The Bike Shack THANKS the many people that gave their help & support. I have to thank them all tonight because I am so happy with what we have accomplished. My brother and I have been working tirelessly 14 hr days 7 days a week establishing the bike shack in Ptown. We would not have been able to do it without the loving support of so many people. It's intense to me as I think about all the selflish help we received.

Thanks to my son, Luke, for being so understanding about not seeing me so much. I miss him so much its killing me. Thanks to my nephew Lex for showing up, taking the train from NYC and taking the long bus home. Both Luke and Lex spent their April school vacation supporting us while Steve and I were setting things in motion.

Thanks to Madison for committing to coming in June to help us with the crowds. Thanks to Chris Masi, terribly talented with web site design. And he does it so effortlessly. He is a great coach. He would ask for things at the precise moment I was prepared to deliver. This has really been an incredible experience. Please look at the site. He gave us the ability to rent, sell, advertise effectively, provision orders, manage credit cards, negotiate with the merchant services resellers, everything I envisioned the site could do (thanks to my Verizon training (which I hate to admit).

Most of the time it's been overwhelming because the work is intense, but more so because the positive energy is extraordinarily moving in sync with what we need. At the moment when we become aware of needing something, it appears. I've been working on the infrastructure of the business since last September and its all coming together this month. Thanks to GIANT Bike and FUJI bikes for the support and CREDIT. Great bikes, great service. Thanks to Michele Benson at GIANT and Will Barton, very knowledgeable folks. You can count on their bike & parts orders and delivery. Thanks Walter Driscoll at Shimano. We really needed the help with the defective derailleur.

Thanks to Noah who gave us a great start when we attacked the shop interior. His vision led the way. His belief in us and his energy and enthusiasm was genuine and kept us together. His bike rack design saved us thousands of dollars and helped us pile in over 200 bikes. The storage trailer, thanks to good American know-how we are able to store another 90 bikes. With some other town resources we will be able to order another 200-300 bikes. The exterior was easy to conceptualize.

Thanks to Scofield brothers in Orleans, great site plan. The actual build-out came out beautiful, thanks to Peter Page, East Harbor Construction, he and Steve Ryan built a beautiful ground level patio, the commercial window and doors. Thanks to Jim at Cape Cod Excavating, his guys did a beautiful job with the parking lot and peripheral landscaping. The bank loan helped, thank you Santander for believing in small businesses. But most important thanks to Bobby Mead, (aka BULLET) for renting the premises to us and letting us tear it apart. I can't tell you the amount of times he wanted to kill us and didn't. He held it together. Thanks to Heidi Clement, the Santander Bank Manager in Orleans. She has been working with me since last Fall and knows how to manage small business relationships. I hope the bank knows what an asset she it. She is even driving our second loan paperwork all the way from Orleans to Ptown and then going back to the office to dump the money in our account. Heidi hooked us up with Marybeth Nixon, reseller and partner for Santander providing merchant services and explained all the fees and I mean the hidden fees.

The paperwork is grinding me to a pulp. I am looking for bicycle stunt videos if anyone has any. It's the last touch we need for the web site. I found one on Steve's facebook. But there was another one he showed me on his phone where the guy was just magnificent. If anyone has some really cool video's please send them to me at info@ptownbikeshack.com.

There is no way to thank Sheila enough. As most of you know I am a pain in the ass when it comes to detail. I was so critical, but her work is so perfect it was impossible not to ask for more. And working with an artist is impossible for a business minded person. They keep creating when you just want to select. It was an amazing experience working with her. As most of you know Sheila is way too polite but she hung in there and gave us beautiful work. I love our sign, the design is more than what I asked for, and so many versions of brochures that we are using on all our advertising. All of the advertising magazines were awfully impressed with her work. We don't have the money to advertise everything she did, it was like being in a candy shop of design. Working with Sheila was just loving.

We hired a mechanic, Jim. We didn't have the money to pay anyone yet and we kept refusing him when he would ask for a job. He came back three times. Steve finally hired him. His energy has been so in sync with us. He is a hard worker and has great ideas which we argue about. He keeps pushing though, very politely. I believe he likes coming to work. I'm happy about that because Steve and I work very hard to be good polite owners.

