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Community Focus Cycles started from humble beginnings but is quickly gaining the recognition it deserves. Rebecca Bland speaks to founder Sam Fillan.
This piece first appeared in the November edition of BikeBiz magazine – get your free subscription here
Nestled in the heart of Brontë country, in Haworth, a small workshop sits in an unassuming residential area.
Surrounded by hills and history, Haworth is a popular tourist destination, but for the locals, the roads are tough and the bridleways await those who want to absorb the surroundings.
There are no signs, (yet), but in the cellar of a house, lies Community Focus Cycles, and founder Sam Fillan.
Community Focus Cycles is, as the name suggests, a bike workshop that focuses on providing a community-led focus. Initially it began in lockdown as a project for Fillan to enable locals to get out on their bikes and ride.
In return, he expected nothing, but when some customers began donating for his services, the project grew and he began to use the funds to buy spare parts and tools, and thus, Community Focus Cycles was born.
It’s unassuming from the outset, but speaking to Fillan over video call, you can see the work and care that has gone into developing his workspace from an old Victorian cellar into something fit for purpose. He began by explaining the motivation for setting up the project.
“The bike fixing and riding goes way back into my childhood,” said Fillan. “I sort of left it alone when I was a teenager and then came back around to it when I was in my mid 20s. But this here, this workshop and the Community Focus Cycles project happened when we moved to Haworth on the day that lockdown started. We arrived and then everybody was just stuck indoors and those that didn’t want to walk or run, wanted to go out on bikes.
“Bike shops were absolutely rammed, and I had this space here, so I got a bike stand and I already had some tools and I just started posting on Facebook, saying, ‘I’m here. I can fix bikes. I’ll do it for free.’
“It was more sort of aimed at people that perhaps didn’t have the means to get their bikes repaired at the time. So people started showing up and people wanted to make donations, so I started using that money to pay for cables and brake pads and stuff to use on other people’s bikes who perhaps didn’t have anything to give. It also turned into a sort of recycling situation where people would drop off bikes that they no longer had use for, I would do a bit of work on them and pass them on.”
‘The e-bike guy’
Community projects like these are vital for people who perhaps don’t have the means to buy a bike, get their kids a bike, or even if they don’t know how to maintain them. But although funding is key to keeping projects like this afloat, Fillan works elsewhere while he builds up his Community Focus Cycles business.
“I’ve been working at a bike shop over in Wakefield,” said Fillan. “I started off volunteering for them because they were so busy in lockdown. They put me through my qualifications to say thanks, and then it became a part time job and a full time job.
“Alongside this I’ve been working part time for a shop in Keighley while their mechanic recovers from illness, so I’m in here Wednesday all day then any other days I’m not needed elsewhere, and the occasional morning or evening.”
Through his work in other shops, Fillan has earned a reputation as an e-bike specialist, something that more bike shops are seeing being dropped off in their workshops as they become more popular.
“I didn’t exactly choose my speciality, it was more because the other guys didn’t want to work on them, but I like fixing e-bikes,” explained Fillan.
“Sure, they’re heavy, they’re not easy to figure out when something goes wrong because it’s no longer a mechanical issue, you’ve got all the electrics involved and stuff.
“And often it’s a process of elimination, and it literally is just plugging in different components to the same motor trying to figure out which one it is that’s faulty, and sometimes that’s a long process. But I don’t mind it, I enjoy doing it. So I’ve become the e-bike guy over at one shop I work at, and I have relationships with people at Bosch, Shimano so I can talk to them if I get stumped myself.”
Word of mouth
While he’s busy with his three roles for the moment, this will be Fillan’s first proper winter as a business, so advertising may be considered depending on customer numbers.
“I was worried that not advertising was going to have a negative impact on where I’m at,” he said.
“But it just seems [that] through word of mouth and through people just finding me on Google and searching, ‘bike shop near me’ or whatever it is they search for, I’m getting just enough customers that I’m not twiddling my thumbs and I’m not too busy.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen over winter because I’ve never been here and open and had a website and all that stuff through this part of the year. Without trying to force it, without trying to drum up business, everything seems to be going as it should do, you know, it’s not too much and it’s not too little.”
The bigger picture
In the future, however, Fillan has plans (or daydreams) to expand his workshop to host community youth projects.
“I have the odd vision of maybe running some sort of youth project,” he said.
“Not here but somewhere else in Haworth or in the surrounding area, taking donations of bikes and then taking young people and showing them how to fix them and stuff.
“Get some local kids around and teach them how to fix bikes, and maybe then they won’t be wandering around their villages bored for a few hours a week. They’ll have something else to do and who knows where that might lead them.
“Or, it might just be me fixing bikes, and then teaching my son how to fix them a few years down the line. Who knows where it will go.”
