Bike Boom of the 70's vs. Today (w/Gary Fisher) Bike Boom of the 70's

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Bike Boom of the 70’s vs. Today (w/Gary Fisher): In this episode, Chad Pickard, owner of Spoke N’ Sport in Sioux Falls, SD, and NBDA board member returns for a very special interview with Gary Fisher. Gary has a rich and storied career and is considered one of the inventors of the modern mountain bike. Gary joins us today to talk about what he experienced during the bike boom of the 1970s and his take on whether or not the bike boom the world is currently seeing is comparable.

Please enjoy listening to Bike Boom of the 70’s vs. Today (w/Gary Fisher):

Gary Christopher Fisher is considered one of the inventors of the modern mountain bike.

Fisher started competing in road and track races at age 12. He was suspended in 1968 because race organizers cited a rule that his hair was too long. By 1972 this rule had been repealed and Fisher’s career continued. He won the TransAlp race in Europe and a Masters XC national title. Bike Boom of the 70's vs. Today (w/Gary Fisher)

Fisher went to work in 1975 on his 1930s Schwinn Excelsior X bicycle. His innovations to the model included drum brakes, motorcycle brake levers and cables, and triple chainrings, all taken from “junkers” Fisher found at bike shops. The next year, Fisher participated in the Repack downhill race, promoted by his roommate Charlie Kelly. This used a tortuous downhill route on Pine Mountain near Fairfax, California, just north of San Francisco, in which riders used their coaster brakes so much that they had to repack the smoking hubs with grease after every run. Fisher holds the record time on the Repack course at 4:22.

Gary Fisher speaks about his role as a pioneer in the sport of Mountain Biking in two video documentaries: Full Cycle: A World Odysseyproduced by New & Unique Videos (1994) and “Klunkerz” produced by Billy Savage (2007). Original clips of Fisher on his mountain bike appear in both documentaries.

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Gary Fisher

Tue, 8/18 10:45AM • 54:41

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

bike, people, mechanic, bicycle, sell, automobile, united states, ride, industry, meetings, retailers, trolley, happy, buy, electric bike, humans, mountain bike, year, routes, good

SPEAKERS

Rod Judd, Chad Pickard, Gary Fisher, Kent Cranford

Rod Judd 00:10

You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National Bicycle Dealers Association.

Chad Pickard 00:16

Good afternoon and welcome to NBDA bicycle retail radio. I am Chad Pickard, and own a couple of bike stores in South Dakota and serve on the NBDA board and record a couple of podcasts occasionally. When I was a kid, I would pedal to one of the local bike stores. It was a store called bike masters here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, my friends and I would stare at this bike in the window that was not only way too big for us, but it was a little bit out of our price range. We had paper routes was our source of income for bike stuff, but the bike was a Gary Fisher car seven. We pedaled to that store often we love looking at that bike and there were other bikes, Gary Fisher bikes at the store as well, but there was something about that one that we really loved. And that was was my first Gary Fisher experience. And ever since then I’ve loved the Gary Fisher brand and had many of their bikes. And I’m incredibly thankful for Gary’s advocacy efforts in our industry. I share that story because today’s guest on a bicycle, retail radio is none other than Gary Fisher himself. Good morning, Gary. And welcome. Good morning.

Gary Fisher 01:20

Great to be here.

Chad Pickard 01:21

Well, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule. Let’s talk about bike stuff. I’m sure that’s maybe something you do every day?

Gary Fisher 01:27

I think so pretty much. lots to talk about in the bike world.

Chad Pickard 01:32

There certainly is. And it’s the same for a lot of us. So today, we’re going to talk about something that happened a little bit before my time, or maybe when I was born, actually, we’re going to talk about the bike boom of the 70s. And about all I know is that a lot of bikes were sold. And I’d like to think that the Peter Frampton comes alive album was part of that bike, boom, but I’m not sure that’s the case. Maybe that’s just something in my head, but tell me a little bit about the bike. Boom.

Gary Fisher 02:00

Well, the bike boom technically took part only during 1973, bike sales, and 72 nationwide were around 4.7 million bike boom came along. And even though like, Oh, brother, it was crazy to try to get a bike and go into a bike shop, it’d be three bikes on the floor and say, I’ll take it. And the owner would say, No, no, no, those are the samples, you get to order off of that. And you’d have to wait like six weeks, you know, to get your bike or something crazy like that. That year, we sold 15 million bikes in the United States. And then the very next year, it shrunk back down to like, I think it was like 7.4 something like that. You know, so it was nuts. And that was perpetrated by the gas war, I guess or boy that produced lines around the block. People in their cars trying to get gasoline and bikes had really been coming on for a while. And just in the whole, like ecological movement, you know, Earth Day the whole thing, Scientific American came out with a story on the bicycle that said, Hey, this thing is the world’s most efficient human transport mode by far, you know, more efficient than any animal and you know, and then of course, you know, in the popular culture, I mean, come on. The bikes were cool. It was getting to be that way. I mean, the musicians used like since and their songs you know, rock and rollers and everything. And 73 boy, we’d ride our bikes past the lines of cars, be literally like thumbing our noses and you know, he could do no wrong you know, is like that but things didn’t change that many things went back to the way they were pretty much.

