ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- “Bikes are freedom.”
John Hill leans against a bicycle in various stages of disassembly and cleans his hands on a rag. The bike is locked into a stand, inside the cramped confines of Tony’s Bike Shop in St. Pete’s Grand Central District.
Hill has been mostly working repair jobs at the shop, opened by Tony Tolluh in July 2017.
What You Need To Know
- Cycling has become extremely popular during the pandemic
- Some shops are selling out of new bikes
- Cycling has actually been safer in Tampa Bay during the shutdown
“I could work 15 hours a day here wrenching bikes, every day,” he says. “When they closed down the gyms, everybody wanted to bring their bikes in to get tuned up.”
Tony’s does a brisk business in new and used bicycle sales, as well—usually. These days, there’s not a whole lot of business to be done, simply because there aren’t a whole lot of bikes to sell.
“People had bikes in their garages they forgot about, bikes in their sheds,” says Hill. ”They realized they’d been cooped up inside with their kids and this and that and they needed to have a way to get outside."
“But a bike that you ride every day versus a bike that you’ve kept in a shed for years, well…” He shrugs. “And then people started buying bikes. I got calls every day, ‘Hey, you got a hundred-dollar bike?’ And all those bikes went. You can go into any bike store in St. Pete, they’re all gone.”
Hill says Tony’s generally has around 30 bikes for sale during less strange times. He shows me the nine that are currently on offer; they all look considerably more expensive than $100.
So he’s spending his days repairing the dozens of bicycles that come in, doing everything from replacing neglected seats and pedals and handgrips to greasing axles and changing tires.
Which brings up another quandary.
“We’re starting to experience bike part supply disruptions, he says. “We’re ordering things from our suppliers, and we can’t get them.”
Hill says the sudden uptick in the popularity of cycling was just one of the contributing factors. A pre-COVID trade deal with China also stifled the flow; the arrival of the coronavirus overseas just made things worse. A handmade sign hanging outside Tony’s Bike Shop says simply, “No Tubes,” referring to bicycle innertubes.
“I’ve got people calling me probably 30 or 40 times a day looking for [common innertube sizes],” says Hill. “We’ve also got like 50 units of new bikes back-ordered, they’re just in the pipeline somewhere.”
On the other side of the bay, Kevin Craft of downtown’s City Bike Tampa is experiencing a similar situation.
“There was a brief surge when everything originally happened and while we were first adjusting to COVID,” Craft says in a message. “We (the industry as a whole) are now dealing with supply issues and are doing our best to make sure that our staff (and our community) remains safe and that they can keep getting hours and paychecks.
“We are thankful there is enough work to keep everyone employed and that we have found a way to operate that can keep both our staff and customers safe.”
One might worry that such an explosion in cycling popularity in one of the most dangerous places to cycle in America might lead to increased accidents and fatalities. After all, collisions with vehicles killed 44 bicyclists in the Tampa Bay area last year. According to a recent Tampa Bay Times article, however, crashes of all sorts are actually down considerably since March—because, while there may be more bikes on the road, there have been fewer drivers.
“We are encouraged that people are choosing to ride at a time like this to keep healthy both physically and mentally,” says Craft.