Round Up: 17 Bike Industry Jobs Available Right Now

 Follow-up question:
Does the UCI “Communications and Media Relations Coordinator” need to engage in professional, ethical brand-management behavior, or is a no-holds-barred / Donald-Trump-on-Twitter / declaration-of-war type of approach permissible?

 Good to luck for this job

 I was actually in Aigle where the UCI are based yesterday. Unfortunately I had a train to catch and didn't have time to go looking for bricks.

 @WRCDH: Isn't "...in particular by making persuasive arguments in response to issues in the public arena." just a fancy way of saying we will fight all comers and certainly don't fight fair?

 Shaved Legs Union

 @scofflaw23: I assumed it meant to put a positive spin on anything David Lappartient says and make it seem like the UCI is not a puppet for ASO.

 Dick Pound quit?

 @CRcabkri: Dick never quits. In for a penny, in for a Pound.

 @CRcabkri: He's in drug operations, not UCI....

 @WRCDH: is UCI a drug free work place?

 @rivercitycycles: No, read the job description. They are included as a fringe benefit.

 Looking forward to the press releases you put out for the UCI while wasted.

 @bigtim: Do you think anyone will notice a difference?

 @commental: Touché my good man, touché.

 You should really consider applying for the UCI (Unemployed Cyclist Intoxicated) job.

 I'm guessing these companies love the influx of qualified resumes from pinkers

 @DizzyNinja: erm isnt that what marketing is you get rowdy in the comments?

 @DizzyNinja: Lot of engineering positions. Isn't everyone here an engineer?

 @SoCalTrev: Hi, I'm an engineer. How can I help you?

 @handynzl: prove it lets see those BMXs

 C'mon it's just the starting wage. It will surely go up to 22$ after just a few seasons

 The crazy thing is this a raise of a couple dollars an hour from what they used to make to start. And yes you need your own bike

 @Clownshoe: Needing to bring your own bike makes this an even worse value proposition. You're going to go through brake pads, tires, and suspension service intervals like crazy riding your personal bike on the mountain every day.

 I read the posting. You need to be able to ride every trail at Whistler at an expert level, you need to have your own bike and I'm guessing you're responsible for your own maintenance on that too, you need to have 80 hours of experience at level III occupational first aid AND outdoor emergency care III PLUS basic life support training, you have to have a British Columbia driver's license, and be able to pass a criminal background check

Glassdoor says shift leaders at McDonald's in BC make around $25-38 CAD an hour and you don't need $10,000 worth of equipment and life-saving training to do that

 @sjma: but being able to eat every item on the McDonald's menu at least once without throwing up is way harder than riding Trespasser.

 @Super7: just watched Remy Metailler's video on that trail. $21 an hour to ride that in the wet and save dumbasses like me who think they can handle it?

I'll go mop the bathroom up again, thanks

 @schu2470: you do get decent deals once you’re established. As a returning patroller you get a pro deal on a bike, and you can flip it every season for a new one and come out even or ahead on that front. It’s been years since I worked there but we did get hooked up with maintenance, tires and brake pads back in the day. As with most ski resorts, the balance between the first aid and rescue skills required, and the pay is pretty ludicrous. The WB patrol are an extremely talented bunch of rescue professionals who are shockingly underpaid if you consider the skill sets required.

This isn’t just Vail and WB. It’s industry wide.

 They could pay any amount, good luck finding a place to live. Unless you want 12 roommates..

 Resort jobs are subsidized by hashtag vanlife trustifarians, the demographic they're hiring isn't doing it for the money.

 @sjma: I read it and it looks like you need occupational first aid level 3 OR outdoor emergency care as well as basic life support (CPR). It doesn't mention needing any experience, the 80hrs is just how long the course is.

You are right though, starting at $21 is way to low for this job

 @Bro-LanDog: is weed legal there?

 I might be wrong, but I think vail resorts starts at $20 usd for any position starting this winter.

