This Cyclist Supported His Local Bike Shops in an Unlikely, Thoughtful Way
Amid all the uncertainty and forced solo riding due to the spread of COVID-19, cyclist Tobie DePauw wanted to do something to support his local bike shops of Madison, Wisconsin.
DePauw ran a bike shop for 12 years, so he can empathize with what shops might be going through right now. Some may be feeling the pressure of an economic downturn, and others may be facing a quarantine-motivated surge in business while trying to maintain strict health and safety protocol—all during a historic global pandemic.
He decided to offer the stores some words of encouragement through a bike shop-visiting ride that he called “The Trying Times Retailer Tour.” While keeping an appropriate distance from other people who may be out, DePauw rode from shop to shop, silently placing a sign on every shop’s window that read, “These are trying times, but please keep trying. You are not alone. We appreciate you.”
DePauw also sent a few dollars via PayPal to his favorite bike shops, as part of his “Money for Nothing” campaign.
“When things started to get weird, I just felt this strong compulsion to be a voice of encouragement and support,” DePauw told Bicycling.
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DePauw now works for Ride Spot—an app, now owned by People for Bikes, that helps cyclists find routes and map out their rides—and there, he shared his route and a detailed accounting of his ride.
While planning his sign-posting endeavor, DePauw had to give his route some thought. He knew his legs would only last so long, and he wanted to hit as many bike shops as he could. In the end, he opted for a 40-mile route that passed by ten shops—all of the shops through the isthmus, as well as a few outliers.
“It was a little chilly to start, but ultimately it turned into a beautiful day,” DePauw said of his ride that day. “I actually had a fantastic ride. I like riding with purpose.”
His goal was to place the sign without being noticed; he felt it might be a bit awkward otherwise.
“I just wanted it to be a surprise, a little unforeseen delight,” he said.
As it happened, he was spotted a few times. But those moments played out in a way he didn’t quite expect. DePauw is good friends with roughly half of the bike shop owners on his route, and although those moments of brief (and distant) interactions were joyful and “highlights” of his ride, they also triggered a solemn realization of what our society is actually enduring.
“I felt a … gravity. ” he recounted in his blog post. “Being that close to people I like without being able to simply sit down for a coffee was a little painful.”
DePauw wasn’t expecting anything in return, of course, which is also why he sought to post the signs unnoticed. But he did get grateful feedback from some. Those supportive words in return were unexpected, but happily received.
“I have to confess, it feels good to have retailers say, ‘Man, it really helped me that morning, I was really struggling,’” DePauw said.
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