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Subscription includes Matter 14 & 15 and Boneshaker 43-200 & 43-300

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Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac
is available at the following locations:

ALABAMA:
+ Bici Cooperative, Birmingham

ARKANSAS:
+ Highroller Cyclery, Fayetteville

CALIFORNIA:
+ Truckee Book & Bean, Truckee
+ City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco
+ Mission Bicycle Company,  San Francisco
+ Green Apple Books, San Francisco
+ Newsbeat News, Sacramento
+ Newsbeat News, Davis
+ Book Soup, Los Angeles

COLORADO:
+ The Cycologist, Fort Collins
+ The Red Table Cafe, Fort Collins
+ Matter Bookstore, Fort Collins
+ New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins
+ Brave New Wheel, Fort Collins
+ Al's Newstand, Fort Collins
+ Old Firehouse Books, Fort Collins
+ Cafe Ardour, Fort Collins
+ Everyday Joe's, Fort Collins
+ Fort Collins Food Co-op, Fort Collins
+ Trident Booksellers and Cafe, Boulder
+ Vecchio's Bicicletteria, Boulder
+ Tattered Cover, Denver

GEORGIA:
+ Inman Perk Coffee, Atlanta
+ Intown Bicycles, Atlanta
+ Young Blood Gallery and Boutique, Atlanta
+ No Brakes, Atlanta
+ Criminal Records, Atlanta
+ Bound To Be Read Books, Atlanta

IDAHO:
+ Boise Bicycle Project Co-Op, Boise

ILLINOIS:
+ Quimby's Bookstore, Chicago
+ Turin Bicycle, Evanston

IOWA:
+ Ritual Cafe, Des Moines
+ Prairie Lights Bookstore, Iowa City

MICHIGAN:
+ Commute Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids

MINNESOTA:
+ Cars R Coffins Coffee Bar, Minneapolis
+ One On One, Minneapolis
+ Boneshaker Books, Minneapolis

MONTANA:
+ Farm to Market Bicycle Co., Whitefish

NEW JERSEY:
+ Grove Street Bicycles, Jersey City

NEW MEXICO:
+ Fixed and Free Bike Shop, Albuquerque

NEW YORK:
+ Boneshaker Cafe, Brooklyn

NORTH DAKOTA:
+ Boneshaker Coffee Company, Bismarck

OHIO:
+ Seagull/Octopus, Columbus
+ Mountain Road Cycles, Chagrin Falls

OKLAHOMA:
+ Tom's Bicycles, Tulsa

OREGON:
+ Bikesaurus, Portland
+ Powell's City of Books, Portland
+ Powell's on Hawthorne, Portland
+ Reading Frenzy, Portland
+ Black Star Bags, Portland
+ Microcosm Publishing, Portland

SOUTH DAKOTA
+ Cranky Jeff's, Rapid City

TEXAS:
+ The Ground Cafe, Amarillo
+ Eco-Wise, Austin
+ MonkeyWrench Books, Austin
+ The Peddler, Austin
+ Sedition Books, Houston

UTAH:
+ Saturday Cycles, West Bountiful

WASHINGTON:
+ Free Range Cycles, Seattle
+ Elliot Bay Books, Seattle
+ Left Bank Books, Seattle
+ Hub & Bespoke, Seattle


WISCONSIN:
+ Beans & Barley, Milwaukee

WYOMING:
+ Coal Creek Coffee Company, Laramie
+ Night Heron, Laramie
+ Fine Edge, Laramie

AN ORGANIC BICYCLE FARM PDF Print E-mail

PROFILE: IN AND AROUND MR. JASON SHELMAN’S BICYCLE BUILDING SHED
 
Just northwest of La Porte, Colorado, in the shadow of subtle hills that make up the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, Jason Shelman toils day in and day out in a small shed. “I’m a bit of a hermit,” he admits. “I usually just stay up here making bikes, most of them without gears.” If you ever find yourself in or around Shelman’s shed—which is highly unlikely considering how tucked away it is at the end of a winding, obscure county road—you’ll see that Shelman’s self-description is an extremely modest inventory of his talents and productivity. The reclusive, bearded Kansas native not only builds custom bikes for people all over Northern Colorado, but also spends hours a day crafting custom racks, bicycle trailers, and cargo baskets. “The other night,” he says, holding a slim, sturdy front rack, “I was in the shed until 3:00AM working on this thing.” With that work ethic, it’s evident that Shelman is serious about bicycles, especially the possibilities they possess. “Once I get going, I want to see an idea through to its end.”

