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I have a made-to-order bike from Percy... But it's about more than the bike; it's about the consistently
friendly, personalized service.
Sally Trice, Portland, ME
Percy Cycles is a very small, custom bicycle shop located in historic Portland, Maine. I’m Percy Wheeler, the owner and sole builder. (Those are my hands, pictured above.) I hand-build bicycle wheels and custom bicycles for my clients. I teach all levels of bicycle repair and rebuilding. And I rebuild and restore vintage bicycles.
I’ve been in a love affair with bicycles ever since I was a kid. I grew up in poverty and got my education on the streets running around in the downtown alleys and on the working waterfront of Portland during the 1970’s. I was the second youngest of 5 boys, and I was raised by a single mother - the the biggest, toughest, scariest Polish woman on the block. I grew up as a welfare kid, in trailers or in low-income housing, and we never had much of anything - food, or heat, or safety. But I always had a bike. Until I was about 20 years old my bikes were cobbled together from spare parts and used frames, but no bikes have ever been more loved that those bikes I built myself. I learned how to take apart and put back together a bicycle when I was only 7 years old, and the meditative nature of working with bicycles offered me a feeling of peace and joy that carried me through some terrible grief, fears, and challenge.
I didn’t graduate from high school - I went to work as a cabinet maker when I was 15 years old and later earned my GED. I never went to college - I worked as a engineer, a builder, a painter, teaching myself whatever I didn’t know by reading and figuring things out on my own. I married at 19 and divorced 5 years later and I began a new life as a single father, solely responsible for my beloved step-son. And as I rebuilt my life, caring for myself and my son, I found my way back to the peace and solace of working with bicycles - the same meditative calm that I had retreated to as a child.
Throughout my 20’s, I continued to work and raise my son. I had learned from my family that life was about survival - getting from one day to the next - so I didn’t plan too far ahead or let myself have many dreams for the future. But I gravitated to bicycles, and to serving people through caring for their bicycles. Soon, people in Portland began to seek me out for my knowledge and ability. Though not a lot of things had made sense in my past, I recognized a deep sense of purpose and fulfillment when I worked to true a wheel, rebuild a hub, fix a derailleur, or even flag someone down on the road so that I could oil their squeaky chain. As I worked to heal the deep wounds of my childhood, bicycles and wheel-building became my faith, my way of making amends, my means of finding the strength to forgive, my path to the best part of myself.
When I was 30 and working as a bicycle messenger, I opened my first bicycle shop - a unique shop where people could have their bicycles serviced or learn how to repair their bikes themselves. I loved the relationships I was building with people and the total satisfaction I felt in my work. I knew that I was born to work on bicycles, and I decided that I wanted to share my knowledge with children. In 2001 I left the service shop to open a non-profit bicycle shop in a low income neighborhood in Portland, where I worked with local children and teenagers who were riding the same kinds of cobbled-together bikes I did when I was their age. During the day I worked as a bicycle messenger, and at night and on the weekends I provided free repair services to children, as well as developing close relationships with the children who were faced with the same challenges I had struggled with when I was growing up near that same neighborhood.
After several years of running my non-profit, I left in 2003 to partner with a friend to open my first for-profit retail bicycle shop, The Bike Cycle, which focused on bicycle service and repairs. By that time I had met a woman, Tavia, who I married in 2004. Tavia and I decided to buy out my business partner in 2005, and we worked together to grow the business. In 2006 we renamed the business Percy Cycles and expanded the shop to twice the size of the original Bike Cycle. I began to juggle a broad list of services, which included a rapidly growing service and repair business, a growing demand for my work as a teacher and “project mentor,” increasing attention and renown for my work as a wheel builder and a custom bicycle builder, and the responsibility for providing high-quality, well-stocked retail products.
After just a year of this complicated balancing act, I realized that I ached to concentrate on one person at a time, one bicycle at a time. Instead of working with dozens of people in the store every day, I really just wanted to use my time to specialize in building custom bikes and wheels. I wanted to spend several hours at a time getting to know a person closely, developing a genuine relationship with each person so that I could build a unique bicycle and exceptional bicycle wheels that would suit them perfectly. And after a great deal of conversation and introspection, I realized that I wanted more than anything to work with my hands, to use my creativity and talent, and to choose with whom I wanted to work.
So, after a great deal of thought, this fall I closed my retail storefront. I am starting a new chapter of business, which feels finally like the most perfect place for me to be - the best road to peace and success in this long journey of working with bicycles. Working from my home studio, I specialize in custom work, see clients by appointment only, and, in order to keep my quality at his highest level, the number of clients I have at any one time and the amount of build work I produce is limited.
As I approach my 40th year, I realize that everything precious to me has come to me through bicycles. I have been blessed to work with kind, creative, wonderful people with whom I share a mutual respect and appreciation. Many of my clients have become very close and dear friends. I even met my wife - my greatest fan and best friend - when I offered to fix her bike soon after she moved to town. I have been supported each step of this journey by people who have encouraged me to follow my deepest passion and let the rest fall away.
So that’s what I have to offer you - my most specialized, most passionate, most heartfelt service, service that is one-on-one, customized, and of the hightest quality, and service that begins within a relationship and grows from there. Whether I’m teaching you to repair your bike, building your custom bicycle, or hand-crafting your wheels, you’ll never get anything less than this kind of exceptional service and a true connection.
Thanks for spending time with my story. Please contact me with any questions. Just call
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