Can you tell us about your role at GT Bicycles in the 90’s and how you got started there?
I moved to Durango, Colorado from Boulder in the summer of 1985 after having been a Category 2 Racer there for 3 years. Lack of results, and therefore a lack of money led me back to my Alma Mater, Fort Lewis College, to get a post graduate degree in secondary education. Needing real work, I became the Bike Shop Manager of a ski and bike shop known as Hassle Free Sports (HFS). In 1985 mountain bikes were just becoming widely popular and there were very few offerings from legitimate manufacturers.

Due to the enormous demand (primarily from Europeans visiting Durango) and the fact that there were two other very good shops in Durango at that time (The Outdoorsman and The Durango Cyclery) I had to look for a line of products that we could sell with good conscience at reasonable value. That led me to calling Jamis bikes (at that time located in Tallahassee, Florida) and picking up their line. The VP of product development at Jamis at that time was a gentlemen named Bill Duehring. Bill went on to become the VP of Product at GT Bicycles and was responsible for the success that GT had in MTB Bikes, but that comes later.

At HFS in the summer of 1985, once we had a steady supply of Jamis bikes, we began to sell over 25 units a week in town of 10,000 people in the middle of nowhere. They began to notice us. During that summer, the group of guys I rode Mountain Bikes with (Ned Overend, Jeff Norman, Grant Glover, Greg Herbold, Bob Gregorio, and others), pushed me to create and sponsor the very first NORBA State Championship race in the country, so I did. First prize was a Jamis Dakar, ($800 at that time which was a pretty nice prize) donated by Jamis. This started not only my role as a race promoter for the next 4 years (85. 86, 87, 88 Colorado NORBA state championships) but also cemented our shop’s relationship with Jamis bikes. Soon HFS was the number one dealer of Jamis in the nation. Bill (and eventually the owner of the company, a very unique person, Ron Jamis) came out in the summer of 1986 to see the race and to see the first National Championship at Edgemont Ranch, in Durango. MTB racing started in Durango Colorado which eventually, culminated in the first UCI World Mountain bike championship in 1990, conceived of, organized by and produced by the legendary Ed Zink. I was an announcer at that race and that great weekend is a cherished memory. Back to the question. Bill and I formed a close friendship that we still have to this day.

In early 1987 Bill was lured to Southern California and GT Bicycles by Richard Long to build and develop a line of Mountain bikes. In the summer of 1987, he sent me the first Triple Triangle frame to ride and evaluate in the trails around Durango. I sent them a lengthy report on the frame and Richard Long was impressed enough to have me fly out to Huntington Beach to talk about working for the company there. My first wife and I flew out to the factory however neither Richard nor Bill were there as they had been called to Asia for a production emergency (they would take a plane to Asia like you or I would take drive to our local grocery) and I met with another of the staff there. My wife had gone to look at houses to rent in Huntington Beach and when she came back, she was in tears at how expensive they were and what shit condition they were in. She wanted no part of “Surf City USA” and I agreed with her. Needless to say, we were pretty depressed as we got on the plane (side note, I had never been to Disneyland so on our last day we went to the park but it was closed, not the happiest place on earth. We took that as clear sign this was not meant to be) and flew back to Durango. Durango is a very nice place to live. However, we had an old saying at Fort Lewis College, and that was, “let them eat scenery”, a bit proletarian, but also in line with the reality that there were very few good paying jobs in Durango, and it was a place that many moved on from.

Bill and Richard called immediately upon their return, and both were very apologetic that they were not in California when I made the trip and I let them know I was also very disappointed about that. And I thought that was that. About 3 weeks later Bill called and said that he and Richard had talked, and that Richard had proposed hiring me as the first outside salesperson for GT Bicycles. Up to that point GT had sold bikes only through distributors in the USA and the rest of the world, so this was actually a big deal. But what I did not know was that Richard was about to buy his first distributor called Riteway. Regardless, they offered me a base salary to get me started along with a car allowance, a gas card and $50 / day expense when I was on the road. I took that job in October of 1987. In 1988 I sold roughly $250k in product in my territory of Colorado and Utah, I drove 75,000 miles a year for 7 years. I spent over 18 nights a month on the road. By 1994, my last year as a sales rep, I was selling over 4 million dollars in GT products. In the fall of 1994, I somehow made the decision to move southern Calif and become a product manager of MTB at the new GT HQ. I really had no idea what I was doing but that decision changed my entire life.

What was the company culture like during that time period?
There is a famous quote from a senior (VP) product guy that came to GT from another famous brand in 1996, “I went home to my wife and said, I’m fucked, I had no idea how hard these sons of bitches work”.

That about sums it up on the product side.

But the upside was that prior to the passing of Richard we all felt that we were in the best place in the cycling industry that anyone could ever be, and we loved every minute of it despite the amazing pace.