Bicycle Brustop - On finding a new tribe

Even before I came to this new place, to try this new life; the reality was that I was going to need some kind of income until things started to happen, photographically speaking. Looking for work is something I have had a fair amount of experience with, for better or worse. It can be a protracted and dispiriting process. 

So, I took it as an encouraging sign that it ended up being as simple as walking into the first place I looked.

Bicycle Brustop is a funky little bike shop we checked out when we first were looking here. I have cycled for years and, like coffee shops, I like to check out local bike shops when I can. 

This is not an advertisement for the shop in any way. I am sure the other bike shops here in town are fine and fill their niche. I am more interested in briefly touching on connection, and the value of finding your ‘tribe’ for lack of a better term. 

The first part of this year has been one of enormous change for me, at a late stage in my life as well. That 2020 has become a time of unprecedented change for the entire world is now evident. I have hopes that the unique mix of events happening will bring the kind of real change this country needs, but that is for another post perhaps. 

When I started at the bike shop however, all the change was unique to me alone. I am twice as old as most of the guys that work here. The first couple of months were difficult, more difficult than I had anticipated. I have worked at major corporations in the past and I think I assumed working at a bike shop would kind of be a piece of cake. This was not so.

I am not a mechanic really. I am fairly handy, but everyone at the shop are leaps and bounds above me and deeply technical. I still struggle to adjust a brake, and gears are still a mystery. I asked a lot of questions, usually multiple times. It is a damned physical job as well. There were many times I was convinced they would tell me I just wasn’t a good fit, etc. 

And the quarantine then created an unprecedented storm of factors that quickly changed the shop from a quiet little place with a loyal fan base, to a frantic juggling act of repairs and dwindling supply. That bike shops have exploded in popularity nationwide in the last 3 months is common knowledge. Being at the tip of that spear has been frustrating, exciting and exhausting.

More importantly though – to me anyway – is the fact that every one of these guys, so much younger, have become my friends. We are not at all alike, but I feel a powerful warmth for each of them. Through this experience, when photography suddenly became impossible, I have become in some small way a part of this community. I came here and, quite by accident, found a group of people who share my brand of humor – which is ridiculously important to me. I never expected to find such so quickly and so far from home.. 

It is a little dramatic to say that this place saved my life in some small way. I came here ready to start a new business and within two weeks that opportunity was halted for an undetermined time. I do not know what I would have done without this place, and these people, to keep me occupied. That I can call these people friends is an unexpected boon. 

As things begin the journey back to normal, in whatever form that takes, I am grateful for these people. I look forward to the beer taps being open again – because yeah, they serve beer in the back in normal times – and seeing what normal looks like in this new place.