of-way and private corridors that the landowner left open to public access. The more adventurous and skilled rode on hiking trails of varying degrees of difficulty.

The bootleg trail movement in these parts started with pockets of activity in the White Mountain National Forest and other tracts where the builders felt they could get away with it. Some of these evolved into legitimate cooperative ventures with the Forest Service or whatever entity was in charge of the land in question. And specialized trail builders and administrators began the laborious process of putting together a road system for the off-road rider. Even on existing trails, the needs of the wheeled are quite specific, and differ widely depending on whether the rider is headed uphill or down.

The riding that we did for free is not the riding that is favored today. Today's riders need those trails and need those bikes and need to pay whatever it costs to have both. We used to say of our recreational athletic habits that they're "cheaper than drugs." I'm not so sure anymore.

It's significant that the hot shop for technical mountain bike service is also a hot shop for technical downhill ski service. Mountain biking and downhill skiing are both heavily dependent on areas specifically built for them. Downhill ski lift ticket prices have gotten pretty staggering. I don't know how much it costs to ride a mountain bike at a pay-to-play venue, but the costs of buying and maintaining a mountain bike have certainly dug into users' wallets. And you need to be able to transport yourself and your large bicycle to the playgrounds you want to visit.

Original recipe mountain biking was for the masses. Mountain biking today is for the financially superior. Sure, you'll find devotees who build simple lives around it...for a while. But they might have to finance their habit by working in the industry in some way. It becomes more and more insular. The working-class hangers-on may have to be mechanics skilled in the style of machine that the majority favors, or trail builders, or become instructors, like the golf pros, tennis instructors, personal trainers, yacht captains and crews, personal chefs, personal assistants and other support staff in the service economy.

The Competition

 Two local beer joints are run by mountain bikers. Both of them have toyed with the idea of starting a shop to cater to their specialty here, but only one of them has actually done anything.

The backroom shop started as a service facility, but recent social media posts indicate that the proprietors might be selling new bikes on a limited basis.

I absolutely love this. They will find out the difference between beer customers and gear customers. If somebody drinks until they puke, they don't come asking for a refund or warranty. "Hey, that last beer was only in my stomach for about ten minutes! You should at least comp me my next one!" However, a person with a history of fraudulent warranty claims on bike frames is still a rider in town. Maybe it will never be a problem. Maybe they'll stonewall anyone who tries it. They're in a good position to take a hard line, because they're just playing store. They won't live and die by their reputation. They'll play at this as long as it's fun, and then quit. Maybe that's how all specialty bike shops should be, since the equipment is ephemeral, and there are lots of ways to quit riding.

The hobbyist shop or the cutting edge techno hangout may turn the bike shop business into something like the restaurant business. A shop will start up with no clear long-term plan, just serving its specialties until their quality slips or the economics catch up with them or they just get tired of it. It'll be the hot place for a few years at best, and then vanish. Another one will already be taking its place.

When we first heard about their operation, it was based on sending the technical repairs to a guy up north a ways, who does earn his living as a bike mechanic, doing a lot of boutique work for the disposable income crowd. The shop puts technology front and center and passes no judgment on expense and complexity, and the relentless march of obsolescence. He's staked out the technological territory.

There are two ways to ride out a period of technological ferment: Replace your bike frequently, or pull way back to solid simplicity for a few decades to see where it all goes. It depends on your goals for riding. I'd decided more than two decades ago that mountain biking was a nice hike spoiled. But someone into the modern style of mountain biking will be enslaved to the technology, because you definitely can't ride that way on the kind of old, simple bikes I own, any more than you could be competitive in road racing with a vintage steel bike with friction shifting.

I can think of a lot of ways that the backroom bike shop could operate, but with no reliable intel from the inside, I will probably never know. For instance, they could piggyback on a real shop's wholesale supply orders to get parts. But then do they take a markup, or bro deal their friends, undercutting every legitimate shop in the area? Or do they make their customers dig up the parts, and only supply the labor and whatever know-how they have, as well as the work space?

The great part is, I don't need to know. All I have to do is deal with whatever comes through my door on a given day, and keep my own simple fleet running for as long as I have the energy to ride it. What happens next door stays next door...except for what gets trumpeted on social media, but you know that's always buffed up to look great, regardless of what's really going on. Time will tell. It always does.

If you can't think of others, at least think of yourself

 (Partial cross post from Explore Cross-Country)

Ski season began with a little storm in mid December that got the trails operating. Warmer weather and wet precipitation ended that, icing up the trails. Like magic, someone brought in a fat bike for service. With thin cover now, I never know which apron I will need.

The bike apron weighs 2 1/2 pounds. The ski service apron weighs eight ounces. Ski service has dominated, despite the meager amount of trail we have to offer, but it's all subject to the whims of the public. We're ready either way. But dealing with the public's other whims has made the job much more stressful.

 In one significant way, the winter of 2020-2021 was much better than the one we're in now. We had stringent pandemic precautions in place, and people abided by them or they didn't get to come in. We had enough people on staff to deal with the huge volume of rental business. The snow cover wasn't great, which is a new trend in the changing climate, but it was good enough for us to operate. The main issue was crowd control, and we had that well organized.

Last winter, there was no vaccine yet. The consequences of infection could be severe enough that we could make a case and make it stick. No doubt we lost some business, and invited some ridicule, but we're all still here. 

Over the summer, we relaxed our protocols as everyone else did. For a few months we even went maskless, until the Delta surge. When I had a close call with exposure through my position on the zoning board I serve on, we all started covering up again. We didn't go to the full system of baffles we'd used during the uncontrolled phase of the illness. We did not re-institute our mask mandate for incoming customers. But I really appreciated any customers who wore one anyway, and I appreciate them vastly more now.

The omicron variant has created a new realm of anxiety, aggravated by the fact that we now have fewer employees to run the business. Ideally, the staff should be no less than three. Most days we only have two. Because of that, I can't do service work as efficiently during business hours, because I have to drop it to deal with direct customer service needs on the retail floor and in rental, as well as covering the front while the other guy tries to shove down some food.

The other guy -- who actually owns the place -- is also the groomer. Get him sick, and we not only have to close the shop, you also don't get any groomed trails until he's off the disabled list. So, even if you aren't afraid of the illness, think it's trivial, and believe that we should all just snuffle each other's snot and get it over with, remember that your good time at our ski area depends on us being there to serve you. If you get us sick, we may not be dead or dying, but we're not at work.

 Mask up, keep your distance, and don't be a jerk. It's called enlightened self interest.