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HISTORY
TEAM CS RIDERS
THE CYCLE LOGO
CS FASHION
THE WHARF JUMP
HOW TO TALK PROPER
BUSINESS 101
CLOSING DOWN PARTY
FROT DESIGN
A brief history of Cycle Services
Cycle Services was an awesome purple bike shop at 174 Cuba Street Wellington New Zealand, from 1991 to 2000
This site is only an archive now, but remains online so that sifters can relive the glory days.
Occasionally we unearth some new material and post it here, but don’t hold your breath or you will go purple.
We opened the shop in Feb 91 and
closed it nine years later in March 2000. Three years was about how
long it took to build the shop up into one of the most popular bike
shops in NZ.
It was packed with stuff – inside
the overfilled, highly ambient, strangely stimulating environment that
was Cycle Services, we were lost within a world of bicycles. In fact we
were over-run with bicycles, wading through them until they were coming
out of our ears, leaving us with brains like freehub bodies, only able
to turn in one direction.
By the mid 90’s, CS had a cult following, with a
reputation for the best wheelbuilding, best mechanics, best team of
sponsored riders (in all, over 60 of them over nine years) and the best
parties. For a small shop, we did a lot of business, and when mountain
biking was at its peak in Wellington (94-95) we were the center of a
very cool scene.
Hard at work spectating at one of the King of the Forest MTB races, Waitarere Forest, circa 93
History is generally viewed as a kind of
chronological thing. In 1991 we did some strange shit and then the
police came and arrested us for it, sowing the seeds of the Xmas 91
massacre and the subsequent revolution involving a whole posse of
Chilean insurgents from south of the border
.
This timeline view of
history is best left to those who enjoy growing fungus in personal
cavities and collecting their bodily fluids in large glass jars sorted
on shelves by year. But if you were out there, you may have been in
here.
THE DRAIN
The drain was one of the
facilities that made CS different from every other bike shop in
Wellington. It kept us in touch with our primordial roots.
The drain was well used,
not only as a mud sump for bike washing, but it also a handy second
toilet when we had visitors, and it was a great storage area for our
reeking slime collection. One of our favorite jobs was reaching in to
unblock it by hand, savouring the fullsome buckets of dredge that we
carefully harvested.
A drain of many changing moods, it’s
delicate aroma is difficult to replicate in a cyber environment. But in
some ways, this picture “Portrait of a Drain” captures the essence of
our special drain.
It’s a good thing we were not
working in a fish processing factory. There was one just up the road.
Sometimes the fish processors would come in to buy glue for their
gumboots. They smelt just like the drain and we burned pungent herbal
incense to ward them off. Sometimes customers mistook it for pot…. As
if…
Back up to the menu
TEAM CS SPONSORED RIDERS (1991-1999)
We didn’t sponsor all these riders at once, but
over the 7 years that we had a team of sponsored riders, we did run up a
grand total of 70. It’s no wonder we never made any money, giving out
purple clothing to all this lot – they did pretty well though, and some
of them even went on to be professional riders. Thanks to everyone who
went out and raced in CS colours!
Craig Anderson DH, XC
Adrian Armstrong DH,XC
Ric Atkins XC
Bill Ayres ROAD
Brent Backhouse ROAD
Amy Bardsley XC
Rod Bardsley DH
David Barnett ROAD
Nic Blair XC
Oliver Brooke-White ROAD, XC
Steve Butland XC
Jon Calder DH
Mandy Cassidy XC
Henry Chlebowicz ROAD
Ben Claason DH
Joanna Dale XC,DH
Sarah Dee DH
James Dinsdale DH
Stewart Doherty DH
Kirsten Drabble DH
Andrew Durno DH
Derek Dymond XC
Penny Edwards TRI, ROAD
Adrian Elzinga XC
Steve Falealili DH
Murray Fitzgerald XC
Dan Foster DH
Evan Freshwater XC
Ian Gregson DH,XC
Mike Grey ROAD, TRI
Gwilym Griffith-Jones XC
Neil Holdom DH,XC
Rex Humpherson ROAD,XC
Ben Kepes ROAD, XC
John Kingston XC
John Kirkcaldie DH
Aaron Lucy DH
Dave Marriot XC
Andrew McFarlane XC
Nic McHugh XC
Alastair McIntyre DH,XC
Ken McIver XC
Mike McGovern DH
Sam McMurray XC
Dan Miekelson XC, DH
Jimmy Mitchell DH,XC
Myra Moller XC
Laurence Mote XC
Jay Neill ROAD
Jonathon Neill ROAD, XC
Dave Newbury XC
Rochelle Newth ROAD
Brigitte Nimmo TRI
Paul Odlin XC
Sam Raphael ROAD, TRI
Penny Robertson DH, XC
Margo Rhys-Jones ROAD
Marcus Simons XC
Yvette Southorn XC
Aaron Stagg ROAD
Karl Strode-Penny ROAD, XC
Pip Thomson ROAD, XC
Pete Tulloch XC
Nick Vaughan TRI
Paul Waite ROAD
Brent Williams XC
Mike Williamson DH
Katie Wreaks XC
Fraser Wright DH
Back up to the menu
The Logo
The first
week we opened, our friend Dave Humpherson came in and said “You guys
need a logo.” He picked up a slip of paper and wrote “cycle” on it.