Chad Pickard 03:54

So you mentioned the gas wars and it was it gas was expensive or it just was not available at all. It was

Gary Fisher 04:00

more expensive, but just flat out not available, there was definitely rationing, and then came along, you know, the 55 mile an hour speed limit, and the whole thing you know, it was like a whole movement to save and everything. And then we overturned all that. I mean, come on my old friend, Sammy Hagar, I made a bike for Sammy Hagar, you know, the red rocker bike. And he did this song called, I can’t stand to drive 55 and within, you know, six months’ time, eight months’ time, they rescinded that law, you know, and along came the 80s. And it became really popular to like flaunt your wealth be able to put on the nines and big VAT, the whole thing. It didn’t change that much, you know, from 73 really thinks went back and you know, I really feel it’s quite different now. Because let me describe a little bit about 73 and 73. I think there might have been 20 people in the United States that would consider themselves to be bike activist. That is people that go into government and ask the questions, go into city meetings, you know, county meetings, all those different meetings. We weren’t showing up. Now it’s different. We have 45,000 bike activists, people on the ground in the United States alone. 45,000 people that really believe in the bike, and nowhere to go to show up to the meetings. In the meetings now, well, geez, now you would attend by zoom more, and the meetings aren’t quite as packed. And if you decide to show your face in the meeting, you get to the front of the line there. You’d be surprised, you know, you can have an effect. And just anybody that’s a bike fan can have an effect, to show up and be at that meeting and listen, and meet the people. And that’s a big lesson too. There’s something I’ve learned. The first thing you got to do when you come in You show up at these meetings, is listen and meet people, and you gain your respect. And then you put out your ass what you want the things that are reasonable. Because now we’re, you know, this is an incredible ah change, you know, and that people, they’re at home, they’re with their kids or family, they have time. They think a lot. I mean my wife, she used to commute to the city, she used to commute by car and take an hour on a good day, you know, each way, a couple of times a week to the city and then you know, once a week here in the county, and now and she doesn’t have any commute time, and she’s loving it. There’s a lot of all attraction right now, or a lot, not all of it, we still have some production lines going on in Wisconsin, really lightly, you know, really spaced out. Everybody’s working from home. And you know, it’s gonna change I think, you know, in the next five years now when this thing is over, for sure. People are going to be staying at home One-Two days more week on average. We’re also looking at no one who wants to use public transit at this moment. People are actually buying cars again, because they figure that’s the way I’m going to get into town, you know, to do my job and do my thing. And, you know, that projecting than in a lot of cities, communities, places in the United States, we’re going to have some really bad gridlock. And that’s why the bike activists are really going at it right now and saying, look, we want this real serious bikeway for people now, you know, because the bikeway in history and I look at it back in when we started putting in bikeways in the 70s in the United States, and a lot of that was just was like we’d say window dressing, you know, for development or something. And the bikeway it was you know, a sort of moseying around here and mosey around there. I didn’t really go anywhere. A lot of bikeways have been poorly designed and why the new routes are just going more direct the way some of the bikeways have been done poorly would be you go to an intersection, you got to like to click your heels twice and spin around three times before you can proceed. It does not speedball. You know you look at the great grand History of the United States transportation system. You know, we used to get around by rail and trolley, and we did really well with that. And Chairman Sloane, this guy was a genius for General Motors Chairman Sloane in 1932. addresses shareholders and set only 10% of the American people to drive an automobile and quite honestly, only 10% need to have a plan to change this. And indeed they did. reform the consortium. The Standard Oil Mack truck Firestone Tire, General Motors They bought up at seven different rail entities within the United States, you know, railroads and trolley systems. And they would advertise like crazy about the new coming life in an automobile and your freedom. And they would lower the services of the trolleys. And the trains that have a trolley every two to three minutes to be every 10 minutes instead of a train every 20 minutes would be every hour and a half. All at seven different rail entities went into receivership. And then forgiveness of debt, they would turn over the right away to the municipalities under the visas that the tracks are torn out and they’d be paved over. So essentially what they did is they took all those great right away from the rail guys, and they made them highways and they made the interstate freeway system that was like a huge expenditure for the United States and a huge commitment to Like you’re gonna buy a car, this is the only way you’re going to get around. And now I’ve been talking to a lot of bike activists saying, Look, it’s time to take back our right away because the automobile guys have failed us. First off 40,000 death by massive crushing in the United States. Okay. Second, a huge amount of people die by fine particulate and all the chemicals, and then all the lifestyle of sitting in a box and not doing any kind of exercise. And you know, you look at the US and for the first time in history, our 10-year-olds in one-third of our 10-year-olds are pre-diabetic, and you know, we’re actually slipping on lifespan and a lot of that is due to various reasons. Suicide drags, the whole nine yards, you know, besides this, but it’s just not a happy place. And people are taking a break here and going wow. I’m thinking about this and I love being with my family. And do I have to be in this rat race all the time? So we’re looking at this, you know, and looking at what we’ve done, and the routes we’ve taken. So I’m saying to the bike activists, like, for instance, right now you can get across the Bay Bridge. You know, the traffic’s pretty light. San Francisco to Oakland Bay Bridge. I think it’s totally jammed up. It’s like, eight miles from I believe it’s about eight miles from end to end. And all day long, it just crawls along. It’s a mess, you know? And, absolutely, if you took one of those lines, and 11 and a half foot wide lane, and you made it a bikeway, you would get a lot more humans across the bridge. You know, they’ve been talking about, oh, we’re going to put a bikeway they made a bikeway halfway across with a new bridge, and the second half is only two and a half miles, and then proposing hanging a bikeway off on the side of it, and it’s crazy. Just take over that space. space right there. And if you did some actual engineering and you built a double-decker bikeway, I mean that that route right away is about as about a 16-foot ceiling. Okay? You divide that in half, top and bottom you make two one way bike routes. One needs direction.

