12/04/2025
Breaking our silence from the realm of social media to reflect on an incredibly fruitful year.
Just over a year ago, I was let go from my full time career as a mechanic for a corporate company that didn’t understand the bike industry. The silver lining is that it finally helped me take the leap of faith into the industry completely on my own. Less than 3 weeks later, I had officially incorporated Catbird Bike Outfitters, and I had no idea how well things would take off.
I had the opportunity to set up shop in a small residential space in the neighborhood, and while rough around the edges, has turned out to be incredibly opportune in its location. After picking up the Kensington Farmers Market for the summer season for on the spot repairs, my shop was living out of suitcases so to speak.
Service was a slow trickle for the first half of a year, really only getting service via word of mouth and a couple of loyal customers who followed me from my previous shop. By the heat of summer, I had well-outgrown my awkward 1,000sq ft sitting on a rotating queue of 40-50 bikes up until the tail end of this past month. The rollercoaster of moving in and out on a weekly basis along with my general lack of bandwidth and customer access by appointment basis frequently resulted in parts exploding out of boxes and tables.
I was very fortunate to have unwavering support from my partner in running the market, admin, and designing branding, and infinitely more. I was thrilled to bring on the assistance of 3 incredibly talented and special guest mechanics when volume was simply too much for me to keep up with on my own. My customer base has been overwhelmingly supportive in this first year and I cannot thank them enough as well.
So stick around, this post is simply a jumbled series of progress reports of my humble little shop, and I can’t wait to share more about my projects, service, customers, rides, and other happenings pertaining to bikes and birbs!
Tyler S
Catbird Bike Outfitters
