You see Sufism and yoga are one and the same thing. They are just words, in wisdom there is no difference. All the teachings are absolutely the same. They are only different paths to the One. Our teacher used to say, "You can approach the top of the mountain from the river, from the highway, from the town, from the sea, but it will always be one top of the mountain." It doesn't matter, and also this wonderful Sufi saying, "The roads to God are as many as human beings, as many as the breath of the children of man." He said that to us, it was an ancient Sufi saying and it means you don't need to convert anybody. You don't need to say my God is better than your God. Like in Ireland, that I will kill you if you don't believe in my God, what rubbish is that! There is only that Infinite, Nameless, and you cannot imprison it by giving it any name at all.
Irina Tweedie, Daughter of Fire: An Interview with Irina Tweedie, Yoga and Life, November 1990
A display model accompanied by helmets and seats in the background.
Even though it is a warm and sunny Friday afternoon in Roscoe Village, a quiet leafy neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, Tweedie, a sad-eyed and soft spoken man, is busy adjusting the front derailleur on a customer’s BMC PurePro road bike, hoisted up on the stand in the back of Roscoe Village Bikes.
Customers keep stopping in – one to fill up a tire with a slow leak, another to buy a helmet. A third is getting her bike boxed for a move to Abu Dhabi. A grandmother brings her youngest granddaughter in to be fitted for that all-important first bicycle. Tattooed and grizzled bike mechanics swap parts in the back. In the front, a clerk is talking about cycling in Bulgaria, in between petting the store's dog (a loveable mutt of indeterminate origin named Buddy) and discussing the virtues of Vietnamese food.
"Oh, have you heard about this banh-mi place that just opened? And there’s this great Guatemalan place in the neighborhood," someone else mentions. In the back, by the BMC, someone's poor stomach rumbles, empty.
Alex Tweedie stares longingly at a bag of tortilla chips and homemade guacamole from a local restaurant. With the slightest of sighs, he tears his eyes away from them. There's just no time – too many bikes to fix, too many customers to help.
That's the way it goes on this particular Friday afternoon. No chips for the working man.
The walls are covered by memories: The waiting area for bike customers.
Roscoe Village Bikes: A Chicago Staple
Alongside his wife, Lesely, Alex Tweedie is part of the partnership that keeps Roscoe Village Bikes, one of the city's most popular and enduring cycle shops, in the saddle. Although they work as a tandem, both of them have specialties that keep the store running as smoothly as a well-lubricated bike chain.
In a city filled with bike shops and cycling enthusiasts, Lesley is known as one of the cycling scene's most successful entrepreneurs and Roscoe Village Bikes is one of the city's most successful bike shops.
In addition to running the Roscoe Village Bikes brick-and-mortar store, Lesley is also responsible for creating LittleIndependent.com, an independent co-op of small stores which co-ordinate sale inventories to reach a wider audience.
Alex primarily works on bikes, a passion he's had since "forever", honing his skills on bikes in Portland, Oregon (another American cycling mecca) and back home in Chicago for the last two decades.
In On the Ground Floor
Far from the bustle and chaos of the Loop, the heart of the city's downtown financial district, Roscoe Village is a peaceful, tree-lined oasis. The neighborhood looks strangely out of place in America's third-largest city. It is here, in this leafy oasis that one of the city's premier cycling shops plies its trade.
Roscoe Village Bikes proper opened in 2006, when the Tweedies found a vacant 19th century storefront, for rent in their home neighborhood, Roscoe Village. After a few years as a struggling store, the Tweedies have been rewarded by being in the right place, at the right time, for the Chicago cycling boom.
"We kinda got in on the ground floor," Alex modestly admits. Although Chicago residents have long been wary of cars due to problems with traffic and parking, it has only been over the last few decades that they have turned to bicycling as a viable form of transportation.
And the Tweedies were lucky enough to be in a position to capitalize on that.
An old barber chair. It has been here for ever and will stay twice as long.
