We here at the Bikeworks Albuquerque International World Headquarters of the World would like to announce our acquisition of Dirty Mike McNeese Enterprises. There was at least 10 minutes of intense negotiations, during which time beer was drank, and Bikeworks made an offer that "Dirty Mike" could not refuse, and managed to get him back into the bike shop after a several year sabbatical. Said offer included pay that would only be considered acceptable in the bike industry, huge amounts of free beer and tequila, and of course a work environment in which farting on your "bosses" is not only acceptable, but encouraged (it's no fun to fart on somebody if they are just going to stand there and take it every time).
When searching on the interwebs for a picture of Dirty Mike, I did not find any photos of Mike himself. I did find this though:
Which seemed good enough.
For those of you who don't know Dirty Mike, here is some info about him, based on what I know:
- He has been working in bike shops for a long time
- We all worked together once upon a time at Fat Tire
- As far as I can tell, he can fart on command
- Tony can also apparently fart on command
- This usually leads to trouble
- Most everybody knows him as Dirty Mike. We see this as a good thing
- Mike is a crazy good mechanic. Meticulous and a true bike dork to the core. We are lucky to have him at our shop, and you, our customers and friends, will be lucky to have him fixing your broken bikes.
So next time you are in the shop, and there is a dude sharing my stand who isn't me, or Tony, or Swinton, then it's probably Mike. Say hi to Mike.
In related news, we now have the need for more workbenches. So we are in the process of getting new workbenches built. They are going to be workspace on one side, drinky-seating space on the other side, and will replace the class display cases that currently serve as a bar/workbench/buffet table/display of things. Our benches are being designed and built by Greg Joseph, of Joseph custom homes:
hyperlink to Greg Joseph's fancy pants websiteGreg normally builds fancy pants houses for bazillionaires, but luckily for us he is also a mountain biker, and is occasionally willing to slum it on projects like ours since we keep his bike running (despite his best attempts to break it constantly).
I'm pretty sure our new setup is going to look something like this:
Best of all, Greg said that if we pay for materials, he was going to trade us his labor for a wheel true and a fork rebuild. Awww jeez Greg, that's amazingly generous of you. By the way, my new workspace will be just behind the grand piano, Danny will be next to the fireplace, and Mike's space isn't actually in this picture, he'll be through that door on the left in the formal dining room. We were going to include a space for Tony, but he won't get out of the pool in the backyard.
So that's all the news for now. Thanks to the forest re-opening things are in full swing again down at Bikeworks Albuquerque International World Headquarters of the World. Thanks to all our loyal customers for helping a few bike nerds live the dream.