Thanks to Cally who is delivering all our advertising cards. Thanks to Aidan, Sean and Anthony for being good boys while we work. I have to thank many more people so bare with me. My dear friend Kieran who is so sweet. He can't find enough things to give us. When we need something he has it. He has more things than anyone I know. From hooks to special wood, to tools, drop cloths, ideas, jokes, music, laptop cords….I could go on forever. If it wasn't for him we would never get to meetings. OMG and Rosa at Seamen's bank. She has helped me pay my bills when I'm close to my last dollar in my account. Very polite and treats me very respectfully when I have next to nothing in the account. The helpful folks at Lands End and Conwell. No matter what we need we can always find something in one of those hardware stores. OMG and thank god for the Pilgrim dog park. Our 4 dogs have a decent place to go when we start the day and end the day.

Need I thank Melinda, the Stop & Shop manager and her staff. Allowing us to come in mins before 9pm to get dinner. These guys just want to go home and every night they look at us and laugh. They help cheer us on. Got to thank Staples for all the site plan copies. And who could live without Ebay and Amazon.com. Free delivery is my motto. Thanks to Lowes and Home Depot for being so close in Hyannis. Thanks to Ptown Graphics for printing our advertising cards. Jonathan is a treasure and a great advertising coach. Thanks to Bill Meadows at Ptown Bikes for stopping by and greeting us and inviting us to be on the Safety Bike Map. Thanks to Alex at Arnolds for welcoming us. Thanks to GoDaddy for the domain support. Thanks to A-1 Steel in Hyannis for fabricating our bike racks in a timely manner. Superb service. Great family business. Thanks to Cape Cod Alarm for timely install and coming out to adjust our detectors as we changed the shop around. Great service. OMG how could I forget Jaime White, the electrician. Now anyone knows once the season starts its impossible to get electricians. But Jaime came right away and did a wonderful job. And what a personality he has. Such a nice man. Good sense of humor. Thanks to Verizon who came out and rewired due to some wires getting cut during the landscaping. Same thanks to Comcast. Different day we cut their wires too. Thanks to ULINE for the work bench. Thanks to the employees at the Ptown transfer station. Always in a good mood. Very helpful guys. Thanks to Rodericks for the dumpster at a reasonable cost. Thanks to Pat Shultz Realty (aka Coldwell Banker) for all their printing support until I got my act together to order a printer.

Drive by and look at our beautiful sign made by Cape Cod Design in Hyannis. Really nice guys. Thanks to Peter Donnelly at the Provincetown Magazine. Thanks to Patricia of the Ptown Insider. We wish her good luck. First class advertising. Thanks to Raul Aguilar for his coaching on the bike business. Although we did not end up working together his family focus kept us apart and that is a thing to admire. I stopped drinking coffee but today I had my first expresso frappe from Spiritis. And that is why I am still up so late thanking everyone. This has been an endeavor of love and hard work. It is incredible how many businesses helped us. Thanks to Jeb Santos and Smith Optics, yes we will be selling sharp sunglasses for the riders who care about glare and good looks. Thanks to Mary and Sandcastle Map for her persistence in including us in the bike map. Thanks to Samantha at the taxi service for offering to deliver and pickup bikes. Thanks to John Sheehan my roommate of many years. As I write this he is creating my Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Trip Avisory & Facebook accounts for both THE BIKE SHACK & Mill CityTowing (my other business). Thanks to Maya, Bella, Peanut & Bodie our dogs for being patient for late night meals. And if you read this far you can see I left the best for last. Thanks to my ex, Joann for letting me stay away from our son so much without giving me a hard time. Thanks to my Mom for moving in with me and supporting us.

Thanks to my brother for believing in us. He joined me in November. Why I don't know. We never did any project together, except to survive our parents. We have socialized with our kids, camping, family sleep-overs, helping each other with tough times with our hurts. The way we are working with each other only happens in dreams. They would never make a movie about this, it's too loving. I have always loved and respected my brother but these days have been the most important days of my life. I have never experienced such warmth struggling together hoping this will work for us. I am proud to call him my brother. I love you Stevie. I could die tomorrow because I have had it all. There is nothing more that life could give me after this working experience with my brother. There you have it. Now all we need is a ton of customers.

-Liz