Not surprisingly, Shelman works alone. Having at one time co-owned and -operated The Brave New Wheel down in Fort Collins, and later providing his services at Black Sheep Bikes, he now simply builds things himself. “I’ve had the same phone number for over eight years,” he says, “so people just call me when they need something.”

As you might imagine, though Shelman’s shed measures barely 20’ x 20’, it’s packed with every tool and part imaginable, fodder enough to keep anyone busy for many years building and rebuilding bicycles of every dimension and capacity. On one side, twenty or so bikes flank the shed, all in various stages of disrepair. On the other is “The Staging Area,” as Shelman calls it, where parts are lined up and matched with the bikes they will eventually grace. Behind the shed there are stacks and stacks of wheels, and beside that, piles of handlebars. Everywhere, parts and pieces, saddles and cogs, stems and cranks. And beyond all that, in every which way, are outgoing bikes—built solid to be sold or donated—ready to be ridden by someone somewhere.

As such, the entire environment around Shelman’s shed can only be described as a kind of certified organic farm on which bicycles are grown. Surrounded on all sides by the shallow swelling canyon walls, Shelman’s one-man operation is as systematic as it is chaotic. In other words, it’s one part factory, one part anthill, which is also to say that it is a sort of productive paradox, like a carefully cultivated wild garden. The seeds in this case are old tattered bikes that have been forgotten, neglected, abandoned, or otherwise acquired and end up here in Shelman’s backyard. After he strips them bare of their components, Shelman begins growing them, part by part, into newly greased, beautifully rebuilt simple machines capable of great distances.

What Shelman laments most about today’s hand-built custom bicycle market is that one can rarely find a combination of affordability and durability, so that’s his goal. “It’s hard to find a well-built custom bike nowadays for less than $500,” he says. “Most independent handmade frames alone will run you well over a grand, and many average commuters simply can’t afford that.” His sustainable solution: get old bikes going again like new, well-oiled and refitted with quality parts.

“Those red bikes over there,” Shelman says, pointing to an assembly line of candy apple bikes all facing east, “those are library bikes.” The reference is to an initiative in Fort Collins to provide a bike to anyone who needs one and wants to check one out for free. Shelman and two others have committed to building ten bikes apiece for the project, which will be up and running by this summer. “They’re all single speeds with coaster brakes and a rack so that people have more of a chance of getting around town on a simple, reliable bike, rather than driving.” Shelman says once he has enough bikes built to fill the bed of his truck, he loads them up and takes them into town—the harvest.

By this time, though, Shelman has a Tecate in hand and wants to talk about the annex—another word for the upstairs portion of his house that holds dozens more bikes, some historic and others sentimental. It’s here that one gets the feeling that something’s really happening at Shelman’s independent bike garden. The annex is not a museum, per se—not even in a loose sense of the word—but rather a mélange of vision and revision. “These are versions of racks and bikes I’ve made over the years,” he says, “things that I’ve used or ridden and retired or that I’m saving for specific purposes.” Pointing to one in particular, for example, Shelman says, “I rode that one over La Veta Pass,” a 9,413 ft. connection between Walsenburg and Alamosa in Southern Colorado, “just a few weekends ago.”

Back in the shed, the tight workspace is littered with prototypes of about ten different front and rear racks all of which Shelman has designed, welded, and detailed. “These are some bracketed mounts I’m making for René Herse,” he says, holding up a dozen U-shaped metal pieces that he’s shipping out to the Boulder framebuilders later this week. “I’ve been working on perfecting those for a while now,” and the work has seemingly paid off—the rack mounts are gorgeous and elegant, so much so that it’s hard to believe that they’ve been shaped and hand-brazed in this small farm studio.

As with any gardener, Shelman is supremely interested, even if only subconsciously, in the reaping; that is, what can be gained by growing all these bicycles. For several years, in fact, in addition to laboring in the solitude of his shed, Shelman has spearheaded what he calls the Simple Cycles Ralleye Series. The group rides range in length from 50 to 200 miles, sometimes spanning several days—most in the dead of winter—and take riders through a variety of terrains and towns. And though the rides are always loops, beginning where they began, much is arguably accomplished in pedaling all those miles.

It’s rare to find someone as dedicated and driven as Shelman, who seems to be building bikes for the sole joy of watching them be pedaled off into the distance. Even without knowing it, he is perhaps Northern Colorado’s finest bicycle army colonel who leads quietly from his saddle and shed.
 
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