“It’s my job to make sure that when anyone uses a Bicycle Tours of Atlanta bike, there are no mechanical issues.”

You may not ever meet Daniel Wade-Chung when you take a tour with Bicycle Tours of Atlanta, but you will feel his presence every mile of your ride. That’s because it’s his job to make sure your bike is in tip-top working condition for your safety and comfort. This is second nature to him, ever since he got his first quality bike as a young teenager and started to tinker. He called shops for parts. He developed an extraordinary grasp of product knowledge. He ensured his bike was in good condition to ride with friends on the Silver Comet. And he felt motivated to ride his bike to school (inspired by a math teacher who was a cyclist and who let him park his bike in her classroom) in a part of suburban Atlanta where that just didn’t happen.

Next, at Georgia Tech, he joined the Cycling Club but quickly discovered those folks were athletes, which he did not consider himself to be. This did not stop him from making the bicycle his primary mode of transportation. A future stint at Georgia State University’s campus clear across Metro Atlanta in Clarkston had him searching online forums for recommended bike commute routes for safe traveling.

Daniel considered his dream job to be as a bike messenger. Seven years whipping around Downtown Atlanta as a Jimmy John’s bike delivery worker scratched that itch. With enormous rubber-hits-the-road experience, extensive product knowledge, solid wrenching skills, and a year-long detour employed in a bike shop in Tucson, Arizona (where he learned about additional climate-related impacts on bikes), he nabbed a position at Intown Bicycles. Over the next few years, Daniel worked his way up from two hours a week to full-time, and now serves as the service manager. He says, “You can’t really train for this. You have to have your head in it.” Or, as is clear from the consistently thorough work Daniel does, his heart.