I enjoy riding a bike. Road bicycles are my favorite, but I also enjoy gravel bikes. You can keep your mountain bike, but if it rolls on two tires, I’m typically a fan.
Bicycles are interesting. Bikes can be traced the entire way back to 1817 Germany. Along the way they’ve been called velocipede’s, running machines, and even ‘boneshakers’ before an Englishman named Kemp Starley, in 1885, built the bicycle you think about today with two equal sized wheels and a chain drive connected to the pedals.
Since 1885 we’ve continued to evolve the bicycle and to this day one common trait among cyclists is that they love to upgrade their equipment. At its most basic level a bike is two wheels, a frameset, pedals, and a drivetrain. You wouldn’t believe the combinations and varying degrees of equipment you can change out in those four basic parts.
Even when you have a very nice bike, the desire to upgrade and add components to your machine is present. How would my bike do with Ultegra instead of 105? Can you imagine how much faster I could ride if I had the Zipp 404 firecrest wheelset? Should I get a carbon fiber frameset?
Before I lose you to bicycle nerd talk, let me tell you that joining Baird for the Mancino Utz Group is analogous to a very nice bike upgrading to a new bike. Hefren-Tillotson had a very nice frame, good tires, and a drivechain that took clients down the road to pursue their goals and objectives. Baird adds to that bike.
They add a trust department with 17 billion dollars in client assets as of December 31st, 2021. That trust department has been running trust services since 1984 and can now serve as corporate trustee and even as executor for our clients. We never had that part of the bike before. They add a business owner solutions group that can steer our business owner clients to heightened business levels or successful sales of their business should they desire to go down that road. They add multiple areas of research and trading capabilities. They add many more components than those, but the basis of the machine remains the same: The tires (integrity), the chain (honesty), the pedals (community), and most important the frame (client-focused). Those critical pieces of the bike will continue to help our clients reach their destination.
If you need help riding to your destination, we're happy to show you how our bike works.