From Humble Beginnings to Success
Even on a Friday afternoon, the shop is busy. Customers constantly come in and out, picking up bikes and bringing in their old, beloved cycles for a tune up or new inner tube. Alex notices the commotion and beams, proudly.
"When we first started it was just me and my wife, so there was the two of us," he recalls. "But we definitely realized there was a need and we were busier than expected right away and hired 3 more employees."
What began as a leap of faith for a young married couple has become a booming business, now with 10 full-time employees, servicing the hobbyist, commuter, and racing communities alike. Summer can bring in even more seasonal employees, as the shop hires students on summer vacation from the local universities to help out with the increased demand.
While Lesley handles much of the business and financial side of the store, Alex can most often be found in the backroom repair shop, where he and a handful of employees (as well as the occasional trainee) keep Chicago's recreational and competitive cyclists flying along in top form.
Changing Times
Once known as "America's Fattest City" (due in no small part to its love of hot dogs, beer, and fried sausages), Chicago has seen a dramatic resurgence of cycling over the last 15 years.
Under the watchful eye of long time mayor, Richard M. Daley, has Chicago installed over 111 miles (179 km) of bicycle paths that criss-cross America's third largest city. With gas prices higher than most parts of the US, and a young, educated, and active population, cycling was ready to explode in America's heartland in the early 2000’s.
Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, a former advisor to President Barack Obama and Daley’s successor, has further fueled the Chicago cycling boom. In his first term, Emmanuel has pushed for newly-designed bike lanes (to help avoid dooring and other dangerous collisions with cyclists) and bike sharing programs.
Other organizations continue to fight for an increased biking presence in the city, but in reality, the cycling movement has already achieved critical mass. Chicago is now a biking town. Indeed, cycling has become a nearly-essential part of the Chicago lifestyle, whether you live on the South Side, North Side, or West Side.
"I think it's the best way to get around Chicago," Tweedie says. Many agree with him.
Share and Share Alike
This year also marked the launch of Divvy, a bike sharing program that puts over 4,000 cycles in 400 stations all over the city at the disposal of cyclists.
A Divvy station, ready to ride.
And surprisingly, Tweedie says this isn't competition for him or his wife despite a Divvy station being installed just down the block from their store. "I think the Divvy program will really cool," he gushes. "It's great for tourism, it's great in a pinch. It raises awareness."
But wouldn't this cut into the bottom line of the neighborhood bike shop? Tweedie disagrees.
"We have a lot of customers who live on their bikes, who use it for everything and absolutely can't be without it, so they can drop it off for a flat tire or a tune up. And if they still need to get somewhere they can just get a bike [from Divvy]," he says.
No more leaving the bike to rust in the basement because a trip to the repair shop is too much of a hassle.
Not Just Politics
Tweedie also points out that the cycling boom in Chicago is driven by more than just political decisions and local policies.
"Chicago is kind of in the ideal situation for cycling," he explains. "The weather's great 9 months out of the year, the terrain is flat – ideal for commuting." With public transportation delays and expensive gas prices, many Chicagoans have resorted to cycling to get themselves around their neighborhoods and to work quickly and reliably, especially in areas like downtown.
"Maybe the building you use has a monthly fee or daily like $25 (18,75 Euro) a day to park, downtown. Maybe it already has a bike rack installed," Tweedie continues. The bike rack is free.
And even with the legendarily cold and brutal Chicago winters, Tweedie notes that a sizable amount of his customers ride all year-round.
Chicago evaluates regularly how many cyclists are on the roads. Get the full numbers here.
Thank You For Being A Friend
Tweedie laughs when confronted with the possibility of business or cycling rivalries.
"Nobody fights," he says, smiling broadly. In fact, Tweedie says, they get along rather well with most of the other bike shops, most of which are in other neighborhoods. They hang out together, have beers together, bike together. In any other city, they might have been bitter competitors, but in Chicago, bike shops have an unusually co-operative relationship.
Perhaps the answer lies in the unique nature of Chicago neighborhoods.
Unlike many American cities, Chicagoans are fiercely loyal to their neighborhoods, which are often isolated from mass transit and highways. This situation not only encourages biking, but also loyalty to one's own neighborhood.
