At the end of November 1998, I can’t remember the exact date, we got the keys to the first Kinetics shop – it was a little shop across from a car garage, which had been a florist. I’d managed to last 8 months in a proper corporate job – Mainframe Systems Programmer at IBM in Perth – but I hated it, and really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting in an office, wearing a suit and going to meetings!
I didn’t actually have any money, so Bob McNab at the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the last real bank managers, had a look at the quick business plan I’d thrown together, didn’t laugh too much, and agreed to lend me a little bit of money to get started. It was enough to buy some tools, and enough spares to start doing repairs for local customers. It was closely modelled on a bike shop I’d worked for when a student – Harper Cycles was coincidentally a couple of doors along from the florist that would become our shop, and combined local repairs with selling more unusual things like Bromptons and recumbents, that’s where I first got the unusual bike bug!
We only had the lease at that shop for 3 years, so after that was a move to a bigger shop about half a mile away – Switchback Road had been a sunbed centre and was painted luminous yellow inside, it seemed massive when we moved in but it soon filled up with lots more bikes and trikes.
A dozen years later, a combination of factors meant it was time to move again – by now, we’d changed completely from a “normal” bike shop that made and sold the occasional unusual bike, to a business that only made and sold unusual things, so an industrial unit made more sense. In 2014, we moved to Garscube Road, an industrial unit owned by Queen’s Cross Workspaces, a very friendly and helpful charity that’s part of a housing association. A few years later we got the neighbouring unit as well and knocked through, to make our current layout – workshop and storeroom in one unit, showroom (and the museum) in the other unit. It’s perfect!
It’s been an interesting quarter-century – lots of things built, brands that come and go, several moves and lots of changes (plus a couple of pandemics) – but it’s great to still be here, and we’re very grateful to every customer over the years. Thank you!
Postscript: Coincidentally, one of the very first bikes I built is up for sale on eBay – a steel-framed Rohloff touring bike. It’s been through a few owners, it’s now with a charity who are selling it, I hope they make some money on it.
