Taking a strategic post in Bowen Park near the heavily used bike path, Simon the Bike Guy’s pop-up maintenance workshop is a flurry of activity every Saturday from 10am to 4pm.

A master bike mechanic with a lifelong love of bicycles, Simon Weir’s decision to establish his lakeside workshop was born out of seeing too many cyclists riding on dangerously neglected equipment.

“I constantly hear bikes that are just grinding away into oblivion for no particular reason,” he said. “Things like flat tyres, dry chains, skipping gears, all those quality-of-life things that I wish I could just stop people, hold them up for five minutes, fix it for them, and send them on their way.”

For the past six Saturdays, Simon has set up with a slimmed-down toolkit, two heavy duty repair stands, and some replacement parts in his van if required.

“Just mid-ride, what needs doing to get it comfortable and safe, ultimately,” he said.

Performing around 20 to 30 minor odd jobs per session, Simon will tell the client what work really needs doing and offers full mobile services, travelling to their home and doing the work out of their garage.

“People have absolutely loved it and it’s turned into a lot of good services where trust has been formed, and that’s what I’m going for here.

“The proper servicing, that’s when we can really get into the details, while out here at the park we can only do so much.”

His ingenious business model came about after he identified a gap in professional bicycle maintenance in Australia.

“I’ve seen this constant theme of bikes turning up for maintenance that are completely at the end of their tether and every part needs replacing,” he said.

Professional workshops can be pricey when people only need minor work done, and your typical cyclist would have no idea how to conduct routine maintenance on their bikes.

“There’s not all that many hugely competent people in the industry at the moment,” he said.

It’s there that Simon’s pay-as-you-like model taps into a market most cyclists didn’t know they needed until they pass his Bowen Park pop-up.

“It’s quite difficult, you wouldn’t charge someone for pumping up their tyres, but they might have valued that, so the gist of this step is pay what you want,” he said. “And if you don’t know, I’m happy to let you know what it would be in a store.”

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