Later it clicked what he had drawn – the ingenious word that’s also a
picture. We always used that logo – first the original skinny MkI
version, then the thicker MkII incorporating “Services” into the “e”.
And later the
“phat” MkIII that we used in the oval and flaming logos. At first we
were amazed that in over one hundred years of use of the word “cycle”,
no-one had ever thought of it… but we were, to my knowledge, the first,
and it was always fun to hear people say “oh, I just realised it says
cycle…” – sometimes after wearing the logo for months.
Back up to the menu
CS Fashion – We were stylistic trend setters
The early 90s
were a great time for colours – fluoro was everywhere, and people
actually dressed in in pink. But when our nemesis, the Bicycles
Unlimited shop in Courtenay place, introduced their pink riding outfits
to the world, we suddenly had a blueprint of exactly what we didn’t want
to look like. We started making tie dyed purple jerseys, tie dyed and
hand dyed T-shirts and instantly found that everything we made sold like
hot cakes. Part of the appeal was that every shirt was different, and
amazingly even shirts that came out completely wrong were snapped up as
soon as we put them out on the rack.
By the mid
90s, fluoro and bright colours of any kind were totally out. The bikes
all started being painted in matt black. Anything pink was “gay”.
Anything that wasn’t matt black was “gay’. Bicycles Unlimited outfits
were mocked as never before (Bisexuals Unlimited). Even purple copped a
little flak. The whole early 90s purple anodising thing didn’t help. For
one season purple anodised parts had been cool. Then the following
season, anodised parts in green red or “pewter’ were cool. but purple
was out. Then all anodising was “out”.
So even CS
entered a black phase – we made some black jerseys and black t-shirts.
But while black is always in fashion, it’s also a bit of a strait jacket
creatively. Wearing black drove us to seek “the new black”.
Our image was always linked to purple, and we eventually designed our third purple purple race jersey.
It still looks great and we modestly rate it as one of the best cycle jerseys of all time!
Inspired by
Aaron “Flamejob” Lucy, our flame tattoo ‘d CS downhiller (we knew he was
onto something when the grommets all started drawing flames on their
arms in vivid markers), we designed the “CS flaming logo”, and the
T-shirts with this logo were the most popular ever.
We all got to spec our own colour options and see what sold best. Even
Rod’s shirts in brown and baby blue sold like hotcakes. Even his
horrible brown shirts with baby blue logos….”Brown will become the new
black, and baby blue will be the new pink ”
Back up to the menu
Business 101 – How CS got started
“How did you guys get your own bike
shop?” people used to ask. There are people in NZ who have paid 1/4
million dollars or more for a bike shop, so maybe we provided an
interesting example. Personally, I would be hesitant to pay anything for
an existing bike shop. It’s just not that difficult to start a new one.
First we went on the dole, because back in
1990 that made us eligible to keep collecting the dole for 6 months if
we started our own business, and no outgoings in wages is a major help
in establishing a new business. But we didn’t stop there – we were world
champion cheapskates. Our entire budget for the business was $10,000.
This included our first months rent up front ($2000), all the fittings,
tools, shop fit-out, signage, insurance, all other expenses and of
course, the bikes and stock. We scrounged up suitable stuff for 2 months
before opening, and pretty much refused to pay more than $20 for
anything.
We took over the lease from a clothing
shop called “No Wear Else” on Fri, 1 Feb 1991, and luckily it was
already painted green and purple, saving us hundreds of dollars in
paint, not to mention time. And we didn’t have time to watch paint dry,
we wanted cash flow fast. We took over the shop at 9am on Friday and
opened for business at 9am on Monday – hauling arse doesn’t even begin
to describe the way we worked…..
