Big Mikes Bikes

Alright, here we are Big Mike's bike shop with Kathleen and I pres Big Mike, yeah. Big Mike. You guys have been after me for So, can Well, we're at 15 Abelwood Avenue right next to 7-Eleven in McDonald's and with a car wash. We're selling used bikes, doing service, accessories, all that good stuff. And how did you find this space? Actually, Craigslist. And I had been into 7-Eleven a bunch of times. I'd seen it and I kind of looked past it and then they lowered the price and we're like, Why don't we take a look at it? And then we came in and with the back room set up the way it is and this room set up the way it is, we thought it was great. Just perfect. How has the community embraced you? I feel pretty good. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback. A lot of people have been glad to have a bike shop back in town. What are some of the things that you use in social media to get your message out? Just basic Facebook, Twitter. We Even just camera phone pictures. Now our cameras are so, See, the point I'm getting at is that people, a lot of old school businesses don'take advantage. How much is your marketing budget? Next to zero because you do, but believe me, your message is in front of me and I am here because your message is so pervasive. So whoever's doing it, if it's Mike or if it's you, Kathleen, you're doing a fantastic job with the point. He's got the background in it really from being a DJ. Yeah. I've had DJ and night clubs in Boston have been doing that for almost 15 years now. Yeah, a little bit. All right, so let's talk about bikes. Enough of the background. Let's talk about bikes. Mike, let's talk about how you got started. Is it passion for biking or what happened? It's fun. I did it for health. I actually am not as big as I used to be, which is good. I just started loving bikes. I got started on an old mountain bike and then just went from there and got into all sorts of bikes, road bikes, touring bikes. Not as a BMX too much, but I can appreciate it. So you were into bike riding itself, so you knew your way around bicycles and you saw a need for this. Yeah, I just started seeing that there were a lot of bikes out there that were kind of neglected and started working on them, rebuilding them. You get them, when you first start out, try to find something that's maybe not worth a lot of money and then just dig right in and learn the ropes and learn the basics from there. So is the main focus here used bikes that are renovated? Yep, they're all refurbished ready to go. And if someone has a broken bike, they can, oh wait, here's a point I wanted to make because I don't know that a lot of people do this or know this. You travel, you will go to someone's house and repair it on site, is that right? Most of the time lately we've found it's a lot easier for us to just go pick it up and bring it back to the shop and work on it there. Something simple But they don't have to lug the bike here, you'll go pick it up. Absolutely. Now what is your range, how far will you go? Yeah, Cape Band, Gloucester, Rockport, maybe if switch Essex. Yeah. Is there a fee associated with that? Yes, $5 each way. That's not a whole lot. People's time, Your time is certainly worth more than $5. Well we find that when people are offered that service they'll realize that they have more bikes than they kind of thought of that need work done, so we'll just do it all at once and it's easier for everyone. Alright, talk about the bike that's right behind you on the bottom. What kind of bike is that? This one's pretty cool, this is actually a vintage mountain bike. It's actually starting to get really popular now. It's an old Bianchi, solid, super comfortable, got a really long wheel base. So that makes it for more of a comfortable ride? It's not Now these thinner, The other thing is, you can do, these are really customizable, you can do a lot of different things with them because a lot of the parts back then were pretty standard and interchangeable. So anything someone wants to do, you can pretty much source the parts for them and put it all together. Yeah, we've got quite a bit of older used parts that are getting hard to find, and then obviously we're on the distributors to get all the new replacement parts as well. So that's pretty cool. Now were talking earlier, were talking about, as far as, And you, it made sense what you said to me, why don't you tell it for the viewers? Oh, It's assembled properly, tuned up quality parts. A lot of the stuff, We've gone through the bike. If you see something wrong, it's going to get corrected before that bike goes out the door. Absolutely. At Walmart, you have no, you have no idea who's putting that thing together. We do see a lot, we see a lot of bikes come in that we work on that have just been assembled incorrectly. What are some of the things you see with, I mean, brakes? I mean, four-expounded backwards, handlebars the wrong way, brakes upside down. Not touching the rims. That would be me. That would be me. If I had to assemble one of my children's bikes, I'd say right now it's just a disaster waiting to happen. Not good. So, I mean, coming in, now if someone buys a bike here, is there How does that all work? Yeah, we have a 30-day warranty excluding tires and tubes. So if you go run over class, Within reason. So can you talk about where people can find you on the web? Our website is BigMikeSpikes. org. Our Twitter is BigMikeSpikesMA. Our Facebook is BigMikeSpikes as well. There you go. Pretty simple. You use Google is the point here, right? Yep, you can find us. How many, you say that You have no idea how many people, if I did not put How do you find it? I'll never be able to find it. Google is your friend, right? All right. Well, thank We wish you the best of luck this place. I mean, there's a lot of bikes here right now. You can come and buy these parts. And again, I think which is what the really cool thing is, you call up here, you have a bike that's busted up, your schedule is bananas with the kids and everything else. You'll come pick it up and get it done. So nice to meet Thank you.