 @sjma: The requirements are getting awfully close to someone who'd make a ton more as a paramedic and would then have lots of time off to enjoy riding for fun. But just like ski patrollers, nobody has ever gone into that career because it made a ton of financial sense - there's usually a passion and a sense of mission at work. Which makes it extra shitty to see Vail basically completely low ball these folks.

 @g-42: if you're going to put in that much time working in the medical field, get an associates on your way to getting a bachelor's/masters in nursing and get paaaaaiiid

 @everythingsucks: $20 USD for US resorts, $20 CAD for Whistler.

 @schu2470: what if said park patrol rides a rigid fixy?
I'm sure that would save a few bucks

 @sjma: It's such a joke, I know a handful of qualified people that are interested in doing bike park patrol at Whistler but the pay for the amount of training + gear holds them back. I hope Vail struggles to fill these roles, maybe then they'll learn what people are actually worth.

 @Clownshoe: Not worth it for a "pro" deal. Once you have the education needed to apply, you can make more money elsewhere and just buy a season pass to the park.

 @Strobeha: The course is expensive too. Whistler doesn't offer any paid training or opportunities to qualified people who can't afford it.

 durango bike patrol just unionized. ski and bike patrol now both union

 @thatguyzack: Exactly why I don’t work there anymore in the summer. But in all fairness It was super fun. A million paid bike park laps, tons of training, lots of rescue action. The experience I got there is why I have the job I do now. The team is amazing, and the top end of the pay scale, around 35/hour, is more than most patrollers can make at any resort. It’s a great stepping stone to a lot of great rescue/medical/rope access gigs. I did it for almost 15 years, and I still do it in the winter. If you like the rescue game, you’d be hard pressed to find a job with more action. The summer gig can be a gateway to winter patrol. Winter patrol at WB is a amazing gig once you get into the avalanche control and rescue part of it. Is it vastly underpaid considering the danger and skill set? Definitely. Is it super fun? Absolutely. I’m in the lucky minority owning a house in the valley. I have no idea how the younger generation can get by, hence the insane turnover in the crew these days. In the 90’s we’d maybe hire one or two rookies a year. Now we’re hiring 10+ as people bail for more realistic living situations.

 @waffleeater: f*ck yeah you love to hear it.

 @schu2470: you don't get to ride anything fun either, so all that wear and tear is from laps of blue velvet and heart of darkness. At least on $21/hr you get to go home to a really nice place /s>

 @Clownshoe: I also ski patrolled for years. Best job ever! And, as you said, 100% the reason I have the job I have now. No it's not for the money. No it isn't right that resorts everywhere pay shit wages even to their lifer employees. But hey, wouldn't trade it for anything!

 @sjma: So true. Those guys/gals are like extreme paramedics worthy of their own reality TV show. Such lovely people as well. I too would opt for "Would you like to supersize that?"

 @dustgor: ah, so that’s like what.. $15usd? Yeah thats not good at all.

 "Please make 0.5X what you'd make in Silicon Valley and get 40% off one S-Works bike per year." is an offer that's hard to refuse.

 @singletrackslayer: well 40% off an SWorks annually is equal to about $100K/year in income so I guess it balances out.

 @salespunk: Your numbers map to the Pro, not S-Works, model.

 oui or non ....yer in

 Good luck down there brother. You evacuating?

 Not as of now. I’m pretty far inland 15-20 miles anyway so hopefully storm surge won’t affect us but 120 mph winds doesn’t sound fun. Hopefully it continues to move east and I can board up and ride it out but it’s currently centered on Sarasota where I live so evacuation might be the only option. Just getting prepared as much as I can. Looks like it’s gonna be a rough one. Thanks bud @WestwardHo:

 They want to triple it in the next 3-5 years? Seems ambitious. If that’s one of the performance indicators for the new COO I would not take that job seeing the cooling of the bike market and upcoming economic shitstorm.

 @pisgahgnar: It's a C-suite job. You could go to your office, leave a giant steamer on the desk, and get let go with a $20mil severance package.