Chad Pickard 12:21

What if I ride a high Wheeler or a tall bike? Am I out of luck, man?

Gary Fisher 12:25

You do well. We’re not gonna fit everybody perfect, but it will fit a cargo bike. Sure. But what happens your wallet off on the side, you make yourself a rectangular tube. You don’t have so much pollution then and you’d create a tube for yourself and everybody in it creates a tailwind. It actually you fast you know that he and all the electric bikes that are coming on like that it would actually get people across the bridge more people. So these are crazy ideas, but they’re not crazy. They’re like logical, but well

Chad Pickard 12:58

yeah. And my stores are in South Dakota, we don’t have the density that you have in your area or in other areas. And so we have our challenges is sprawl. And our challenge is winter, but each community has its own challenges. So a lot of our advocacy is done by our local bike stores, what are three things that they can do? Certainly now is a crazy time. I mean, we’re spending our days on the phone, trying to find inventory, trying to connect with customers. It’s not just bike stores, it’s everybody. But what are three things that we can do to add to our list? That’s maybe three simpler things, but we can help move the ball forward with our individual cities, because I think our cities like you said earlier, showing up as is so important, and you know, for example, I like the idea of reducing the trolley stops. What’s that look like today in our city? Well, it’s changing the timing of our stoplights downtown so that you can’t just fly through downtown, you’re gonna stop at every, like, make it inconvenient. But what are some things that our listeners that the bike store owners that they can do to help move the needle?

Gary Fisher 14:10

I think the basic appeal that nobody really likes to argue with is it is about my kids and my money. That’s the thing. Like people are saying, are asking, Is this boom going to continue on and everything? Well, yeah, because a lot of people are not going to have the kind of finance they did had before to go out and buy a car or $9,000 a year to keep them going. And most metro areas. And then we got this thing, the electric bike and the type three electric bike, holy Toledo. Those things can make a 10-mile commute an actual reasonable thing. So I mean, people are the way that they’re selling. You know, a high-end electric bike is a lot of money, right? But they’re cheaper than the cheapest car and they’re a lot cheaper to run. You don’t have to buy insurance for it. You don’t have to buy the fuel all the time appeals cheap, really cheap on that thing,

Chad Pickard 15:05

you know, forget there is a ton of fun.

Gary Fisher 15:07

Yeah. And they do what you need to do. I mean, you know, electric cargo bikes, I’ve had no one for quite some time. It’s the only way to get things done quickly, you know, especially we got this traffic mess. And this is what I’m saying is you’re gonna see traffic misses, obviously, in the big metropolitan areas, but you’re going to see it in a lot of places, you know, and traffic is one thing, but the real sell to people is like, it’s about your finances, and your kids. And back to what I was saying, We’ve got all these kids I mean, you know, we take them around in a caravan, you know, the SUV, they never learned to get around on their own. So, you know, I’m talking about people that are more conservative, they would appeal You know, I’m going to save you money, your money, and we’re going to like make your kids regular humans again, because mean, that’s what we tell people. You know this is a screen-free activity. And it’s one of the few sports you can actually do if your teenager or your tween or whatever, you know, as a grown-up, and the golden key is kids love it. That’s what we’re selling. And we just go back to the basics, you know, and it’s good. You know, I’ll talk to politics to you. And I’ll tell you to show up to the meetings and all that. But that’s not what you’re selling. What you’re selling is, this is going to save you a tremendous amount of money. You’re going to go from a two-car family to a one-car family that makes a big difference for people and people are going to need that going forward here.

Chad Pickard 16:39

So what I hear you saying is that in our bike stores, we just need to keep preaching to our customers that hey, bikes are great, and get your kids on them. As soon as you can get out with your friends, go ride. Just keep riding and try to move the needle that way.

Gary Fisher 16:55

I’ll say to somebody, she’ll smug that bike rider is always Let me give you a secret. He’s actually really happy. That’s his problem. And medically speaking, we know how they’re riding a bike makes you happy, or a pervert, the latest one, and where they’ve actually had a peer-reviewed paper on. Is this movement from side to side. A skater does it a skier does it. A bike rider does it. You know, while we’re moving forward from side to side, a dancer does it actually makes you feel happy. And this world needs more happiness. That’s what we’re selling. There’s happiness, health, and happiness. And so that comes around I mean, the rub is, boy, we’re trying to figure out how to defeat a tiny, itty bitty teensy weensy virus nobody can see and everything and all these protocols. I don’t think that’s going to disappear. You know the protocols and everything and how you wash or buy disinfected, how you take care of your employees. How you take care. Have your customers. Yeah, and have a good time and don’t be so uptight and serious at the same time. That’s going to be the dance and the art you know, and yeah, and a great shop a great location. People want to come back to, you know, we are realizing, I miss those guys. I hate them, but I’ve missed them. Oh, come on the human touch. There’s nothing like it, you know, human variants.

Chad Pickard 18:25

So, we’ve talked about the bike boom a little bit, we’re in kind of a bike boom. Now obviously it’s a product of all sorts of things gyms being shut down sports being postponed, you know, people wanting to be happy people having more time. But we haven’t mentioned any innovation that’s gotten people on bikes. People aren’t riding more bikes because we have a 35-millimeter handlebar clamp. Are those things important or needed?

