City centre to get a 'proper' bike shop (From The Oxford Times)

City centre to get a 'proper' bike shop

12:00pm Friday 3rd September 2010 in

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CYCLE businessman Stuart Meanwell is poised to realise a 20-year dream of opening a large bike shop in the historic heart of Oxford.

Mr Meanwell, owner of Bike Zone in Market Street, also runs Summertown Cycles. Now he is converting the former Maltby Bookbinders in St Michael’s Street, including an upstairs showroom and coffee bar.

He said: “It has been an ambition of mine to set up a decent-size bike shop in the centre of Oxford and I have been looking for 20 years for premises.”

Mr Meanwell was a co-founder of Beeline Bicycles in Cowley Road in the 1980s with the late Clive Tulip, and later took over the former Broadribbs cycle shop in Market Street, renaming it Bike Zone.

He said: “That bike shop is too small to sell bikes from, but it is difficult to find premises in Oxford because of the rents.

“We pay twice as much per square foot as the main bike shop in Cambridge. Oxford rents are second only to the West End (of London) and all the bike shops have to go to Cowley Road.”

He is investing £200,000 in converting the historic bookbinders, which bound countless Oxford theses for almost 200 years before moving two years ago to a new factory on the Horspath trading estate in Cowley, opposite the BMW factory.

Maltby’s also restores books for collectors and libraries, including Oxford’s colleges, the Ashmolean, the Natural History Museum and Blackwell’s.

Mr Meanwell said: “We started negotiating in March 2009, and because it is a listed building it has taken us a long time.”

He said the work involved moving a spiral staircase and installing a ramp to wheel bikes to the upstairs showroom.

Oxford City Centre had several thriving cycle shops until the 1970s, including the historic Dentons.

Two new bike shops have recently opened in North Oxford – Bainton Bikes, run by Kevin Moreland and Honour Tomkinson, and Walton Street Cycles.

Six years ago, Mr Meanwell took over Summertown Garden Centre, selling bikes alongside plants for two years before transforming the whole premises into Summertown Cycles.

He hopes to take on two more staff for the opening of the enlarged Bike Zone on November 27.