I bought this lovely, old, used, beat-to-hell green Jamis Durango from a bike shop on Lancaster Avenue in March of 2014. Sometimes I forget how long I’ve had this stupid thing, or the by-now-over-a-thousand-dollars I’ve spent on maintaining it in that six years.
Well, Lancaster Avenue got hit pretty hard when a few opportunists went to the Floyd protests and decided it would be a grand idea to start smashing windows and stealing shit. It’s worth reminding everyone that the rioters and the looters were not the same people as the protesters- in fact, Black Lives Matter organizers are frequently observed to be quelling acts of violence before they begin. We’re finding out now (though many of us suspected from the start) that white supremacist scumbags are actually the ones starting the fires, trying to implicate Black Lives Matter. Weird how people who are anti-police brutality are anti-brutality in general, isn’t it? In fact, once Trump’s not-KGB KGB left Portland, peace returned immediately!
But I digress.
After the fires got put out, I arrived to Wolf Cycles (which was once spelled with two ‘F’s, but at some point they changed it) and I saw this:
It’s looked like this since June.
Today, I was riding home from the library, and I saw the owner and one of the staff outside with a measuring tape, measuring the windows. So I stopped by.
Owner: Don’t get too excited, I don’t think we’re reopening this location.
Me: …ever?
Owner: Doesn’t look that way, no. We lost everything. It’s kind of impressive, really. They took everything when they broke in. It’s completely empty in there. No bikes, no tools, nothing.
Me: Jesus.
Owner: Yeah. And, to be honest, this location wasn’t doing so hot before the pandemic. We were just keeping our heads above the water and… well, when you get a blow like this, it’s pretty much impossible to bounce back.
Me: That’s a crying shame. This community really needed this shop.
Owner: It sucks! This place has been here for… I don’t know, 80-something years? And I know you were one of our regulars.
Me: I was.
Owner: Nothing is official yet, but it’s not looking good.
I can’t tell ya how many times Wolf Cycles has bailed me out from my own stupidity. New parts from a totally preventable crash, or pointing out that my bike’s “quirks” are actually safety hazards, or how much money they’ve saved me by not up-selling me and teaching me tips and tricks on maintaining the bike myself instead of bringing it to them all the time.
Not to mention, I did the math once a couple years ago and spending $100-$200 a year on keeping my bike healthy and strong was about 1/10th of what I would spend on public transit, and just forget about owning a car- that was never really an option for me on my salary.
It’s not a total loss- the owner of Wolf Cycles also owns Firehouse Bikes, which has the same staff and excellent service. But that’s about 2 miles away from Wolf, and with Philly being packed as tightly with people as it is, there’s a big community of folks here who are losing an important and necessary service.