Breaking Bike News - Lit Fuse Cyclery

So along with the hipsters to northern Bed-Stuy, comes new bars, organic food in the bodegas, lost pets, and hurray! a badly needed bike shop. We actually passed this place during the winter months and I meant to check it out, then promptly forgot about it - seeing as it was too cold for me to bike with my kid, and then with the coming of spring my raging hayfever made biking unbearable. But now - the weather has warmed up, the tree pollen is settling and this afternoon Little Joe and I had a wonderful bike ride over to Sahadi's on Atlantic for their scrumptious and cheap spanokopita. On the way back I saw that Lit Fuse Cyclery (LFC) had a sandwich board on the sidewalk and decided it was time to check the place out. Unfortunately my son had fallen asleep in the bike seat and it's nearly impossible to me to carry him up the bike shop's stairs in the bike - nor could I leave him outside Danish style. So I'm back to my usual mode of research - the internet.

According to the blog at Portland Design Works, Damian, the owner of LFC, is a former Portland bike messenger. But even more personal details and photos of the bike shop's genesis is on Lit Fuse Cyclery's blog, aside from learning that Damian (who's white) and his lady (who looks Asian) just had a baby boy, there was this intriguing bit of history:

Abandoned chicken down-feather plant in Clinton Hill. 4 story red-brick warehouse building at 409 willoughby avenue. Mortar is turning to dust from age and abuse inside and out. Floors of massive timbers hewn from the 19th century old-growth forests of New England. These ancient forests nurtured strong and long-lasting timbers that are the back-bone of the building. Years of abuse and neglect turned this noble down feather sanitizing factory into a dangerously dusty, filthy, rat-infested, mess with dead pipes covering the ceiling; covered in feather dust and chicken lice exoskeletons and rat fecal chloroform dust. The basement was like something out of Saw with the exception that the saw movie sets were much cleaner and didn't have the sheer volume of dusty trash. In the real world when old factories are abandoned they sell the valuable heavy machinery and replace them with their trash.

All the drain pipes leaked into the basement, there is still a swamp there after we fixed most of the leaks in the plumbing. But the amazing thing was when we started to remove the garbage. It kicked up a feather/dust storm. It was like a blizzard with muddy rivers in the basement. We took several tons of metals to the scrap yard and over 90 cubic yards of dust heavy garbage. Those dumpsters aren't cheap so we squeezed every last drop out of each cubic yard.(read more...)

Also on their blog is this photo of the interior of the shop.

I have to say I was irked that they identified themselves as being located in neighbouring Clinton Hill, when they're officially in Bed-Stuy but as the borders do get re-mapped over the years - I'll forgive them that glaring error. Reviewers on Yelp.com give LFC five stars. And if being started by a Portland bike messenger isn't hipsterish enough for you, according to last.fm, there's to be a benefit BBQ at LFC on July 4th with the following hipster bands: Japanther, The Death Set, Ninjasonik, Muhammad Ali, Ghost Mall and DJ EphYou. Which of course means, they certainly won't need my endorsement with the hipster bike geeks that will be swarming the place come summer. However, I'm endorsing them all the same, even though we'll still probably keep going to our favourite bike mechanic in Bushwick (you wouldn't switch from your favourite doctor just because another one started a practice in your hood, now would you?). Welcome to the neighbourhood and congrats on your new baby.

Lit Fuse Cyclery
409 Willoughby Ave (between Spencer and Walworth)
Brooklyn, NY 11205
Tel: (347) 442-1672
Hours: Sunday-Friday 11-7
Saturday 12-8
www.litfusecyclery.com

A new bike shop, more bike lanes, what next will be coming to our hood? Radical bike locks at the train station? Check out the ones we saw during our last trip to Albuquerque, NM.

I'm not quite sure how these babies work, but they look damn secure.

*Lexie from Living in The Stuy just reminded me about Fulton Bikes for cyclists in need on the southern end of Bed-Stuy:

Fulton Bicycles
1580 Fulton St (at Marcus Garvey Blvd)
Brooklyn, NY 11213
Tel: (718) 778-2887