The HUB Bike Culture owners Jesse Bushnell and Jack Madden say their plan was always to make bicycles the main attraction at their East Side shop. It just took a little while to get there.
When they opened in 2004, they faced a market hurt by the likes of Wal-Mart and Internet retailers. So initially, to try to attract a wider customer base, they put some vintage furniture in the front of the Brook Street store.
But customers who went deeper inside would find the maintenance station, new and used bicycles and accessories, and the owners’ personal collection of bikes, some dating back to the 1800s.
Bushnell and Madden, both avid bike lovers, cyclists and veterans of the industry, had run the testing room for research and development at Woonsocket-based Pro-Flex, which introduced full-suspension mountain bikes in 1990 before being bought by K2 in 1993.
At that time they lived together and “always talked about how bike shops should be,” Bushnell said.
Madden said he and Bushnell wanted to open a bike shop that focused on service, much like the shops that existed before the Internet and big-box stores came to dominate bike sales. Service, they felt, had been lost as small, independent bike shops were pushed out of business.
“A person can watch us work on their bike,” Bushnell said. “That’s our selling point on the shop. … It doesn’t make more money, but it lets the customer be involved.”
The owners explain the work they do to the bikes, which Bushnell said he believes builds a sense of loyalty between the customer and the shop.
“They want us to exist,” he said.
“Cyclists are a solitary people,” Madden added. “We offer them a comfortable place where people think like them.”
The service side is the educational component, and one that has greatly contributed to the success of the shop.
As the owners built loyalty among their customer base, they also began selling more bikes. As they could proved themselves, they began picking up vendors such as Fuji, KHS, Independent Fabrications and Surly.
The vintage furniture business is now a separate store in The Grant, in downtown Pawtucket, so the HUB can now focus on bicycles. It sells mostly new bikes, pedals, wheels, shoes, bags and other parts and accessories.
The shop has from 50 to 75 new bikes in stock at any given time, most of them priced from $240 to $2,400 – though the Independent Fabrications bicycles can range from $3,000 to $10,000. Most of the bikes the HUB sells are road-oriented, though the shop will help each customer find a bike to suit his or her needs, Madden said.
While the shop’s biggest source of revenue is bike and accessories sales, maintenance is still a big component.
“It’s like being a dealership,” Madden said. “You have to show [bike manufacturers] that you can sell the bikes and service the bikes.” Along with the owners, the HUB now has hired a full-time maintenance/repair technician.
Since the store opened, gross revenue has nearly quadrupled, from $70,000 in the first year to $260,000 last year, Madden said. Part of it has to do with a cyclist population that is “definitely growing,” he said – perhaps due to more young people staying here after they graduate from college, and young professionals moving to the West Side of Providence, which is close enough to downtown for them to bike to work.
The HUB has built a loyal customer base, mostly by word of mouth, but it also gets a steady stream of new customers from the colleges. In addition, HUB has been able to capitalize on the growth in the bicycle courier business, Bushnell said. More people are asking for the single-speed bikes.
“There aren’t a lot of shops that have a lot of that business,” he said.
But if the city wants to support cycling, Madden said, it urgently needs to repair the streets and provide bike lanes and signage to protect cyclists. “This is a make or break time,” he said. “If the proof isn’t in the pudding, they are going to find a new city.”
Being in a market where many people buy cheap bikes at department stores also creates challenges for the HUB when customers come in for repairs, Bushnell said. Those types of bikes are like toys, he said. They aren’t built well, so they can take three or four times the time it takes to repair other bikes.
“It’s hard trying to explain that without sounding elitist,” he said. “We charge by the hour. It might cost $80 to fix an $80 bike.”
Company profile: The Hub Bike Culture
OWNERS: Jesse Bushnell and Jack Madden
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Bicycle seller and repair/maintenance shop
LOCATION: 181 Brook St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 3 (including owners)
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2004
ANNUAL SALES: $260,000 in 2006
