Mike is the owner/operater of The Rapid Wrench Melbourne. He has been riding bicycles for two decades, and has a passion for his two-wheels that can be seen through the quality and finesse of his servicing.
Mike's industry involvement
Mike has been involved in the bike industry as his sole-work for the past 8 years. He has worked up from large franchise retailers such as Gold Cross Cycles, to the well known rider-owned bike shops such as Bikes Direct and Pro-Motion Cycles. Mike has also worked for key wholesale bicycling distributors such as BikeSportz Imports and Sheppard Cycles. This experience has given him a wide base of knowledge both from a technical, trade and services point of view, and also the hands-on. Mike has also had the opportunity to do the SRAM Technical University here in Melbourne, to further develop his advanced mechanics skills.
Riding the world
Mike has been riding bikes since he grew legs. His passion really ignited when he rode the Great Victorian Bike Ride in 2001. Mike has been racing in the Victorian State Downhill Series since 2007 and the Elevation Enduro Series since 2012. Other big events include the Scott 24 Hour in Canberra, 5 months of daily riding in Canada, including the Whistler Bike Park, and also a month of riding and racing in South New Zealand.
How business started
Within the first two years of serious riding, Mike had owned more than ten different styles of bikes. Mike quickly became so passionate that he entered the bike industry. GoldCross Cycles was Mikes training ground for 2 years in sales and mechanics. Once Mike's skills developed, he started receiving requests from friends and family for bicycle servicing at his home workshop. What started off as just a helpful hand became a real business incentive, as people were quite happy to pay Mike for his expertise. As word of mouth spread, it quickly became a job after hours. The number of return customers and referrals brought Mike a steady stream of work, which would later develop into his own business.
Mountain bike racing
Mike regularly takes part in enduro, xc, and downhill mountain bike racing. He also commutes and trains on a road bike, as well as having a regular dabble with his Echo trials bike. To top if off, Mike has a profound love of motorcycles, particularly supermoto racing. He has raced mountain bikes all over the alps of Victoria, in New Zealand, and in Canada BC. Racing is in Mikes blood, with competitive nature thrown into his social rides, team efforts, and solo trail blazing. Although sometimes the racing lifestyle can become way too serious at times, Mike is just as happy about simply being out in nature, socializing and spreading the good bikely love.
OUR TEAM
Mike riding a step down at Kamloops, British Columbia
Wayne is a passionate mechanic and rider (with or without a motor). Wayne started as a motor mechanic, giving him a great base of training and experience which transfers to bicycles. He worked as Head Technician at Sola Sport for 4 years, running the workshop for Fox Racing products, training mechanics from bike shops,supporting race events and looking after service/warranty work. While at Sola, Wayne was supporting council events and training children to get off training wheels on weekends with a company called BikeWise. Wayne worked at 99 Bikes for the first 18 months from moving to Melbourne as a mechanic/sales consultant.
Now, Wayne has been with Rapid Wrench since the beginning of 2016.
Wayne has always ridden bikes but it was when he became bicycle messenger that made bikes an obsession. As a Messenger it allowed him the legs to race road and XC. Wayne regularly rides road and all mountain/downhill. Hes also involved in Veteran Motorcycle and motor car rallies as mechanic and rider/driver.
Wayne and Mike doing a corporate service and mechanics at the Victorian Downhill series at the You Yangs,
and riding mountain bikes at Blue Derby in Tasmania.
Customer Feedback
At The Rapid Wrench Melbourne feedback, reviews and suggestions are made more than welcome. In fact we insist!
Customer satisfaction is so important to us that we love hearing about it, and we love it when you tell your friends. Thats why we have the 10% Referral Discount, and its also why we have an account on WOMO- Word-Of-Mouth-Online.
We're building quite the reputation, and have earned WOMO Service Awards in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. So check us out on WOMO or breifly on the adjacent live reviews widget.