Gary Fisher 18:48

They’re not I mean, no, we do have a big innovation. That’s the electric assist bike. Because we can make a bike that’s not the lightest thing in the world. And boy, it goes you know, and It’s amazing, you know how many of those people I see and I see the eye look at their eyes. And that’s, that’s a thing. And when you see people, their eyes get really big when they talk about it, and they feel like, Hey, I figured out a way to beat the system, right? And I’d said, because they, they just were right up to the location, the park immediately. They don’t pay for parking, they don’t pay for insurance, you know, all these things. It is a bargain. The right an E-bike, and then it makes things possible. When it gets hot. You’re never in that Hurt Locker, going four miles an hour and sweating like a pig, you know, and happens so you can wear your suit to work. Even when it’s hot. You’re doing 1214 miles an hour. And the breeze keeps you cool, you know, without a lot of effort with almost no effort and then cargo bike man, you can go do all the shopping, boom, boom, boom, boom, get it all done. It’s amazing. And that whole thing is coming on, you know, and now we’ve got you to know, well, it’s fun. We have all the micro-mobility guys. And they’re sort of killing each other off in away. It’s sort of sad because those guys are our allies in regards to getting more space in city streets and more money basically to like, go out and bang our drum and do the whole, you know, get things to pass so that we can have more safe space to ride a bike. But it’s I’m really positive on it because you’ve got, you know, thousands of people now in the United States that have a lot of experience of what a bike route should be, and how, how it needs to be and just the flat out engineering and get this one, Chad, this coming that I see the mountain bikers were the best trail builders in the world are mountain bikers, and I was out at the Red Bull rampage this year. And talk about guys building those tracks those things and they use some pretty sophisticated mathematics. You know, we Bass wheel diameter, the weight of different things and their ramp construction and how they do it. And

Chad Pickard 21:07

those are the things that those guys do.

Gary Fisher 21:09

Right? Well, okay. And then you got, you know, this ongoing thing raised in your mountain bike park, right? You know all about that, you know, think about it, Ray, those guys, it’s wood, and the geometry, they take all kinds of people and go out and have a good time. You know you don’t have to be an expert to write it right. You know, Ray has it wired. So it’s taking the design of how things the dynamics of how a bike moves and works and incorporated that into another urban bike design as well. I mean, why shouldn’t a bike route be able to blast right through a building because bikes are really quiet? Yeah, go right over the streets, and you got like features and garment because we know that that’s how the mind gets developed. The brain gets Develop, you know, you want to make this incredibly rich place for your kids. This is what I’m going back to again, chat. It’s all about your kids. What do people want? They want to save their money. They want to help their kids out. They want to preserve their own health. It’s a miracle. I got a friend. Yeah, you get old, I’m getting old. I’m gonna I’m 69 I’m gonna be 70 this year, and my friends are starting to drop, you know, here and there. You know, and I got a friend who he’s a genius man. He created the system computer matching system for kidney transplants. Yeah, baby. 14 different parameters. You know, he’s a revolutionary, but he’s been having some health issues. You know, he said cancer a couple of times, and this last go-around was bad, you know? And a doctor said, Man, I don’t know what we’re gonna do with you. And he, he got an E-bike it a mountain bike, and he’s back. I can’t believe that. The doctor said I know what you’re doing. But you’re doing the right thing and it’s that thing of you know, You can ride, you’ve always got a place to sit, you can do your efforts, what you need, you know, it just and to be out in vitamin n, vitamin nature, you know, that’s important that everything you know, it’s a miracle. You know what, we bring in everything, and you can’t forget that. And it’s like a man. It’s like this, you just don’t understand. You just gotta say, these people, sometimes we’re having a really good time, in the best sales pitch I’ve ever seen. It’s like, the guy says, You know, I discovered this. I’ve never been so happy in my life. I would love to share it with you. You’ve come to the right place. Let’s go. Yeah, you know, and it’s really different. Now, right now, everybody’s doing their research online. We’re all just call them up, you know, and do that. And so that is off the hook at this moment as his information was going on. Because, again, bikes are not are complex. Right. And you were alluding to that, you know, all the different Yes. dashboards and different things, what standard? We don’t what standard we have very few standards. I thought fine is the only standard. You know, it’s like and we constantly use the whole industry has gotten away from just a few standards when I was a kid, that was another thing in 73 Oh, man, there weren’t that many different types of bikes, you know, I mean, there was a road bike, you know, a drop handlebar bike, and then a lot of the mass, you know, the big makers, they would try to make that something that a regular person could ride and they put we’d say cheater levers on them, you know, that is, you know, brake levers that came up on the bar. They made the brakes not work well at all stem shifters which are real dorky. And it was awful, you know because the saddles were awful uncomfortable. They get flats all the time. We got better, as an industry a lot better when the bikes are really nice. You know what you’re right now and I say to people, it’s The standard is constantly evolving, okay? The important thing is that we create the supply chain for all the new standards that it’s there, you know, the boom, there’s a tire, there’s a tube, there’s a rim, there’s a spoke that you have support. That’s the most important thing. You look at how like 27 and a half came on, and just a few years ago, a maker said, hey, why not? Let’s just go and they did. It was great. You know, so now it’s people are playing around. The design thing is one of our guys. Travis Brown. He had a story on a pink bike the other day. Sure about, he’s playing around 32 and 36-inch wheel sizes. Neil asked each, yeah, astounded. With the response from the pink, the bike readers, they were open there and you know what I heard a number of times in there. I was like, Man, you don’t want to go back to a 90s mountain bike. That’s the truth. You know all that I’ve been really pleased with the industry in that the designers that we’ve got, they’re just some incredible people, you know, doing some great work of it. And what creates more growth in the mountain bike world is the youth leagues and things like Nika, and then more trail building. Oh, bro.

