Story by KARLA DOUGAN – Broadcast Staff
Ben’s Bikes is a small shop around the corner from Clarke Central High School dedicated to repairing, refurbishing, and selling bicycles. The shop seeks to support the community by collaborating with local businesses and by promoting a healthier means of transportation in Athens.
“What we try and do is give local people who want to get a bike to try and use their car less,” co-owner Don Young said.
One of the Ben’s Bikes owners’ goals is to reduce toxic emissions in the environment. The store was founded by Ben Stoner-Duncan in 2006 and began as a small shop in the Chase Street Warehouses. The original business catered more towards experienced bicyclists who had a fair amount of background knowledge on bicycles, as opposed to average Athens locals. In 2008, the store was sold to its three current owners Don Young, Amal Stapleton, and Meg Schreiber.
“We got Ben’s Bikes about six years ago. It was a little hole in the wall shop focused on fixed gear bikes and we wanted to make it more of a transportation shop,” Young said.
In Spring of 2009, they moved to their current location on the corner of Broad St. and Pope St. Here, the business was able to grow and work towards further integrating bicycling into the community.
“Basically we look for used bikes a lot of people will trade their bikes in and then we want to fix ‘em up and resell them,” Young said.
A long with refurbishing and selling bicycles, Ben’s Bikes’ provides extensive support for other businesses in Athens. It uses it’s space to host events for local groups in the community including Locally Grown.
“Locally grown is a internet based farmers market that’s from Athens, Ga. I think there are about 2000 members and about 80 farmers–all local farmers– that bring their produce here Thursday afternoon,” Young said.” We set up all the food and then people have pre-ordered this stuff online and they show up. Usually about 400 people on a Thursday will come and pick up their produce,” Young said.
Ben’s Bikes also hosts AthensHasArt which is a promotional organization for local artists.
“Right now I think we have four local artists in residence here in the boarding house next to the shop. So it’s a way for us to support the local art scene through music through visual arts and support the local food scene which we’re very interested in.”
Staff member Brent Gubatan has been part of the Ben’s Bikes staff for over two years and says he has learned much about the community and about bicycles in that time.
“First and foremost I think it mostly has to do with just the joy of working on bicycles and working with people, getting people on bicycles whether or not it may be their first bicycle or they haven’t ridden in a while,” Gubatan said
Young says Ben’s Bikes does not have any intent to expand. The owners’ plan to continue to find ways to support other local businesses and will keep the the shop at a size where they maintain personal interactions with their customers.
“It’s not just a typical model of growing and thriving and really I don’t think that’s thriving so much. It’s just accumulating wealth. For us wealth is community. Wealth is friendship. Wealth is laughter. That’s what we want most,” Young said.
