I’m not entirely shocked. Once the sale of the Annex building was complete, there was no longer a reason for the three remaining owners to pretend to play Bike Shop anymore. They made their mint, and all that remains is for them to pay the outstanding bills, divide up the spoils and throw themselves a little party.
The sale of the Annex gives them a little time to figure out what to do with the Mother Ship (the original location on Ankeny near SE 20th). Considering the condition of that building, a house built in 1896 and slowly dilapidating in real time, I’d guess they can just sell it as is to a developer for cash and walk away.
The fifty or so former owners will never see a dime, because the founders never considered the possibility of such a thing ever happening. They were young and idealistic and naive, and never wrote anything into the bylaws about an equitable distribution of assets in the event the business closed down. I suppose they expected it to continue into perpetuity. When you’re in your twenties, maybe you can’t imagine that any idea this good would ever end.
And so, three people (who all became owners long after I left) will stand to gain many, many thousands of dollars each, a nice nest egg that cannot be legally challenged. And the sweat of all the former owners will not matter, now or ever.
I admit to a little bit of schadenfreude here. Considering my history with Citybikes, it’s understandable.
We’d had all kinds of time to consider the issue and write an amendment to then laws which would have respected the sweat equity of everyone who’d ever been an owner in the cooperative’s nearly 35-year history. Instead, the idea was discussed, the ball was dropped, and never picked up again. I still have the meeting notes that prove it, though honestly I suppose I could toss them by now since nothing ever came of the discussion. Instead, time and hubris brought us to where we are today.
I never expected Citybikes to provide me with a meaningful “retirement” and that’s why I’m not feeling especially sad or angry about today’s announcement. I probably stayed too long, but only because I loved repairing bicycles and I loved getting folks excited about commuting by bike. But a career in the bicycle industry is primarily a career for young people with strong hands, and there is very little precedent for a retail bike shop to create meaningful, living-age positions for very many older workers as they age. I also figured out very quickly that a cooperative is not a community, and a community is not a family. So when I did leave, I didn’t feel like I was leaving a free-love, hippie commune. It was a business, period.
In retrospect, I probably got out just in time.
Citybikes is dead. And it should stay that way. It’s past time to move on.
Rubber side down, kids.
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