 @pisgahgnar: That was my first thought. That is a huge increase in revenue in a short time. Other than branching out to other areas/countries, like, a LOT of other areas, not sure how that is possible. Unless you increase the price a ton.

 @rhamej: ...or take a note from We Are One and start expanding the catalog!

 They have a well setup machine-shop and surface finish in-house, no reason they couldn't massively increase product range over 5-8 years time from the current pretty small offering (In terms of product type)

I wonder if they already turnover more than a company like Hope with a much larger range though - $30million is super impressive to me for essentially boutique wheelsets and stems.

$100million does sound ambitious though.

 @pisgahgnar: Exactly. "Hey we made 30 million this year, lets see if we can make over 100 million in 5 years during one of the worst global economic downturns of our lifetime"

That's a bold move cotton.

 @pisgahgnar: Right? That's some big dreaming but they have priced their hubs pretty aggressively for OEM customers.

If they can get their fading under control stems naturally lead to bars (carbon sourced in Vietnam like ENVE?) and grips, then coordinating headset spacers and seatpost clamps.

Pedals would be a good fit and round out the contact points.

Cranks seem like an obvious choice given the number of small CNC'd options popping up, which leads to chainrings (stepping to Wolf Tooth) and pedals. Some time on the phone with Enduro and you could add BBs and headsets to the mix without much effort.

They'd be insane to do a dropper post at this point- those are more or less commodities. Maybe buy BikeYoke or 9.8 to have something proven, at least?

After that maybe a Pole-style machined frame (own brand or as an OEM) or even US-made welded Al frame? Carbon doesn't really seem like a good fit, but at least they could cut their own molds (see Hope). The cost/reward on bikes and frames doesn't seem worth it though, more of a halo thing. You're tying up a lot of capital and physical space for a high-dollar, low-margin product that's going to be hard to build (completes) in the current environment and expensive to ship.

That's just off the cuff: a half-day brainstorming session and SWOT Analysis could get you closer.

It's ambitious but depending on what's in the pipeline I think they could bring quite a few low risk / high reward items to market in 3-5 years.

 @pisgahgnar: Industry nine does not currently offer an entry level product. Probably would not get the job by saying lets create lower end product and offer it as an OEM to big brands. But that might be the ticket to reaching the goal. Imagine if you get your hubs on Giant, Trek and Specialized. You can still offer great product, but maybe a little below your norm. Increase production due to contracts with the big two or three.

 @pisgahgnar: my thoughts exactly. Well good luck to I9 with those lofty ambitions

 @dualsuspensiondave: Inflation is most definitely not from 40 years of tax cuts and trickle down economics. More like a huge increase in the money supply.

 @carters75: Here's to unrealistic and unsustainable growth curves. "Cotton"

 eh the world is going electric thy nd to put E in front of every predect and meke themselves stendout , they will go the way of the vee brake otherwise.......

 @pisgahgnar: Acquisitions? That's usually how the big growth numbers are achieved.

 @drapeau: I don't think stealing pennies from other budget suppliers of pedals, clamps, spacers, BBs, etc. is going to get them there.

They need high dollar differentiation.

If they're smart, they'll focus on supportive parts for e-bikes. Maybe they can copy some of Cane Creek's homework on some recent unique, high dollar/margin products.

They seem like the type of outfit that would be good at doing some blingy bike-adjacent products too. Maybe a 1-up racks competitor. Tools that hobbyists don't need, but drool over. Buy Abbey, even? Essentially, the types of products that are easy to sell for more than component margins because the buyers aren't as competitively focused.

The most valuable thing they have is their brand. Use it. (but be very careful not to abuse or dilute it)

 @hotpotato: Needless to say I disagree. Generally high-dollar items are lower margin than lower-dollar items and come with exponentially higher R&D effort, reputation/financial risk (see Cane Creek), customer service demands, and warranty expenses.