As we were new and had no credit record,
no supplier would give us a credit account. In fact, most of them
thought we were dodgy, and wouldn’t supply us at all. So we had to send a
cheque up front to get any stock. We literally started out ordering 5
inner tubes at a time. Every time we sold out, we would double the
order. And even once we got credit, we made it a rule from the outset
that we would only buy what we could afford and that we would always pay
before it was due.
Very soon we had one of the best credit
ratings of any bike shop in NZ (bike shops are notorious late payers)
and went on to have over 50 suppliers. But the one that helped us from
the start, Hope Gibbons Ltd, we always put top of the order list, and in
a year went from buying 5 inner tubes to spending over a $100,000 with
them.
So we probably sound like some kind of
example out of a self help book on business. But at the same time, we
had a party lifestyle – the shop was like a non-stop party, and there’s
no way most businesses could function that way, no boss would stand for
it. But we were the boss, so we had some good times.
The main reason we were able to
grow so fast was mountain bikes. They first took off in Wellington in
1988 and sales grew every year, peaking in 1995. At that point, the
scene was huge, and it was said that Wellington had the highest number
of people riding off road per capita of anywhere in the world. Everyone
had a mountain bike – they were considered essential.
It’s an interesting business case study,
that this thriving industry in 95 would be so decimated only a few short
years later. It’s not often talked about, but anyone who was mountain
biking in Wellington in the 90s would have shopped at Cycle Services
(closed), Sam’s Bike Shop (bust), Bicycles Unlimited (bust), Pins
(bust), John Deans Cycles (bust), or Penny Farthings Cycles (bust &
later reopened under new management).
They would probably have been riding a NZ
Yak (bust), Reiker (stopped manufacture), Diamondback (bust & bought
out), KHS (disappeared in NZ), Marin (disappeared in NZ), GT (bust
& bought out), Mongoose (bust & bought out) or Milazo (bust
& later bought by the Warehouse). And many of the other smaller
manufacturers also stopped NZ distribution, like Klein, Cannondale, and
Gary Fisher. When the smoke cleared, Avanti was looking strong, along
with Specialized and Giant.
The main reason this happened is that all
these brands and shops were cutting their margins to remain competitive,
and the only way they could do so was to keep selling more and more
“units”. Which only works as long as the market keeps expanding. And
then it all comes crashing down. Even CS, a primarily service based
business was affected by this.
The servicing was how we made our money,
but we needed the bike sales to cover the cost of having an inner city
shop. So from 96 on we knew the party was winding down, and kept a close
eye on the books.
Basically, when the accounts showed we
only breaking even, we sold off everything and closed up, because the
next stage is losing money, and being in business to lose money would
suck. Hence the end of an era and no more purple shop. But it was a
great business for the first five years.
Back up to the menu
The Wharf Jump
The
CS Wharf jump was part of the Wellington Rockshox Mountain bike
Festival week that ran up to the Karipoti, and was organised by the
Kennett Bros as an annual event.
It ran for
three years (96-98) and became a bit of a legend. At first, it was
intended to be a bit like a “bird man” contest, with riders jumping from
a fairly mellow ramp into Frank Kitts lagoon, while judges rated the
jump out of 10. There were lots of costumes, a good sized crowd turned
up, and it was going well. Then Dwayne the sponsored freestyle rider
from Burkes rolled out his 6 ft high half pipe ramp, and the wharf jump
changed for evermore. He got things rolling with some spectacular back
flips, and surprisingly a whole pile of people who had never ridden any
kind of ramp, wanted to get into the action too.
There’s
nothing like a crowd to bring out the Evil Knievel in punters. It was
an awesome sight watching people charging down to the near vertical ramp
on the shitty old bikes we’d provided. They hit the ramp like crash
test dummies, with no idea what would happen next. Faces frozen in
panic, they were flipped upside down and found themselves tossed like
rag dolls 15 feet above the water. With no idea which way was up, most
of them slammed into the water still upside down, only to be narrowly
missed by their bike’s landing beside them. The crowd loved it, and the
first ever wharf jump was declared a success.
The second
wharf jump ran pretty much as the first but with an even bigger crowd.
