What's Happening? What's New?

Surely by now you have heard our messages about Interbike.  Nothing there has changed, we encourage you to be there.  If you are going please register for the Mechanics Challenge we'd love to watch you have some fun, get a free membership (yes, if you're registered you get a free PBMA membership for the first year) and win some cool prizes from Park Tool, Finishline, Hutchinson and others.  We will be speaking during the NBDA Super Seminars on Thursday morning at 8:30,  and of course we will be at our booth to answer questions and meet many of you.  Besides all the things we are doing there is free technical training available from Bosch, Campagnolo, Shimano, Sram and others.  It's a great opportunity to take in a ton of tech knowledge in a brief period of time.

What else is happening?  To list it all would take a while so let's highlight the big features.  Membership is coming, more on that below.  Those in attendance at Interbike will have some unique offers, those who can't make it will too.  As you can may have noticed we've made some changes to the website and though much is still under lock and key you can see where things are headed.  There is a Forum and it is live - feel free to start using it.  There is a public side which anyone can register and use, so please start using it.  Once we launch membership there are more features such as dedicated and secure discussion areas, special groups for those who have completed and or attended various training programs around the country and a classifieds area to buy, sell, trade and barter for bikes, tools, fixtures and more.  It is still in process of being built and your feedback and use of it will help us dial in all those pieces.

Membership - we can't say much here but more details will be available soon.  As we continue to develop and grow our organization and our member base so to will the benefits to our members.  Do you have an idea or thought?  Please don't be shy and share it with us.  Have a critique - we want to hear it.  We aren't a giant organization.  We are 9 volunteer board members working day in and day out in our full time jobs while also ticking away the free hours to make all of this happen.  We want to find success in our mission of promotion, advocacy and development for bicycle mechanics.  We want this to become a professionally recognized trade.  Technical knowledge isn't getting any less complicated.

Again we hope to see in Vegas... if not perhaps in North Carolina.  Needless to say we will be around and look forward to showing you what we are all about.

​- PBMA Board of Directors