As someone who designs and builds things for a living I can all but guarantee that your books will be better off after designing, manufacturing, marketing, storing, selling, shipping, and supporting twelve $100 headsets, eight $150 handlebars, six $200 pairs of flat pedals, or four $300 cranksets than one $1,200 suspension fork (to choose an example).

OEM is a brutal business with terrifyingly small margins but there might be a case for I9 positioning themselves as 1-stop shop for US-sourced finishing kit for small- and mid-sized brands looking to reduce supply chain uncertainty and add perceived value on their builds. And the best way to be competitive with Asian suppliers is to focus on parts that require as little first-world touch time as possible. But, again, the margins are awful and I'd focus on the aftermarket first.

I guess we'll see.

 @drapeau: Sure, but if you scale that math up, you're not talking twelve, $100 headsets. You're talking 12 thousand.

So if you can snatch that kind of volume from low dollar parts and keep it, great. But competition in that space is CRAZY and the uncertainty of future growth at a broad scale plays a massive factor.

I help design, build, and sell things for a living too. We've carved a neat little $200m business out of selling high dollar, low (for industry) volume, good margin stuff. When I think about doing business like some of our competitors who focus on high volume stuff.... it makes my skin crawl!

Cool discussion topic.... I can appreciate that there are literally an infinite number of different ways to be successful in business. It's nice to hear of people approaching it differently.

 @hotpotato: Some cycle parts are not massively complicated to manufacture though, a good automated cell could whack stems out to almost completion 24/7 if you had the market so a little easier to go with the lower value higher volume there.

I am with you on complicated items though high volume / low margin, total nightmare and an easy model to fail with, many in manufacturing have suffered at the hands of mass production low margin contracts turned bad.

 You are gonna be his right hand

 either way you're getting covered in rooster spray

 LOL at the idea of engineers in BMX. There hasn't been anything new since 'The Great Upheaval' when everyone cast aside their 44 tooth chainrings.

 @TommyNunchuck: Don't you worry, it's coming. Do you know how long it takes do to a detailed FEA analysis by hand?

 @TommyNunchuck: how how how how very dare you

 Don't worry, it'll be a roadie who gets that job. And roadies enjoy suffering so it'll be fine.

 Does UCI stand for Unbelievably Confused Individual ?

 At least they found out that they need such a guy - pretty selfaware for UCI-standards.

 *gasp in uppercase* YT hAs a sEcRet AsHeVilLe FaCilITy?!

 @shr3d: .. except you won't be able to afford an apartment in Tempe or Phoenix with the attrocious pay they offer

 @deathpedal: 100% this

 Current Wahoo vibe: The FW engineer responsible for this also got assigned to UX design and did it in a day.

 Well, they did lay off a huge chunk of their staff so anyone left is likely wearing multiple hats.

 the american dream

 @Compositepro: im not about making some other schmuck money. Enjoy that guaranteed weekly paycheck though

 @pargolf8: hahaha

 Rich dad, poor dad.

 I take it you ride a 30 year old bike then? There is a reason bikes are bloody amazing now.

 You should see the price of a fishing rod mate or even one of those new dangled apple computers wot every one pics to affirm coding is their lifestyle choice

 I wasn't old enough to be mountain biking 30 years ago, but at least I'm still having a ton of fun today.

 Evil!

 Other way around.
Head = clothing/soft goods,
Tail =suspension.
I believe that they were affiliated somehow, the founders were related, and Fox Head was just sold to someone this summer.
Definitely odd to have a photo of an employee from a completely different company here.

 Its a job posting for Fox (suspension), so it makes sense.

Why a suspension company needs to make and sell soft goods, who knows?

 @Canadmos: Bring back spandex/neoprene shock and fork covers FTW.

 Ride Fox (suspension) has a bunch of soft goods like tailgate pads, clothing, hats, bags, etc…. It’s basically their swag/marketing department.

 @Canadmos: Fox=RaceFace so you'd probably be designing for both....

 @Canadmos: The appeal of soft goods is there's no chance of them creaking

 i suspect like every other brand in MTB they're going to expand into riding apparel