Chad Pickard 26:25

Yeah. So he’s seen the growth of Nika in this region, there’s a d3 Youth triathlon program. That’s been huge. But what’s great about all of that is and even trail building is seeing Mom Dad bring their kids or kids say, Mom, Dad, come ride with me. You can use my race wheels every day except for my race days. We see that more often than not, which is amazing. And absolutely love. We have vendors we have we have retailers, where are vendors succeeding and where do they need to work a little harder.

Gary Fisher 26:58

Well Well, right now they’re succeeding they can, they can sell anything and get their hands on at the moment, it’s back to that dance, you know, with your cut. We’ve leaned over backward for so many years, you know, try to do everything for our consumer and we forget that we bring a lot of health and happiness. And we let our if you let your shop your business disintegrate into, like, the fight of just trying to survive, you know, and survival or man, it’s just been some, you know, I see it so much. I mean, good people that work super hard, and they’re super skilled and everything and then they blow it and don’t price themselves correctly, and they suffer like crazy, you know? So it’s really important that you know, what your cost of doing business is, that’s the big thing. You know, it’s, you go on to buy a car, you know, and you go with your sales guy and say, Wow, this is what I want to pay. This is what I want to pay. Can I get this price can I get this price? The guy says in a sales guy, so I got to go back and talk to my manager. He’s going back to a computer terminal. He’s plugging in exactly what you’re going to buy. And they got to figure it out. They got it figured out, you know, I mean, all the expenses, right? All the salaries, all the expenses, everything, come back to you and says, No way, man, that’s under my cost. That’s under my cost. I can do this. My boss will let me now I see a lot of dealers, when you say well, what’s your cost? I go back, they get the invoice from the vendor. They divide up the shipping by the number that came, they add it to the item and I say that’s my cost. And it’s like, No, dude. You’re forgetting everything. All the expenses and everything and I think it’s much better today. People are much better about you to know, doing their inventories and looking you know, and having a system but boy I don’t know, at times has been less than half of my dealers know what reality is, and they shoot from the hip. And so you know, yeah, I’ll match that price. And so they sell the item and them, it’s like wrapping a $20 bill around the item and they give it away. And then slowly, slowly, slowly give it all away piece by piece by piece. And well, no, you know, and then you’ve got, they’ll get cowed by people, people come in and say, Man, I’ll showroom here. Hey, what do you do? What do you say about this? You know, come on, man, you know, and that can happen, you know, you bring out and happiness and smiles. This is part of the dance. That’s hard. And that’s what I don’t want to see people go back to be proud of what you do. You know, it’s like, we think we in the bike industry, think that somebody can watch a YouTube video of how to like just change a flat even and learn it Anybody can learn that No way, man 70% of humans, they don’t want to touch it. for good reason, too. I mean, a lot of time to mess it up. It’ll take them forever. And you just take that thing a bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. And he’d go, Ah, how’d that happen? You know, it’s a skill. And we are a whole group of people, like 80% of us work on our own bikes, and the other 20% know exactly who a great mechanic is, you know, and that’s where I’m really, really happy. There are a lot more organizations bringing up the skill, and there’s actually a couple of universities offering courses and things like that and how to become a bike mechanic. Because it is a real art, and everybody should be absolutely proud of what you do. You know, that’s the thing. You know you got to be proud of what you do. You got to be proud of what you’re bringing to people. And then you can smile and be reasonable. Yeah.

Chad Pickard 31:04

I think a lot of its human nature not to value what we can do well, but we have to because I have customers that they have the money, and they may know how to do the tube themselves. They don’t have the time. And so there’s value in that the mechanic that can troubleshoot that electronic shifting or fix that creaky bottom bracket and 30 minutes. I mean, there’s, there’s incredible value to that. So we have on a bicycle, retail radio, we actually have another episode that’s going to be coming up where we’re gonna be talking about a little bit about that, you know, that customer that wants the better deal. And looking forward to hearing that one, that one will be mine as well. But, yeah, it’s I think, as a somewhat younger industry, a lot of our retailers are learning the hard way that you have to value your inventory, you have to sell it for that. MSRP I think one of the challenges may be and this might be regionally is that we kind of have golden handcuffs on we can’t we struggled going beyond that MSRP if a bike has an MSRP of 499 Can we sell it for 549? Well, we can we need to add value to it. But a lot of retailers struggle with that.

Gary Fisher 32:13

I know. And that’s a great tragedy. You know, really and you know people East Coast West Coast. Oh, man, you know, customers make a sport out of like, they can have all the money in the world and they love the brag about how they bargained you down. You know, that’s, that’s a big deal. And you don’t have to play a game, you know, and you want to come back here we just smile a lot and have a good time. You know, and, and we take care of problems and make it work and everything. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying that is a safe game for a lot of people. I’ve seen guys, they’ll get five people to walk in and tell them they’re ripping them off. And they believe it. Unbelievable, you know, unbelievable and that they Don’t get caught out. And don’t know, listen, Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be mean. It’s not easy.

Kent Cranford 33:09

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Chad Pickard 33:29

We do hire a lot of people that have bike experience and don’t necessarily have sales experience. An excellent salesperson can handle every objection and close that sale with what used to be a handshake. Maybe it’s just a nod these days. Yeah.

