Does everyone have an underused bicycle in dire need of a tune up collecting dust in their basement? You may not, but I certainly do. Nonetheless, my bike remains broken and unused, and my excuses for not getting it fixed continue to pile up.
However, my inability to take the necessary steps to fix my own bike doesn’t mean there aren’t options available around Madison. Local, affordable and convenient bike repair shops don’t need to be a hassle — in fact, there may be one just down your street.
Curbside Bicycles is a fully mobile pop-up bike repair shop founded in Madison that brings same day tune-ups to your neighborhood.
When Curbside’s founder, Ian Oestreich, found himself unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he began doing bike repair house calls. Being outside was a welcome escape from home offices and social bubbles during the pandemic, and Oestreich saw an opportunity to meet the needs of hundreds of people flocking outdoors.
And with bike shops taking weeks for tune ups, the idea for Curbside Bicycles was born.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I'll just do a pop-up for the neighborhood that way everyone can bring their bikes and they can get their bikes done that day,’ and it was a huge hit,” Oestreich said. “Basically, wherever people post ‘I would like to borrow a cup of sugar,’ or ‘I lost my dog,’ we say, “Hey, we’re doing bike repair.’”
Oestreich, a University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus and 10-year Madison resident, said he understands the importance of biking infrastructure to the campus and the greater Madison area.
“The neighborhoods kind of know me at this point. I’m the friendly neighborhood bike mechanic but for many different neighborhoods,” Oestrich said. “Madison, by virtue of being, [is just an] everyone-wants-to-lend-the-other-person-a-cup-of-sugar type of town.”
Walking and bussing are options for UW-Madison students. But with cold winters and the city bus system’s redesign challenges, biking cements its spot as a top transportation option for students.
Madison ranks as one of the top five bike-friendly cities in the nation with over 200 miles of bike paths, according to the League of American Bicyclists. Curbside’s goal is to make biking affordable, convenient and accessible to those “who can't afford timewise to leave their bike [in a] shop for three weeks when they commute on it every single day,” said Oestreich.
Curbside, now operating in three main locations, continues to grow in popularity, with pop-ups appearing across the country in places like Chicago and Arizona. But expansion to new cities doesn’t come without challenges, Oestreich said.
Madison and Chicago, similarly, are both neighborhood centric, with pop-ups happening in communities who have established identities. Whereas Arizona is “not neighborhoods, because everyone is snowbirds [who] all flocked down there. There’s not a good sense of community, so it was hard for me to crack that nut. But what I do is I partner with all of the master-condo associations,” said Oestreich.
Curbside is in its fourth year of business and, according to Oestreich, they’re expected to do 1,500 tune ups this year. Oestrich hopes to continue expanding his company while keeping up with bandwidth in already successful neighborhoods. His next step is a Twin Cities branch, with potential talks of franchising as Oestreich plans a strong future vision for Curbside.
Whether you’re a routine biker, a newcomer or just unsure of what to do about that broken bike in your basement that won’t fix itself, then you’ve stumbled into the right place. Oestreich and his Curbside team are your friendly neighborhood bike experts who care about you and your bike’s general health and safety, he said.
So, grab that bike from wherever you store your broken household items (we all have that one room) and find a Curbside Bicycles pop-up shop near you. I might even see you there.