There is an unspoken rule here, which is, namely, to patronize as many neighborhood businesses as possible. And since cycle shops are intimately related to their communities in ways that many other businesses are not, competition for cyclists' business between shops is rare in the city.
People go to their local bike shop. It's almost as sacred of an institution as the neighborhood bar or hot dog stand.
Sporting for the Masses
But biking isn't only for commuting transportation in Chicago. "There's a really vibrant race scene in Chicago. It's tight knit and it's growing and growing every year," Tweedie says.
While Chicagoans are typically fans of the big four American sports – American football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, more and more residents are finding themselves following amateur cycling.
Roscoe Village Bikes, of course, is involved with the maintenance and upkeep of the trusty mounts of amateur cyclists throughout the area. However, they are also active competitors.
The Chicago Bike Map is not only a map but enhanced with useful tips about how to ride safe, lock your bike properly and many more. See the full map here.
The shop also has its own sponsored cyclocross and mountain biking teams, which Alex is involved in. And he's not alone in that regard – many of the other Chicago bike shops do something similar, which has helped bring about a thriving competitive cycling scene in the city.
Other local businesses are also getting in on the action – a local cider distiller co-sponsors one team with Roscoe Village Bikes, and other businesses sponsor rival teams throughout the area.
And while Chicago is not known for its hills, great trails and hills are just a short ride away in Wisconsin, Indiana, and southern Illinois. Growing awareness of the available bike trails in surrounding areas has sparked a veritable wildfire of interest in group rides and tours as well.
"While you used to be lucky to have one or two group rides, every weekend you have 10-12 now," Tweedie says.
Dangerous Living?
Unfortunately, despite the new appreciation for biking and riders, Chicago cyclists are dropping in the saddle.
While Chicago has a reputation for violence dating back to its days as the main hub of criminal mobs in America, Chicago riders are now colliding with a threat that’s harder to avoid than bullets and brass knuckles: car doors.
One such rider is Aaron McClure.
McClure, a debonair and tattooed former hairstylist, was biking with his wife one night in one of the city's shared bike/car lanes, when he was struck by a moving car. The driver sped off, leaving McClure with a shattered arm, no career, and several thousands of dollars worth of medical bills.
A Chicago bike lane – leading to hills, great trails and much further.
The Active Transportation Alliance
McClure thanks the Active Transportation Alliance (or ATA), a Chicago-area non-profit organization, which seeks to promote the rights of cyclists and pedestrians. They helped him receive some money for his injury by recommending him a lawyer who specialized in bike accidents.
The accident may have ended McClure's career as a hairstylist (he has yet to regain full movement in the injured limb). But, it was thanks to a lawyer recommended by the ATA that he was able to recoup enough settlement money to pay his medical bills and finance his education and move on with his life.
The ATA also has been instrumental in lobbying the city to increase its spending on bike infrastructure and improvements to existing bike lanes.
Tweedie similarly approves of the work the ATA is doing. "Active Transportation Alliance is doing a lot of work on advocacy and infrastructure. We recently got bike lines on Roscoe, which was great, because there weren't many East-West streets with bike lanes."
"Having those bike lanes makes even novice cyclists, and recreational cyclists and commuters, and everyone else feel comfortable being in traffic. I think it's definitely made drivers and cars out there more aware of the cyclists on the road. And I think it’s made it safer," Tweedie continues.
Happy to be Here
Although problems still exist with cycling in Chicago, Alex takes a much more holistic view of the situation, preferring to focus on the important things: namely, bikes.
"I just think it's cool that people ride bikes," he says, laughing. "I'm just happy to be in Chicago and have the community support us so much."
Tweedie for Mac 1.0.3 has been released. This update adds improved realtime search, and the ability to follow a hashtag just like you'd follow a user. Download it now.
Tweedie for iPad 1.0.5 was released to the App Store today. It now features iCloud sync with Tweedie for Mac. Read once, read everywhere. Download the iPad version and the Mac version now! I suppose I should get on with the iPhone version.
