diff --git a/bin/switchtower b/bin/switchtower
index c724670f..9a4f3001 100755
--- a/bin/switchtower
+++ b/bin/switchtower
@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env ruby
 
+begin
+  require 'rubygems'
+rescue LoadError
+  # no rubygems to load, so we fail silently
+end
+
 require 'switchtower/cli'
 
 SwitchTower::CLI.execute!