Fairmount Bicycles, a queer-owned bike shop focused on social justice through their programs and partnerships, began when its owner, Shelly Walker, rode from her home in West Philadelphia to Kensington. Before she arrived at the warehouse where she and a friend sold bicycles, she took in the sights of dense, vibrant Fairmount and wondered where the neighborhood’s bike shop was. This curiosity eventually drove her to make Fairmount Bicycles a reality.
Walker’s path to owning a bike shop wasn’t straightforward. She grew up in South Florida and Chester County and originally came to Temple University as a marketing major. She made it through orientation before realizing marketing just wasn’t for her and switching her major to film. After college, her interest in bikes developed from a friend and roommate who not only enjoyed riding them, but also had a side business where they would buy bikes at yard sales, fix them up, and sell them on Craigslist.
“They would sell enough bikes to make beer money and rent money and then stop selling,” Walker said. “So sometimes they might work really hard the first six days of the month and then be done for the month. And I was at some point like ‘why not do that on a bigger scale?’”
She added that her friend’s only objection was the idea of dealing with customers, so Walker handled the communications side of the business while her friend taught her how to fix up bikes.
After deciding to open up a bike shop in Fairmount, Walker had a friend tell her about entrepreneurship programs like Entrepreneur Works, a local nonprofit that “creates pathways of opportunity for talented yet underserved entrepreneurs” where Walker completed a 10-week course.
The lessons were introductory, which helped her not get overwhelmed, and she complimented her instructor, Earl Boyd, for being a talented teacher. She especially appreciated how he taught about the more emotional side of business.
“It stuck with me that he kind of acknowledged that just because you decide to close a business does not mean it failed,” Walker said. “You can just decide you don’t want to do something anymore, and that’s good enough, and you don’t have to feel like a failure. So I think part of what he tries to do is kind of convince you, or help you realize that you’re taking a risk and that’s okay, and just because you’re taking a risk doesn’t mean you have to stick with it if it turns out it’s not what you want to be doing. And I think that gave a lot of us a lot of confidence to move forward with our ideas.”
Fairmount Bicycles has now been operating for 15 years and boasts community-centric programs in addition to standard bike shop services. Before even stepping into the store, one can see a program in action: the community fridge.
During the beginning of the pandemic, Walker noticed community fridges popping up around the city and contacted Dr. Michelle Nelson, founder of the Mama Tee Community Fridge Project, to get one near the store.
“I feel like this neighborhood is kind of a convergence of every kind of socioeconomic and racial background,” Walker said. “And I think that is the type of neighborhood that makes for a good community fridge space, because you have enough people that have excess, and you have enough people that need food. So it really has worked out.”
She added that they launched use of the fridge on Earth Day in April 2021 and that it is in constant use.
Inside the store, they offer bike services including tuneups, brake adjustments, flat fixes and assembly. While paying at the register customers can also add money into the community card/fund. Walker explained that the community card was the brainchild of a former employee and helps those in need cover the cost of repairs to their bikes.
“We have such a wide range of customers,” she said, “and bikes are one of those things where, you know, you can have a bike that’s just like a fun toy you play with on the weekends, or it is your mode of transportation. It’s the way you get around the city. It’s the vehicle you use for your job, you know, maybe your delivery, courier. There’s so many people that use bikes, and we see the lot of them, you know, we see the wide range.”
Before the community card, Walker explained, if someone didn’t have enough money for repairs the shop would just discount the repair to how much the person did have. This meant a $15 flat fix might have only be done for $3. The method wasn’t, however, a sustainable option for the business.
Now with community card, the services are still discounted to accommodate people’s needs, but some of the money is covered by the community fund. Walker explained that they do it this way to help the fund last longer. The community card is offered to those on EBT.
Another way the store helps more people in the community access bikes is the Lil Chipmunk Club. The Lil Chipmunk Club is something that Walker said she had been daydreaming about creating since the shop opened, but having a kid of her own pushed her to launch it.
“There are two things,” she explained. “One, there are all these amazing kid bike brands out there now, but the bikes are quite expensive and therefore inaccessible to a lot of families. The other thing is because of that, even your average kid bike is still a good chunk of change. So what parents often do, caregivers and parents, is that they try and get a bike that’s going to, quote, unquote, “last a while”. But what that ultimately means is that you’re putting your kid on a bike that either doesn’t fit now or won’t fit later.”
The Lil Chipmunk Club was created to help people keep their kids on bikes that fit while not having to drop $300 to $600 on a new one every time their child grows. The current membership price is a refundable deposit of $150 with a monthly fee of $19. With the membership people can check out bikes, bringing them back and exchange them when their child outgrows the old one. If the child stays with one bike for a year, they get a complimentary tuneup.
In addition to these programs Fairmount Bicycles has also done community partnerships with organizations like the Bread & Roses Community Fund and The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.
They have also started to offer bike tours, collaborating on one last year about LGBTQIA+ history with Beyond the Bell Tours, a queer owned tour company. Another of their other offered tours is Murals, Manayunk, and More, created in collaboration with Mural Arts.
This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.