After seven years in business and three different addresses, the owners of Belfast’s only full-service bike shop have purchased its building, a former service station that it has rented for the past two years.
CG Bikes, which sells new and used bikes and offers rentals and repairs, has weathered considerable upheaval since it opened in June 2019 — the COVID-19 pandemic, tariffs and the rise of e-bikes, to name a few.
The move comes as Belfast works toward making the city safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Owning the building takes one variable off the table and will help keep the business sustainable, shop owner Chris Gardner said.
“Now our rent payments start going toward something we can build on,” he said. “It gives us security as far as knowing that we’re not going to have to worry if the building is going to be sold or our rent payments are going to change.”
Belfast adopted an active transportation plan just over a year ago that calls for more sidewalks and bike lanes and building safer routes to schools, and is applying for a technical assistance program that will help it implement the plan.
The city is also putting out a request for proposals for engineering services for a $2 million project that will improve bike and pedestrian infrastructure on portions of Congress and Salmond Streets and applying for a grant to help fund the design of a project on Swan Lake Avenue.
But concerns remain about the pace of these projects and whether projects closer to the downtown have been prioritized over those in central, and often less affluent, areas.
Gardner shares these concerns, saying that while the city is “headed in the right direction” with its bike and pedestrian infrastructure improvements, it needs to do more in areas like East Belfast and Back Belmont Road.
“We’d really like to have safe passageways from all parts of the city,” he said.
Over the years, Gardner has seen cycling become more popular in Belfast. The city has all kinds of cyclists, he said. Some are dedicated road and mountain bikers. But most are “really casual” and use their bikes to get around town. The popularity of e-bikes has soared over the last five or so years, he said.
The more Belfast does to make cycling safer, the more people will use their bikes, Gardner said.
“It is the definition of a ‘if you build it they will come’ kind of thing,” he said. “If you have safe places to ride people are going to enjoy riding.”
That will be good for business. But the benefits are much broader than that, Gardner said.
“It’s better for people’s own personal economies, it’s better for their health, it’s better for the environment.”
CG Bikes shop first opened in the basement of the United Farmers Market before sharing a space with Downshift Coffee. It moved to its current location, 34 Northport Ave., about two years ago.
Gardner and his wife bought the shop for $375,000 in August, public documents show. The shop has access to quiet streets and is close to the rail trail so people can test ride bikes, Gardner said.
Gardner plans to increase the shop’s capacity to service e-bikes but doesn’t anticipate making any major changes to the building, which was an auto service station for decades.
“We still hear it called Blood’s Garage, but hopefully one day it’ll become CG Bikes,” Gardner said.