Gary Fisher 33:44

But it’s so it’s such a great sport, Chad, all the sales books and everything. There are a lot of them out there. And you know, they’re because they work, you know, yeah, all that stuff. The human thing works completely and that’s it’s been the typical thing I mean a good old thoroughly mechanic, you know, the grimy how you should handshake. The guy who’s got a mild case of Asperger’s disease, you know, and classic. It’s like somebody coming in, somebody’s coming in, and you’re working on this bike and you Come on, go away, go, I just want to work. Oh, like, go away, go away, go away. And then can I help you? And then they go away. And that guy’s totally happy, right? I did only get we deal with humans all the time. Yeah. And it’s like those guys a lot of the time. I like to keep them in the back. They’re happier. My customers are happier. A lot of shops. They can’t pick and choose. They’ve only got a few people. And we put ourselves in this situation, you know, it’s like, I see good mechanics, really good mechanics. They come from good families. And a family finally says, Hey, you got to get a real job. And then become an auto mechanic or something else, you know, no good. We lose a really good person. It’s probably You know, we don’t charge enough, we don’t pay enough. And it’s like, I’ll tell you it’s not just the US. It’s a lot of countries in the world. Bike mechanics don’t make a huge amount. And it’s really sad. Because, you know, I mean, you know, you get a really good mechanic and that bike is bulletproof. And there it is. And then as the flip side of that was, when I was a kid, I started working in a shop, I was 14, Schwinn shop, San Mateo bike shop, Larry Ellsworth, the owner, he taught me how to patch tires. You know, we used to patch inner tubes and we do a hot patch, you know, we like put stuff on it, put it on fire you, man, but I swept the floor a lot. And I learned how to put together stingrays orange crates, a varsity like this. And we used to give a 30-day free check. Okay. And I think a lot of shops still do that. Isn’t that right?

Chad Pickard 35:54

Yeah. So 30 day or one year, serves

Gary Fisher 35:59

as sort of funny. Cuz that’s making a statement. It’s like, Okay, I got a mechanic, race mechanic, and I get a guy that he’s gotten into the leader’s jersey, we’re gonna put them on a yellow bike tomorrow or poke it up a bike or something. I throw that mechanic box parts and frame. And the next day, I got this bike that I’m not going to say to the rider. Well, okay, part of that 30-day check, you say, Oh, yeah, the cable stretch and, you know, the parts are wearing and things like that. Would I say that to one of my racers? Because I’ve got a mechanic that totally stresses the bike correctly. All the parts and everything and make sure it’s dead on. You’re nodding your head. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Yeah, yeah. And those guys. I wish every mechanic were as good as those guys. It’s like when I’ve got a bike. You know, we’re trying to sell a bike for 10 Grand 15 grand off. It’s got to be perfect, right? Yeah. It’s amazing. So it’s the type of standards we want to get to. And then the turnover to have a quick turnover. I mean, and who do you learn from auto mechanic guys, I mean, prestigious brands, they’ll do everything to like keep you rolling, and give you the service and everything and take care of you and everything. Now, those are in better days today is a situation where some of your mechanics don’t want to work right now in the situation. And I guess it varies from region to region somewhere. And we weren’t prepared for this onslaught. But I’ll tell you this. It used to be crazy in 1973. I mean, you had nobody to show you anything. The clubs were tiny, you know, the whole it was all of a then was the Federation national federation. And it was small, you know, tiny. All these things were tiny. You know, the knowledge base was tiny. You know, now we’ve got the internet as a huge knowledge base, and some of the knowledge is total garbage, you know, even on a bicycle, of course, you know how things work and all that. But it’s still, I mean, and more than ever, man. It’s complex. I mean, back in those days, I mean, if you learned to camp in yellow, you knew the top end thing. In a camp in yellow, the equipment would stay exactly the same year after year after year after year and what you do with it everything. It was not very exciting at all. Today, now I got to have a laptop to work on a bike and that’s reality. That’s what it is. Yeah, you work on your own bikes.

Chad Pickard 38:41

Yes. Yes, it is. I have my story is similar to yours started when I was 14. I’ve been in the bike industry ever since. So yeah. So it was the mountain bikes by the way. Thank you. That is when that when I started kind of the late 80s and just stuck with it. And absolutely love it.

Gary Fisher 38:58

Yeah, so a lot of fun. I mean, most By good say, it’s a place that you go into people you meet. Oh, yeah, we just make the hardware, you know, and make the hardware like fun, inspiring, reliable, supported, you know, and the experience and everything. And I just, I am so impressed by how many different categories that have come up in the bike realm. I mean, we got people that specialize in the bike parks, in tours in guiding, you know, and all the, you know, the small towns in the United States that their economies had been helped immensely, you know, with the whole mountain bike thing and a whole bike thing.

Chad Pickard 39:41

Yeah. You know, we’ve been local paved trails we’ve had, we have a 27-mile paved trail in town, and people come from all over the country to ride it. And it’s, I mean, to me, it’s always been there. It’s I enjoy it. Barenaked Ladies actually came and wrote it and wrote a song about it. Yeah, it was, it was Actually, like, yeah, the tourism that can be gained from bike tourism is incredible. Yeah, I wanted to go back to e-bikes. Real quick you in 2014, you gave out an Interbike Award for eBay category. And you said something like, e-bikes are the next big thing. You guys need to get off your butts or you’re gonna lose to the auto industry. It’s four years, five years later, how have we done? How have retailers on how have the distributors and manufacturers do?

