"Multiple ex-employees of the Recyclery also said that mechanics would drink and get high on the job, sometimes resulting in extremely shoddy repairs".
Wow, drinking at work is a right of all Americans, especially those in crappy low-end service jobs. At the shop I work at we drink A LOT and it has never resulted in shoddy work. More often than not, customer service and attention to detail go up under the influence.

Good article, and fair response by Fenstermaker, I thought.

Now all Portland needs is a few attempted sting operations, right?

When you buy a new (whether it be new-new, or used-new) bike, RECORD THE SERIAL NUMBER! It is usually stamped on the bottom bracket of the bike. The easiest way to do this is, have a friend take a polaroid of you standing with the bike, and then write the serial number in ballpoint pen on the polaroid underneath. Now stick it somewhere safe. Then, EMAIL the serial number to yourself. That way, when your bike inevitably gets stolen, because you locked it up with a crappy cable lock outside the bar, at least you can retrieve the serial number immediately to report it to the police.

If you don't want your bike to get stolen in the first place, don't use a cable lock. They can be cut in half a second with a three-dollar pair of garden shears. Always use a solid u-lock. Never cable locks. Never, never, never!!

re: "Barring divine intervention" - don't forget www.stolenbicycleregistry.com, which a) is completely free and b) provides public access to stolen-bike listings! This has hooked up a lot of recoveries from honest 3rd (and 4th) party recipients of stolen bikes who had suspicions about a bike, but no other way to verify its provenence.

Oh dear jesus some disgruntled ex employees brought up that the guy smokes a little weed and you printed it??? Is this the same Mercury whose sister magazine the Stranger is edited by Dan "the war on drugs is stupid" Savage? Bike Mechanic smokes pot, FILM AT 11!!! The rest of this story is interesting, but have some freaking integrity instead of muckraking this guy because of some grass!

Sarah, I'm usually a dick about your constant bike newz fixation, but this is an awesome article about something everyone who bikes should care about. Nice work. Also @ Workydrunky: way to pick your battles. I think there's a fair inference that shoddy repairs result from being under the influence on the job; they're not just making a pizza.

Thanks The Mercury, now I know that there are people in Portland who smoke pot.

Thanks for the fucking top notch real reporting on this issue. Grade A, as always. I've dealt with this guy and he always rubbed me the wrong way--not just as a shady fence--but as extremely unpleasant to deal with and just seeing the dynamic in the shop with the way staff FEARED him cemented my view.

okay but when you are drunk and or high doing someones BIKE REPAIRS? repairs. on someone else's bike, that they put their body on and ride around. does it really need to be spelled out that that is probably, professionally, morally, not okay?

well. that apparently has already been said.

Interesting article. I will be in the market for a nice bike this summer, and I will definitely avoid this place. I always got strange vibes from it anyway.

It's pretty irresponsible to print that a former friend of Fenstermaker won't identify himself "for fear of physical retaliation" when there's no indication that Fenstermaker has any history with that sort of thing. You can't just let people imply that the guy's a bully without calling them on it. The use of anonymous sources throughout is actually pretty poor, honestly, as none of the people quoted anonymously really had anything to fear from Fenstermaker. It stinks of people wanting to be quoted anonymously because they're making stuff up.

Fenstermaker has a retraining order from his ex-girlfriend, what does that tell you? And multiple sources fear him due to his retaliation. I've seen him throw tools at his employees. I don;t think that there is any irresponsible journalism here.

Your magazine is wholly unprofessional and biased. This is yellow journalism at best. I hope you are held accountable for slandering an honest business owner. Go back to your coffee shop and continue crying about society with your loser friends.

I've known Mr. Fenstermaker for more than 10 years and have much respect for his honesty and character. He is being attacked by a few individuals whom lack the vision to start their own business. Robbie has integrity and respects bicycles and their owners. He has built his life around bikes. He let most of these employees go because they were useless. The police even said your claims are unfounded.

Get it right or shut up!!!!

@bhance: thanks for the information about stolenbicycleregistry.com. I hadn't heard about the site and I'm about to run the serial number of a bike I recently bought on Craigslist just to make sure it's on the up and up.

So, the crazy thing is, Fenstermaker used to be a housemate of mine about 7-ish years ago, and even though I now live far, far, away from P-town, he was such an epically horrible roommate that one of my Portland friends tracked me down to send me this article. He was harsh with the dog, and stiffed our household for hundreds of dollars in unpaid bills, and when we confronted him about it, he and all of his belongings vanished while we were at work. When lamenting about it in the bar one night, someone overheard, and said, "Uh, you're not talking about Robby Fenstermaker, are you?" Because he had done the same to her household as well. Seems like Portland is a little too small for such a giant asshole. And yep, as a character witness, I'd totally bet he'd have no qualms about ripping off anyone if he could so easily shaft the people he shares a home with.

Thanks for bringing the larger issues of bicycle theft and fencing to light. I agree that bike theft is impossible to stop, and always will be as long as there are cyclists who dependably FORGET to record their serial numbers and who refuse to upgrade from a flimsy cable lock.

I think an equally curious thing in this story is that, by his own admission, the proprietor never had any formal training or work history as a bicycle mechanic before opening The Recyclery. The fact is that, without formal vocational training or an extended period of informal, one-on-one apprenticeship, almost no other legitimate bike shop in town would offer this fellow a job. So he opened his own bike shop.

Fine, but where did the capital come from? Is Mr. Fenstermaker a rich boy in slacker clothes, playing with family money? Or did he come by it some other way? It takes more than a couple of maxed-out credit cards to open a small business, especially one large enough to fill a building the size of a Cessna hangar. Even six years ago, amidst the first telltale signs that the economy was beginning to fold, precious few banks would have approved a Small Business Loan for someone opening a business with NO prior experience in that field.

I suggest that Mr. Fenstermaker's success in the bike industry, however fleeting, has aroused jealousy and ire among folks who got their start in the bicycle field by more legitimate and more widely-accepted means. It would be interesting to get more of Mr. Fenstermaker's backstory in this regard.

[Asked for any last thoughts, he says, "To anybody I've ever offended, I'm deeply apologetic."]

I have never known Robbie Fenstermaker to apologize to anyone, especially anybody he offended. And that's about the only reason I like him. Of course, he's in the wrong more often than not, but I still appreciate that he sticks to his guns.

Holding a bike for 15 days, by the way, must discourage at least 90% of sellers that have stolen bikes. The other 10% would have no idea that they had a stolen bike. It's a much better policy than the one we used in the old days. I worked at the Recyclery in '06, and we ran numbers on every bike that came in. Even the ones we knew we were going t osend to the crusher. And yes, I've seen Robbie take money from the drawer to buy weed, but never drugs. So?

Oh, one more thing. I can't imagine how much of a pansy the former roommate must be. Robbie's a terrible fighter unless he's got a fair amount of tequila in him.