HOLLYWOOD — The repair stand at the back of a narrow bike shop near Sunset has not sat empty since February, and the owner says that is the good news and the headache in one.
“Every hook on that wall is spoken for. We’re booking tune-ups a week out, which never happened in March before,” said Della Marchetti, 54, who has run the shop for nineteen years. “I’m glad for it. I also can’t clone myself, and I can’t pay a second mechanic what the good ones make across town.”
Marchetti counts several reasons for the crowd. A mild, dry winter sent people back outdoors early. Others are pulling long-neglected bikes out of garages, hoping to swap a few short car trips for a ride. And a steady handful, she says, are first-timers who have decided the neighborhood is finally worth pedaling through.
One of them is Marcus Adeyinka, 31, who works at a post-production house nearby and bought a commuter bike in February after years of circling for parking. “I did the math on what I was spending to leave my car in a lot all day,” he said, wheeling the bike out for its first adjustment. “It paid for itself before spring. I just want somewhere safe to ride it.”
That last part is where Marchetti’s optimism thins. Cyclists have spent the season talking about a city proposal to add protected bike lanes along a stretch of Vine Street, and customers keep asking her whether it will really happen. She tells them the truth as she sees it, which is that she has heard promises like it before.
“I’ve watched a couple of these come and go,” she said. “A striped lane that dead-ends at the worst corner. A plan that got drawn up and then quietly shelved. I’ll believe a protected lane when I’m standing on it. Until then I sell lights and I tell people to ride like they’re invisible, because on most of these streets they are.”
The shop’s margins are as thin as ever. Electric bikes make up a growing share of sales, and they are heavier, pricier and more complicated to fix, which means specialized parts sitting on the shelf and more training for whoever is turning the wrenches. Marchetti has resisted the pull toward selling only the expensive models, partly out of stubbornness and partly because she remembers being a kid who could afford only the cheapest thing in the window.
She has hired one part-timer for the season, a college student who grew up patching flats for the neighborhood, and she is teaching him the parts of the trade that never made it into a manual. On a recent afternoon the two of them worked side by side, a dozen bikes deep in the queue, the bell over the door going off every few minutes.
Asked whether the rush would hold once summer heat set in, Marchetti wiped her hands and looked at the full rack behind her. “Ask me in August,” she said. “Spring always loves a bicycle. It’s July that tells you who meant it.”