When Michael R. Rabe died in a bicycle accident on May 2nd I decided to not make the move and stay put. It's been a rebuilding year for me and it is a long way from over. Rabe was a huge part of my life and of our business. With him gone and the economy being pretty sour moving made no sense and my heart wasn't in it. I'm happy where I am right now. I dialed our hours way back and rarely work more than 35 hours a week now. Before I was working around 70 hours a week pretty consistently. After taking the summer off training I am back into it full force and am looking seriously at two pretty big races over the winter outside the U.S., one I have already entered. The training is going good and I feel much better but losing a friend like Mike has been a huge blow to us all. Far greater than just a bike shop or group of employees we are a group of friends and even a family. Loosing Michael R. Rabe has brought all of us a lot closer, which has been a great expereince, but it has also been a huge blow to each of us. It is hard to emphasize what an important role Rabe played in our store, the sport and my life as my best friend. Everyone should be so lucky to have a friend so wise and true. We're flying the whole crew out to the Las Vegas Interbike Show on October 10th to look at new stuff for the '04 season and am also working on some other (additional) event support activities for the '04 race season. I'm also slowly getting back into writing for our website and on my two book projects after spending the last 83 days writing a 100,000 word, 490 page journal. Thanks for asking!

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Tom, sorry to hear about your loss of such a close friend. I remember when you first posted about this.

From a business perspective I can tell you from painful personal experience that sometimes expansion isn't always the best idea. Being bigger doesn't always mean being better. Sometimes it's the right thing to do, but other times it isn't. A very tough decision. Think it over very carefully before making the move.

You make a good point cerveloguy. In looking at the economics of moving into the new building it occured to us that we would sell more bikes for a number of reasons but that we would also HAVE to sell more bikes to cover the overhead. Hmmm. Interesting quandry. I love building, fitting and selling tri bikes and I really enjoy my job, but I enjoy it more when I do it a little less than 70 hours per week. Some times you have to pull the 70 hour weeks- it is part of any real job where your income is actually tied directly to your performance (as opposed to the corporate world where, if you're having a bad day, you just make a phone call and somebody picks up your slack. However, in the last few weeks it has become abundantly apparent that being off more is better and I enjoy work more. It also allows me to be back in the sport. One of the great ironies of owning this place has been having to miss some events. After 11 strong years in this location it didn't make too much sense to make a move that, at best, seemed lateral and may actually wind up making me work more. I wasn't into that. Besides, I love this little place. It's cool.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Tom, I look at my own business choices in chiropractic practise. At one time I got the "big idea" and expanded into a big office with four treatment rooms, x-ray and two full time gals on the front desk. Had all the latest equipment and the office was beautiful. The overhead was so high that it always felt that I had a loaded gun pointed at my head. Had to pay the leases, hydro, taxes, heating, business loans every month which meant no choice but to run a high volume. If I had a slow period I began to panic worrying if we would make expenses. Just not worth the stress.

Now I have small office as part of my house in a rural area and send any needed x-rays to the local hospital. See about a quarter of the weekly patient volume than I used to. Sure I actually gross considerably less than before but I have very little overhead. At the end of the day, I'm taking home about the same and without all the headaches.

As I said, bigger is not necessarily better.

Tom,

missed you in IMMOO. Hardest thing I have ever done. But I finished.

If you can, what happen with Ken leaving. My friend got fit by him the other day in that other place.

thanks,

Matt

Glad your training again!!