I started building wheels back in 1985 when I worked at Open Air Bicycles in Santa Barbara. Fairly fresh off the boat from England, I had been a club cyclist from the age of fourteen. Starting as trainee mechanic, I progressed to the eventual position of shop manager before leaving in 1988 to become partner in a bike shop in Summerland, a few miles to the south of Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, the partnership did not work out as planned and I left to start work at Hazards Cyclesport in Santa Barbara in 1990. In that year, Kurt Stockton won the USPRO Championship road race on my wheels, Mavic Mach 2CD rims on Dura Ace hubs, built with Wheelsmith spokes. Tony Vincente won the National Masters Pursuit title on the track, on Saavedra rims laced in some kooky pattern onto Suzue track hubs, again with Wheelsmith spokes.

In 1992 I left Santa Barbara to enter the world of professional mountain bike racing as Mechanic with Team Pro-Flex, out of Rhode Island. We campaigned in the NORBA Championship with Bob Roll and Tim Rutherford as our big guns. It was a good introduction; the next year I moved to the big leagues with Diamond Back Racing, a team with more money and bigger aspirations. We campaigned both NORBA and WCS with a star roster; Susan DeMattei, Dave Wiens, Dave Cullinan, Jake Watson, Joe Parkin, Gunnar Shogren and Kendra Wenzel. Susan, Dave W and Joe were all selected to represent the US in the World Championships that year. The following year I moved to a smaller team with an interesting technology; Outland VPP. Virtual Pivot Point technology was eventually licensed to both Santa Cruz and Intense Cycles, who incorporate it into their present-day models. I started the season as Team Mechanic, building all the bikes and wheels and, due to a personnel shake-up, took over the job of Team Manager half way through the season. It was a good year; Kathy Sessler won the World Championship Gold medal in the Veteran Women’s Downhill, Jeremy Purdy took first place in the Reebok Eliminator at Mammoth Mountain and Jimmy Killen put a full suspension Mountain Bike onto the podium for the first time in the history of NORBA Pro-Elite Cross-Country competition. We proved that full-suspension bikes could do anything that a rigid bike could do, given the right pilot and technology. All back in 1995!

The next year, I decided that I wanted to sleep in my own bed more than two nights in a row, so I left the circuit and accepted an offer to work for Chris King back in Santa Barbara. I supervised Production on the shop floor and attended the odd race or two, working Tech. Chris soon moved the business to Redding and then on to his present location in Portland. While continuing to build wheels and work on bikes, in the last twelve years I created two coffee retail outlets, with the dream of having a coffee-bike shop entity; imagine the smell of espresso mixed with Park grease!

Two years ago, I came back to the world of cycling full-time.

It feels as if I have returned to my tribe.