What's a bike shop dude make in a year?

Besides a lot of bloody knuckles and happy customers?

Employees at Joe's Bike Shop in Baltimore appear to be the first in the country to unionize. It's a bit of surprise, since the shop is a stand-alone mom & pop owned by... well, Joe. His 10 employees are now very interested in seeing the accounting books and learning whether they're paid what they think they should be paid.

What do you think a bike shop dude should be paid? Personally, I know some who aren't worth a damn, and others that are worth their weight in gold. My hope is that the good ones make more, because I don't waste my time going back to the crap ones.

Keogh says the top wage at the shop is $32,000 a year, with no health benefits. The full-timers with health insurance get $12 an hour, he says, which is about the going rate at bike shops.