Gary Fisher 40:30

I think they’ve done well. I mean, last month, GM pulled the plug, so to speak on the program, you know, that was sort of interesting. I, I’m hoping that we were good competition and everything. I mean, the bike industry in the last 10 years have jumped on it super hard, you know, more so in the last few years, because they just see the Oh, they see the dollar signs for one thing, but it’s that thing I mean, everybody that does it says Wow, I’m having too much fun. is a really good and you look at the negative sides, you know, the battery technology is not the best yet, you know, but there’s a lot of promise of finding more greenways to get those batteries and just flat out, you know, they use small batteries compared to you know, like an automobile Tesla or some crazy like that those things are just completely different, you know, that electric automobile compared to a bike, you know, a bike that is an electric bike I like I like to point out all the time now, I mean, you know, I talked about that Scientific American article that came out in 73. Well, e-bikes sort of blows everything out of the water. I mean, that that is by far the most efficient powered transport on earth. And that’s because you got this thing sitting on the saddle helping along with the energy. You know, it’s like it’s sort of perfect in that, you know, an E-bike, you won’t freeze your butt off. Like you will with a motorcycle because you got nothing keeping you warm, but you can pedal on any bike, but you don’t have to pedal so much that you’re a swept ball. So it’s sort of like an amazing place. I think you know, that bike people, bike designers, they really are good figuring out how to make something really efficient, you know, and then ergonomically correct. At the same time. There’s a lot of funny little acts that we do on a bike that you see it all the time even you see like, like the baby maker, which is a brand new bike that’s being sold directly to consumers that they raise something like $6 million Go Fund Me I think site and they haven’t done.

Chad Pickard 42:46

I haven’t seen that one yet.

Gary Fisher 42:48

Man, when you see the marketing in that thing, you’ll go, Wow, these guys are clever. You know, the way they market it and everything, but they haven’t delivered by Kwan yet. You know, and it’s This thing is like how long are you going to be in business? It’s like the classic kid. Oh, oh yeah, we got a lifetime warranty. Yeah, and I think to myself, my life for years, you know, yeah, gonna be around to take care of this thing. So they haven’t done that you know because a system really has to have the support that’s a thing and that’s where like our own brand is doing very well you know, track because a lot of people make a nice bike, you know, we make a nice bike too. But what gives us an advantage is the support you know, and the support is just following through what you say you’re going to do. And let me tell you, that’s not easy as it sounds, you know, it did Oh, no, yeah. And so you know, there’s a lot of new brands that have been popping up with no support to speak of and there are other brands that have like gained and worked hard and done their support and then they sold themselves off you know, like public did last year you know, as a to a dealer things. Some brands coming and going But the big thing for longevity is support, taking care of problems and making things work, making things work for your customer. That’s the key.

Chad Pickard 44:09

Yeah. And that’s, that’s why we need strong retailers that are successful in their businesses and sustainable, that pay good wages and are always planning for the future. That’s, that’s a lot of what the NVDA is, is helping retailers grow and learn. And I think the best thing about our organization is just the networking aspects of connecting with other retailers. None of us are reinventing the wheel. We’ve all had similar problems with that networking certainly helps us out. So such as similar vendor support, it’s not reinventing the wheel,

Gary Fisher 44:43

you know, a lot of all the retail stuff. I may tell you, retail has figured it out, you know, and it’s just applying the rules that have already been figured out to bike is pretty simple. You know, like I was saying their sales books. Definitely There’s like, accounting means, you know, definitely, you know, all these things we didn’t invent. We don’t have to. And we’re sort of foolish if we think we’re going to because there are other people there that are far better experts at it, you know. And that’s been a real revolution for us a track. I’ve got people in their 30s, you know, 20s, late 20s, and 30s, early 40s. And they’re telling me what to do. And I love it because they’re really good. They know what they’re talking about. And I go, wow, this is a breath of fresh air. So we get that in and then we’ve also got lifers in the company. You know, like I’m a lifer. I’ve been there 27 years now, you know, we’ve done a lot of those because they’ve taken care of us, you know, and especially from time to time and something goes haywire. the company says, Hey, we believe in you. There’s a lot to that none of this stuff is secrets. They’re not and it’s really funny to see like your friend of Midwest chat, I like to say, the Midwest is where the American Dream actually works. And people actually work. You know, all right, at the same time, the East Coast and the West Coast are where the creative ideas come from. Like I’ve been in the Midwest and been in a meeting like in the idea goes around and around and around the table until it becomes oatmeal, you know. And yet West Coast, East Coast, people totally get it right away. And then they’re on to something. Now, I must say, All this has been changing, you know, over the last 20 years in that people travel a lot more and around the internet a lot more in the near future, man. I don’t think travel is going to come back. You know, in the near future. People are too paranoid, for good reason or whatever is going to be micro travel, go find out about your own community for a change, you know, and the bike is that instrument. Absolutely. You want to go Discover your own neighborhood, your own community back again, Chad. I’m saying, you know, we don’t have to be radical thoughts at all. Not at all. I mean, buying a bicycle, in a way, I mean, going back to the early 70s Oh yeah, you’re a radical when you buy a bike, and that’s why, you know, the radicals loved it and everything. Reality is this thing is the most sensible thing you can do, yourself and your family.

Chad Pickard 47:29

I agree. 100% a couple of takeaway points. American scientific says the bikes are the most efficient vehicle and we should keep riding them and trend to writing more so as much as we can, but for the retailer’s listening, don’t forget to sell the fun and just get people on E-bikes. There’s nothing more rewarding than for me anyways, then getting someone on their first e-bike experience. They’re never frowning coming back. It’s the complete opposite. They are so happy so excited, but also share your story so that people know why Cycling is so much fun. There’s, for me, it was just, it was a freedom thing. You know, I could walk around my block, but when my parents got me a bike, I could pedal to my friend’s house, I could explore I could, I could bike to other towns that were 10 miles away. And, but those are kind of some of the takeaways that I got from it. anything you’d like to add here?

