My Journey Into the Bike Industry
As you might imagine, I have a day job outside of photography. I never had a desire to work in a bike shop, nor was I ever really that into bikes. But shortly after moving to Nashville I needed a job of some sort and I couldn’t find anything in my previous line of work, which was woodworking. After applying to several places and getting denied, I finally called this cool outdoor outfitter / bike shop on the west side of town and sure enough, they were hiring for an entry level position in the bike department. I thought “hey, I own a bike. How hard could it be?” Well, at first it was quite difficult. Bikes are relatively simple machines, but there’s a fairly steep learning curve to working on them and understanding them enough to sell. But after some time it all just started to click and I really started to enjoy it.
About three months into the job the manager of the department quit and I was the natural fit to take over with my past experience owning my own business. Then Covid hit and everything got crazy. The bike industry completely exploded when everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do. It seemed that everyone decided to buy bikes and we nearly sold out within several weeks. Since then I’ve been hanging on for dear life while the bike industry figures out how to navigate our current market.
The best thing the pandemic has afforded me is the opportunity to hire an all new staff. Being in Nashville, I hired several music industry guys who had been laid off and a few others to round out the staff. All of these guys have become close friends over the last year and have made my job quite easy, well, as easy as it can be. We’ve built a real community at the shop and even got voted as Nashville Scene’s Best Bike Shop for 2020!
Working in the bike shop for a little over a year now I’ve fallen in love with the sport and the community behind cycling. Bike shops always had this allure to me growing up and I loved going to look at all the beautiful bikes and talk ‘shop’ with the employees. Not long after starting this job I bought myself a new gravel bike, an All-City Cosmic Stallion, and started commuting to work several days a week. Then gradually I started going on longer rides all around the city and surrounding countryside. I lost 25 pounds over several months and started getting stronger and faster and had a lot more energy. Now I’m planning a few bikepacking trips (backpacking with a bike) and would like to do some gravel races once they start back after the pandemic subsides. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll do one of the epic races like Dirty Kanza or The Mid South.
Photography will always be my passion, and one day I would love to make it a career. In the meantime I’m enjoying the heck out of the bike shop and plan to keep at it and to grow this new passion. I’m now thinking of ideas to combine photography and bikes, because why not?