It was a great night, and no-one was expecting anything more
spectacular, but then the vert ramp appeared at the top of the Frank
Kitts overbridge. The crowd went wild, and Dwayne did the all time hell
move, off the bridge, clearing the walkway and falling a good 40 ft into
the lagoon. How could a move like that ever be beaten? Crazy CS rider
“Tintin” fronted up. Despite never having ridden a ramp, he was game to
give it a crack. Even Dwayne looked worried. He launched himself off the
ramp, and then seemed to hang in the air for an eternity while the
crowd held their breath and thought to themselves “Hang on, is he out
far enough to clear the walkway?”. Well, he was, but it was a scary
moment. And it was that jump that we used on the poster for what was to
be the final wharf jump.
Like
all three evenings, the 98 one was another beautiful, calm autumn
evening, and it went great and was another crowd pleaser. But there was
no jumping off the bridge allowed, and somehow the nervous sense that
something new and crazy would happen just wasn’t there. to tell the
truth, it was probably a good thing because someone would probably have
been hurt if it had gotten any more loose. So
that was it for the wharf jumping, three great events that brought the
whole jumping/freestyle scene to the public consciousness, and
disappeared before they got stale.
Back up to the menu
How to Talk Proper – Our frottiest words
Back in ’91 when the
shop was newly opened, our friend Ginge came back from a days surfing at
White Rock. “How was it?” we asked. “It was filthy,” he replied,
“totally going off. I was shralving bigtime, but it started closing out
and I got drilled a few times – fully stenching.” It turned out all this
was good, and we thought “Why should surfers have all the cool sayings?
We need words like that to talk about riding…
All the American
influences (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Beastie Boys, etc)
were way too obvious. We couldn’t exactly go around saying “Bodacious
move dude, that’s like most def homy” or we would look like try-hard
bozos. So we looked out for words that seemed to come from local
sources.
Here’s a few favourites:
Freaked, C.U, Frottage, Stylee, Vert, Posers, Strictly, Hardcore, Death
Vert, Poseurs, Strictly Downhill, Softcore, Hell Vert, Stoners, Gutted,
Hoser, Mirkin, Ravers, Masti, Sphincter, Tosser, Triheads,
Shuntmeister, Sphincter out, Out there, Coneage, Jizz, Shiny face, Going
off, Punters, Fully Jizz, Get drilled, Nihilist, Kick back and chill,
Grogan, The business, Munted, Hellmen, Hooter, Anal, Dribbler, In the
trade, Bogan, Bongwater, Thrasher, Shralving, Postal, Filcher, Cheesies,
Get hard, Schwing, Trolleyed, Bungles, Sifting, Holding, Marginal, Frot
Out, Fear, Fully Marginal, Frotty, Styling.
Quite a few words
originated from CS sifters like The Poison Dwarf, Tall Beast, Azza, and
Guido, but many were ripped off from a range of obscure sources.
Apparently “liz” came from a movie in which someone says “Liz move,
Exlax” to a guy who bangs his head in the shower.
Back in the day, we could pull out
the latest purple anodised components and say “hey, check out this
frotty new piece” and get a response like “wicked, that’s fully reeking,
the missus would liz out, but I want it on my rig, how much ping?”
“$380” “Is that it with you, bro? I’ll just have to go home and jizz
over it while you sharpen your pencil. Tongue it, liz, CU”
It’s a shame we never
wrote all this stuff into some kind of movie script, like”Clerks”. We
could have been immortalised in celluloid by some unknown local director
like Peter Jackson. But never mind, this liz website will have to do…
If you are offended by anything on this site you are probably a
sphinctered gopher penis
It was going off and
reeking to see a few years later in Victoria St, on the side of a bus
shelter, an ad for a new drink. “Serious tongue action” it said. How
totally jizz is that?
Back up to the menu
Strange scenes from the grease pit
After nine years in our little purple shop, we certainly needed to have a good final party.
And we did! There was truck loads of alcohol, masses of drugs, hot
babes all over the place, pumping sounds, good vibes, Mexican food, a
BBQ, a guy massaging a wall, an ambulance that came to check out the guy
massaging the wall, cops who Rod managed to convince didn’t need to
come in and check out the drugs, a fire, bikes that fell from heights,
hundreds of punters, old friends from out of town, a sessioning room
that just smoked, two full fridge’s, pissed out grommets, spectators,
instigators, sifters, trendsetters, the cool people, some TC’s, the odd Barry briefcase, a donkey farmer, geeks, dealers, all the usual crew, and even a few downhillers.
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