If you ride a bike in Cape Town, you will have heard of his shop – the one-and-only Woodstock Cycleworks. It’s the kind of place where you’ll pop in for some chain lube and leave two hours later, having bumped into three old friends, watched a wheel being trued, discussed why internal headset routing is the dumbest thing ever, and run your hand over a steel-frame Colnago that you want badly but can’t possibly justify adding to your collection. 

Woodstock Cycleworks is not only beloved by Capetonians; people from all over the country visit when they’re in the Mother City. The shop has been featured on The Radavist in the US, and it’s regularly used as a location for film shoots. 

Globetrotting cycle tourists are pulled into its vortex whenever they happen to wash up on the southern tip of Africa. When I was there last, two Aussies with bikes loaded to the hilt rolled in for some mechanical assistance before riding off to who knows where.

Woodstock Cycleworks is as independent as a bike shop can get. It’s an antidote to the growing trend of mono-brand concept stores that look like high-street fashion retailers. Every time I walk through the door, I get the same buzzy feeling I did in the bike shops of my youth – places like Linden Cycles, and the original Cajees in Boksburg. 

The smell of oil and metal. Bikes of every shape and size, everywhere, more than you can imagine. And the slightly angry mechanics, right there in the space, doing open-heart surgery on everything from a beaten-up BMX to a modern carbon race bike with all the bells and whistles. (Yes, that damn headset routing…) 

But as I said, Nils is moving. It’s not going to be easy. One of the things that makes Woodstock Cycleworks so special – the sheer profusion of glorious stuff – also makes it a nightmare to pack up. By the time you read this, hopefully, he’ll have managed to move the hundreds of bikes, parts boxes and historical relics – and the shell of the Lotus race car hanging from the roof – down the road to Observatory. 

“He’s going to turn that part of Obs into a one-stop precinct for people who love bikes for reasons that go beyond the name on the down tube. “

He’ll be next door to the old Bijou Theatre, where custom frame-builder David Mercer has his studio. He’ll finally own the space he operates from; and with some key partnerships with other independent brands in the local industry, he’s going to turn that part of Obs into a one-stop precinct for people who love bikes for reasons that go beyond the name on the down tube. 

“Maybe I’m just a dreamer,” Nils says as he takes me around the new building, which is still strewn with the previous owner’s junk – including a yellow Bombardier jetski, left perishing in the courtyard. (pictured above)

Nils climbs aboard, and ruminates on the challenges of operating an independent bike shop totally outside the ambit of the big brands. “The aesthetic of Woodstock Cycleworks is sometimes our downfall,” he says. “People are intimidated by the ‘shack chic’ vibe – they’re scared to bring us their new bike with electronic gears because they think we’re a second-hand shop, or we only cater to hipsters on single-speeds. 

“I want the new space to be for everyone. Maybe we’ll tone it down a bit, I don’t know… I still want to be able to help the kid who comes in with his busted push bike, but I also want the guy with the fancy mountain bike to come here knowing he’s getting proper, honest service.” 

He locks up, and we stand in the street for a while as he fires off voice note after voice note – to customers requesting wonderful archaic parts, bizarre modifications, updates on the status of their bike service, and more. His thoughts move at the pace of the drum and bass that often pounds from the Bluetooth speaker on his desk. 

Keep dreaming, Nils. And good luck with the new venture. Shops like yours are the last flickers of light in a darkening culture that treats bikes like disposable commodities, in which the message is ‘replace’ not ‘repair’ and where the enjoyment of riding is sometimes diluted by the endless messaging that what you’re riding is just not good enough. 

At an independent bike shop like Woodstock Cycleworks, nobody is being incentivised to make you upgrade the bike you know and love. They treat your bike like a member of the family, weird quirks and all. And they treat you like one, too.

This article was published in the September/October issue of Bicycling.

Find Woodstock Cycleworks at 321 Lower Main Rd, Observatory. (No, they’re not changing their name to Obsworks.)

READ MORE ON: Bike Shops People