A Short History

In May 2001 Brixton Cycles re-located to a new shop right slap bang next to Stockwell Skatepark (Brixton Beach to the locals) and at the same time took the opportunity to expand our range of skateboards and accessories. For a few years we had sold a limited range of longboards to a select few in an almost "under the counter" sort of way. In the last years this range has increased ten fold as new products have come on the market or become available in Britain for the first time. We also sell modern "short" boards, slalom boards, "old skool" boards, wheels, trucks and every thing else associated with skateboarding hardware, anyway don't come to us looking for baggy jeans and Slipknot hoodys! Our aim is to only sell high quality, proven products and give good customer service in the same vein as we have sold bicycles for the last twenty years. So call by and have a look, come ride the park and see the finest range of longboards in old London town.

Stockwell Skatepark (Brixton Beach)
Built sometime in 1978 to no particular design! Hips, bumps, bowls, moguls perfect for longboards. Warning: this place gets real busy especially during school holidays. Mornings are best if you want a lot of room for that 57" board. www.stockwellskatepark.com for views of the park and plans for the future. Currently being resurfaced in all weathers by the motley crew, we'll stick a notice up on the front page when it finally gets finished.

Early Daze

Once upon a time (1982 to be exact) there were three little boys who we shall call Tim, Tom and Paul, which happens to be their real names as well. Being keen cyclists they were on a ride with a few chums going from Land's End to John O'Groats (does anyone ever go the other way?). On such a long ride they had plenty of time to talk and think and moan about the quality of bike shops at that time, they either catered for road racers and wouldn't take anyone seriously unless they shaved their legs and could do a "10" in under 20 minutes (having now talked to people who shaved their legs in 1982 they say they weren't taken seriously either) or the shop sold kids bikes as a side line from lawnmowers. So our heroes decided in a fit of alcohol fuelled brilliance to set up their own bike shop to cater for the kind of people who were more inclined to shave their heads rather than their legs or who wanted to ride a bike as a serious transport alternative or just for fun.

Now remember kids this was the early 1980's, Britain was in the grips of recession, the Evil Ice Queen had just been re-elected on the Falklands war ticket, the inner cities had seen rioting and things were looking grim all round. Fortunately, London was run by Red Ken and his bunch of merry men (the GLC, ask your parents kids) and grants were available for people starting co-ops. Brixton had seen the worst of the rioting of 1981 and (especially Coldharbour Lane) was pretty run down, so it's fitting that it was here that our three friends decided to open shop. After much deliberation and beer they came up with the snappy name of Brixton Cycles for their venture. And so in January 1983 Brixton Cycles opened for business.

As I mentioned before these were lean times and Coldharbour Lane could sometimes be an "interesting" place to be, so those first years were fairly lean for the lads, wages were low, but there were plenty of friends willing to lend a hand (you know who you are - nuff respek due) and an abundance of squats in Lambeth kept the shop in business. There was also a renewed interest in cycling brought about by a more green attitude to life (it was called ecology then but hey it's all good) and soon BC got a reputation for being an honest shop with an excellent workshop that would take on work that other bike shops wouldn't touch. A mobile repair service on large bike rides such as the London to Brighton furthered this reputation and soon Tom, Tim and Paul now joined by Nancy were looking after the needs of some of London's more esoteric cyclists.

The Yanks are Coming

The arrival of the mountain bike from California in the mid 80's gave the English bicycle trade an almighty kick up the arse (that's ass for our American readers). The old skool hated it - the tyres were too fat, it didn't have proper handlebars and they just didn't understand it - the media embraced it and Thatcher's children wanted them. A few forward-thinking shops welcomed them with open arms realising that although we don't have an abundance of mountains in this country the mountain bike made a fine urban vehicle or touring cycle for escaping our increasingly crowded roads.

The new breed of cycle couriers in London adapted the Californian machines into urban assault vehicles, again loved by the media. Suddenly it was trendy to wear cycling clothes and the old skool shops had to get used to people buying Look tops to go to a rave in rather than a time trial (the M25 at 2.30 or A22 at 6.30 you took your pick). Meanwhile back in Coldharbour Lane, the shop, whilst not really flourishing, was ticking along very nicely. It employed at this time numerous local people (again you know who you are - big up yourselves) to try and satisfy demand for an increasingly large London cycling population. Melo started work as Saturday girl at age 16 at this time and after a small break (running away to sea would have been glamorous, but it was actually an error of an educational detour on a bleak fen) is here still.