Gary Fisher 48:21

Did you get the feeling? No doubt, you know, just be happy. And remember, people, look at you sometime. They think you got that smug son of a bitch, and you gotta say, Excuse me, I’m smiling too much. If sometimes you say that. You can say things, just a few words that make all the difference. You know, people look at you sometimes I look at me, and I’ll think oh, he’s thinking that she’s thinking that and I got wound up in there stuff. And this is the funny thing. And like I say, I mean, we are largely a bunch of guys. in this industry, we are large, you know, wrapped up in nuts and bolts. You know, we love nuts and bolts, you know? And we’re bizarre compared to and you know, I’ve been watching shops that, Ah, well come on, you just go to the Yelp reviews, you go to Google 360. And you see people say, Man, I love my bike, but I never want to go there. Again, I got insulted. Stop insulting your customers and figure out what that whole thing is, you know, and the whole psychology of that. And for women, the biggest thing you can ever do as a guy is just listen. Think about it and listen, and don’t try to solve her problem for her right away. Immediately. That’s what we love to do is guys, like, I want to solve the problem as fast as possible. I’ll be a good Good, good, good, good guy. And then and then and then I know, half my friend.

Chad Pickard 49:57

I’m taking notes

Gary Fisher 49:59

man So, you know, I love going into bike shops, I love going back and talking to the wrenches and sometimes say, well, you got a good girlfriend and like, it says something so, you know, yeah, some do. Some don’t, you got to ask, you know, you don’t, you know, that goes with everything in life, you can make assumptions about a human being, you seem coming at it with they’re saying what you’re doing. But man, if you ask the right questions, you can find out quite a bit more. Yeah. And not be an idiot, you know, what’s the thing? The biggest thing you can be is like, make assumptions that aren’t true at all. Do you know? I’m really pleased that this whole thing came about, you know, when in the beginning, you know, in late January, you know, February we’re looking at just closing everything down, you know, all the bike shops and just going on freeze and I thought, Boy, this is really bad. You know, considering the history, the last few years how difficult it’s been that the stock levels were super low because of the tariff situation and all that, you know, and just, this could be horrible. But it didn’t work out that way. Things are opening up more and more has been closed down in Europe, you know, for us. sales have been very good, but still not great. Just because Europe has been down, you know because I closed it down. But now they’re opening the whole thing back up. So it’s pretty amazing. You know, the whole thing. And back to what I said, you know, we got a big chance to change things. A big chance right now, much bigger than we did in 73. a much bigger chance. Yeah, I’m going to ask the dealers, what I want you to do more than anything else is figure out when those meetings are happening, the zoom meetings and you’ll love it because you won’t have to go all the way there and come all the way back and you’ll be able to take care of stuff from home, you know, and attend that stinking meeting, you know, So figure out what the local meetings are and start showing up on that thing and become a force because we got we have a big job to do the big job is like when back right always gives us space. I don’t want a three-foot-wide path, I want a 12-foot wide path, you know, because I need the capacity, you know, you are not delivering on capacity when you have 1.3 passengers per automobile, there is no physically possible way that you can create the capacity to put people into the place where they want to go. You know, and it’s just simple logic, physics, that you need to have illustrations because 70 80% of humans cannot they can’t visualize it. It’s really funny. I mean, we’ve got people in the bike industry in the industry. You know, a good percentage of people can visualize things when you describe things to him, but I found with regular humans. Yeah, not that well. Therefore We have to have more of these posters, more of info, type of posters and things like that, that show thing, you know, and good illustrations and everything that market everything. And that’s like you go back to the history of how they sold the automobile. It was like, man, a lot of terrific marketing, you know,

Chad Pickard 53:18

they had a good plan,

Gary Fisher 53:20

and a real plan and we hate.

Chad Pickard 53:23

We need good organizations like the NBDA to help retailers and help them create a plan to be successful in their communities.

Gary Fisher 53:29

That’s right. Number one is to our dealers is take care of yourselves. That is, you know, pay yourselves correctly, pay your employees correctly, and create a robust business where you get the reliability that you know that you feel strong, you know, take care of yourself. Number one, number one self-examination that is, you know, get your financial act together and know what your costs are, know what everything is, and work on that stuff. I love Bike People. I know why people can do it.

Chad Pickard 54:00

We can know we can. We’re going to wrap up our time we are we’re out of time. But Gary, thank you for joining me today on a bicycle, retail radio. I really appreciate it. Always look forward to hearing from you speak at different events. Yeah. So thanks for joining us.

Gary Fisher 54:13

Oh, it should. Thank you very much.

Rod Judd 54:15

You have a great day. This has been bicycle retail radio by the National Bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership and member benefits, join us @NBDA.com

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Chad Pickard
Owner, Spoke-n-Sport – South Dakota (2 locations)

In 6th grade, Chad took apart and rebuilt his first coaster brake hub. It was that curiosity that kept him working in bike service shops from the age of 14 till buying Spoke-N-Sport in 2001. Mountain bikes and Hans Rey ignited his passion for technical trail riding a few years later. Chad’s work experience is almost 100% bike stores but he is always looking to other industries to improve the customer experience in his two stores. Chad serves on the bike committee in Sioux Falls and has played an active role in defending the rights of cyclists at the state level including the most recent 3-foot / 6-foot passing law.

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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.

Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year.

Learn more about the benefits of being a member and join now.

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