Mosaic Community shop a worthy home for the bicycles that made memories
Strewn randomly in a dark basement room that once held coal, the bikes were tangled amid two old sets of golf clubs, several ancient fishing poles, a canopy of cobwebs, my camping gear, a dozen cans of congealed paint and a broken sink.
Two of them were cute minis – one pink and one blue – that once took my son and daughter flying all over the neighborhood. Then progressively larger bikes leading to the still-sleek handmade red 10-speed that I ordered from the Schwinn factory in 1979.
Once they were all spread out in the sunlight, I looked past the grime and flattened, rotting tires and took a mental vacation down Nostalgia Lane.
Scene 1: My kids’ wobbly first rides. Scene 2: Ben and Emily pedaling off to school. Scene 3: Weekends when the whole family would ride off together …
A choked voice that sounded a lot like mine said, “We can’t get rid of these. Too many great memories.”
Then I came to my senses.
My memories are safe and I don’t need a load of discarded bicycles to keep them.
So into the back of my truck they went.
A few minutes later found me downtown donating the lot to Doug Porter at the Mosaic Community Bike Shop, 611 W. Second Ave.
I heard about this place from my lovely wife, Sherry. Mosaic, I learned, is much more than a mere bicycle business.
Sure, it does all the requisite fix-it stuff. But the shop is also part of Mosaic Fellowship, a nondenominational church that meets at Pacific Avenue and Cowley Street.
Supported by donations and a volunteer staff, the bike shop, said Porter, 62, is “a downtown ministry, a place where anybody can come and go.”
Christianity, he added, is not shoved down anyone’s throat.
“We want to show people why we’re Christians rather than tell them why we’re Christians.”
The shop’s multiple objectives include teaching bicycle repair and maintenance to anyone with a desire to learn along with instruction on necessary job skills.
“A lot of mentoring goes along with it,” said Jason Spade, Mosaic’s 41-year-old volunteer business manager. The idea is “to train people to get back into the work force.”
This is definitely the place for it. Mosaic is located in the heart of “where the ragged people go,” as Paul Simon once sang.
The landscape is populated by characters with street names like Sick Boy, Half Face and Water Boy.
Yet despite the area’s toughness, Porter said the shop and its goals are respected. “I’ve never been in an argument. I’ve never been afraid.”
The nonprofit business is also sustained through sales of refurbished bicycles with prices ranging from $40 to $600.
Do-it-yourselfers can also rent shop space and tools and work on their own bikes.
“We’re very encouraged by the way it’s going,” Mosaic Fellowship’s Pastor John Repsold told me later, adding that he believes people can change by being surrounded by positive examples.
“So much of life is relational,” he said. But “people have to change internally if people are going to change” at all.
Repsold told me about Brandon, a homeless man who came to the bike shop from a 12-Step program. He’s now committed to becoming a bicycle mechanic.
When I dropped in on Tuesday, Dominick Neumann was tuning (taking the wobble out of) a spinning wheel. The 17-year-old Ferris High School student is learning bike repair at Mosaic for school-sanctioned vocational credit.
Wendy Boggs, Porter’s mother-in-law, was also there helping out as a volunteer.
Mosaic moved into this building at the south end of a Diamond parking lot last September and I hope it succeeds.
I left knowing that the Clark family fleet will be fixed up and enjoyed again by new owners.
Well, except for my red Schwinn Paramount, that is. Some things really are too precious to unload.
Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.