The Next Generation

By the end of the 80's the strain of running a bike shop had taken its toll on our eponymous heroes. Tim had left to pursue a career in journalism, Tom had gone to Nicaragua to work with Bikes Not Bombs and Nancy was about to move to Scotland to have a baby and set up New Cyclist magazine. This left Paul on his own with a staff of part timers more often than not working for bike parts than money and a co-op to run. Mog was working part time in the workshop and wanted to leave his other job as a cycle courier so joined as a full member.

Another Episode - Different Singer, Same Song

April fools day 1991 saw our young social entrepreneurs fling caution to the impending recession and move into an enormous shop next door. 435/437 Coldharbour Lane was a rundown clothing shop specializing in extra large Y fronts and slips that could have easily be mistaken for WMD in a different century.
Our cycle tribe expanded with the premises and for a few years the staff seemed to consist of a number of Aussies sporting dreadful hairstyles (photographic evidence exists of a current worker with what can only be described as a mullet).
The dawn of the nineties saw Black Wednesday, the collapse of house prices and the City shedding staff. This effected all types of businesses in all areas. B.C had weathered a few boom/bust cycles but this one bit hard. Wage cuts and some new imaginative services (including the birth of our ‘on the spot’ service, which continues to grow in popularity) meant we survived older and wiser even with the move and much-increased overheads.
Cycling had now moved up the social/political agenda. Hacks from print radio and TV seemed to beat a path to our door seeking comments on anything from traffic congestion to the budget. This raised our profile yet we tried not to feed the hunger of some just to report on the conflict between road-users that still rattles through the letters page in many papers. Although at the time supporting the local Green party with an office above the shop, politically the co-op contains as much diversity as the community it serves. Critical Mass and Reclaim the Streets were now recognizable ideals/organizations that regularly made the evening news, promoting a less car dependant future. European Car free day saw its debut in Lambeth on Coldharbour Lane on 22ndSeptember 2001, welcomed by the more enlightened Brixton businesses and creating a carnival of bipeds and their various velocipedes.
Back to the early ‘90s - with the unexpected aid/disruption of strikes on the train and tube, London’s arteries saw a renaissance in bike use. The uninitiated wobbled along in the gutter whilst the old hands slalomed the gridlock, others over indulging in a new found righteousness that frustrated pedestrians saw as the “lycra Lout”.
Meanwhile there formed an enviable symbiotic relationship between the Coldharbour Lane businesses, you drop your bike off for repair, browse at the Bookmongers, have a coffee in the Phoenix, a haircut at Twin Barbers and maybe a pint in Pats across the street? A dozen years spent living and working on Coldharbour Lane has given us some of the best friendships and memories, and as the Brixton character changes its hard not to feel nostalgia for the “old days.” The pubs that used to resound to the clack of dominos, informal clubs that were run by and for residents, have given way to uber-bars and fast food that invite the pill-eyed to stagger the “golden mile”. From an area stereotyped by the media to be as dangerous as riding a bike in London, Brixton saw its housing market explode. The very people who had invested in a better Brixton were unceremoniously booted out. What had been undesirable to others had suddenly become unaffordable to those who lived and worked in the area. Access to fair rent and social housing is a major consideration to those who’d wish to be a part of Brixton Cycles.
The cycle trade was also changing, mountain bikes were loosing their social cache and manufacturers were waking up to cycling as transport, as well as adventure and health. “The Hybrid”, a marketing term for a roadster, started a meteoric rise at the expense of mid-range mountain bikes. Fads evolved and what were niche markets became mainstream; suspension systems, internal hubgears, recumbents, hydraulic brakes, exotic materials used in frames and components, a long list encompassing what now is standard and what has fallen on the wayside. We, as you can imagine, had our fingers in many cycling pies, some tasty others not.
The Beastway race series, a grass roots mountain bike race, we sponsor in the East End has gone from strength to strength, 10 years of cheerful competition. We’ve supported a plethora of charitable events and organizations and hope for great things in our new neighbourhood. Back in the days of Coldharbour Lane we introduced some ideas that are an anathema to many bike shops. We started allowing customers to bring their bikes in (shocking), lent tools (outrageous), and treated children as customers (you what?). With every passing year the co-op ethos has become clearer and dearer to us, there is little staff turnover as the simple democracy of our system makes a boss a very unattractive proposition.

Today, in our new shop (you might get that story too one day)

There are nine of us at the moment, though numbers have fluctuated through the years. No original members are left, but Barnaby, Lincoln, and Mog are the longest survivors with over forty years experience between them. Kath and Simon were the next generation, then Billy and John, and now we've been joined by Nidge, Tapan, George and Ross.

Our Store!!