The story of how Matt became Fist Pump.

As a lot of you know, we have lost an employee, friend, confidant, and shop pervert. He has left to pursue walking behind a horse's ass. In other words, Matt has left us to become a farmer, one of low technology,  plowing the earth the organic way, with a giant Belgian draft horse. 
Matthew Cittadini started spewing his New Hampshire- wannabe-Boston-hick Italian accent at Metropolis in 2009. At the time Matt worked all day on his Schwinn Moab hauling soup around to smug Portlanders, and interning at the shop on his down time. The summer after, Matt was hired as a full time mechanic and part time pizza snob.
   That summer local distributor Cyclone Bicycle Supply in conjunction with the BTA, introduced "Bike Industry Night", a gathering of bikey people to mingle and network. I'm pretty sure they only had three of these events, mainly because they had not realized the mayhem that free booze and a gaggle of surly bike mechanics could create. One of the events was held just up the street at Vendetta. Being our first time, we did not know what to expect. We arrived and were given 3 vouchers to redeem for food or drink. We of course opted for drink. Our three tickets were swiftly converted into alcohol and consumed, and being cheap skates, we didn't want to pay for more. Fortunately for us, we met a gentleman from City Bikes who was an expert at finagling more tickets from the Cyclone crew, mostly by begging until they yielded just to get rid of him. We all got wasted. In the course of getting sauced, we started a  table shuffleboard competition. The shops involved  were Sunset Cycles, City Bikes, Metropolis, Next Adventure, and one of the Bike Galleries.

Its hard to explain how extreme and without limits this competition was. Matt and I wanted the bragging rights to this so bad we could taste it. It finally came down to 2 final rounds between us and the crew from City Bikes. The competition was close, it looked like City Bikes was sure to win the second round. But there was no way we were going to lose the game, in our hood, to a bunch of Southeast hippie co-op types. Matt was up, it was the last slide of the game, and it was all on him to take us to victory. It looked impossible. Matt had to slide his puck past 3 of their stones in order to  let it rest at the very edge of the table. Everything changed to  slow motion as he did exactly what needed to be done to make us the undisputed winners of the night. As the puck came to rest, my eyes met Matt's, and he could tell by my face that we had won. Matt started jumping up and down, flailing his arms violently, and pumping his fists. I think it was the 3rd pump when sparks and fireworks went flying everywhere from a Pilsner-Urquell neon sign hung on the wall above Matt's head. His joy instantly turned to sheer terror. His face looked up as if he had just seen death, and he attempted to catch a million little glass pieces flying through the air. The entire bar's lights went out. Complete silence followed. Then like an intercom, the bartender yelled "That's what you get, that's what you get when you fucking fist pump". Matt quickly responded, "You can't make me pay, I don't have a tab". He quickly left for the night. And this is the story of how Matt became known as Fist Pump.

  But on a serious note, and Matt and his lady friend are relocating to Eastern Oregon near Baker City to embark on an 11 month internship where they will learn to work with and train draft horses. Matt is a good mechanic and a good friend, and we will miss him!