Xark!: My latest thing: CHS Uptown Bikes

My latest thing: CHS Uptown Bikes

Back when I was working as a mechanic in a bike shop, I used to wonder whether a journeyman mechanic could make a living by offering a mobile repair service. Someone needs a tune-up, you schedule an appointment and show up with your toolkit, parts and stand. Low overhead, only one employee to pay.

Only it's not that simple. Dig into the business plan for something like that and it's easy to see how you could wind up starving. Quickly.

So it wasn't until this summer, while fixing a neighbor's bike, that the thought of trying a variation on the mobile repair idea -- except only part-time, and on a very limited geographical basis -- crossed my mind.

When I ran those numbers, they came up OK. Not as something you live on, but as something that fits pretty well within the freelance-writer-new-media-street-hustler life I've been living.

So after building a site and investing in some additional tools during the month of August, today I unveiled my CHS Uptown Bikes service. And a few minutes later, I booked my first service call.

I'm withholding judgment, obviously. I'll need do do quite a few jobs just to pay for my TS-2.2 truing stand, for instance. But we're off and rolling, and we'll see where this leads.

P.S.: If you love me, order one of our T-shirts. Pleeeeeeese...