Independent cycle chain Evans has opened the largest London bike shop in an underground car park in Mortimer Street. John Ryan sees if it is up to scratch

When does an independent become a chain? This is not an idle question - if your business involves selling bicycles, it is a vital consideration. Speak to anyone visiting an independent bike shop and ask whether they would frequent one of the big chains - and there are really only a couple - and the chances are good they will say certainly not.

This has much to do with image, but it is also about selection. It is a general rule of thumb that while there will be a smattering of entry-price bicycles in an independent store, the selection will have an uncanny tendency to head off to what might be described as the better end of the market, where machines costing £1,000 or more are absolutely the norm.

It does not take much thought therefore to imagine that the number of shoppers prepared to part with this kind of money must be limited, particularly in these straitened times (and while we might be out of recession, the hangover seems to be long and severe).

And yet independent cycle retailer Evans has just opted to open the largest cycle shop in London on a street where there are relatively few shops and where most of the chosen premises is underground.

A capital idea

The location is Mortimer Street, a thoroughfare running parallel to Oxford Street, about a quarter of a mile to the north, and the store has been set up in a former underground car park.

Evans chairman Nick Evans says the reason for putting the store in this neck of the woods is simple: “Nobody wants to cycle along Oxford Street and so many cyclists use Mortimer Street as a way of getting from west to east when passing through the West End”. And many of these will be commuters, making their way to work and likely to require the services of a good bike shop.

This, he says, means that in spite of an apparently odd location, the 7,800 sq ft space will act as a destination and draw the cycling fraternity from a wide area. There is also not much in the area by way of competition, although there is a small branch of CycleSurgery just around the corner on Great Portland Street.

However, Evans is bullish: “We want to be the best bike shop in any market we are in.” And at first glance you can see what he means. Access to this store is via a staircase. The shopfront is Tardis-like in the manner in which a relatively small window leads to an enormous interior in the basement.

The frontage is sufficiently large for it not to be overlooked. Pass through the door and the wall immediately in front of the staircase has been turned into a glass display case in which bikes of various types are on show. There is space behind this for shoppers to park their bikes - this is a bike store after all, so it is reasonable to expect shoppers to arrive needing somewhere to tether their two-wheeled stallions.

Head down the stairs, in a distinctly rough-and-ready industrial-looking environment, and the initial impression is that you have strayed into a mechanic’s workshop.

Evans makes the point that for a bike shop to serve commuters efficiently there has to be a sizeable workshop and this one has eight workstations, which boast bright yellow signage with black writing and grey metal almost everywhere, giving it the effect of the trade counter of a garage.

Leaving this area you pass into the shop proper and the store’s underground car park origins are immediately obvious. There are rough concrete pillars around the space, the ceiling is reasonably high, but not cavernous, and the offer has been laid out with a central walk/driveway - in much the same way as you might encounter when driving into a car park. And just like an underground car park, there is no natural lighting, but the store has been lit in a manner that makes you feel comfortable about being enclosed.

The real difference between this space as it is and the way it was is that you will want to take a look around and there is every reason for doing so. Store projects and design manager James Duguid is brimful of enthusiasm for the interior. He observes that as the store is very large, by bike shop standards,

it has been possible to divvy up the space by bicycle type and to give roughly equivalent amounts of space to each category.

In practice, this means that there are areas for road bikes (racing bikes to those unfamiliar with the jargon), mountain bikes, commuter bikes and “fixies” (ultra-light bikes with no gears) and folding bicycles. And each is given its own treatment. Duguid points towards the back of the shop where there is a grey pillar with a white line painted down it. This, he says, is meant to provide a subliminal reminder of a bike lane and is therefore for the commuter bikes.

To emphasise this, the wall behind this area has been left with exposed brick and garage-cum-shed doors have been made part of it, as Duguid notes that for most cyclists a garage is “the first thing you will see as you step out of the house to get your bike”. The final visual clue in this part of the shop is a traffic light, the kind of thing ignored by most cycling London commuters.

Now move into the mountain bike area and the pillars and walls have been clad in rough, untreated wooden planks - intended to remind the onlooker of the great outdoors. For the road bike space, several of the models on display have been mounted on white plinths, which Duguid says allows the light to be reflected back onto the shiny machines.

Finally the fixies and folding bikes have been clustered together with the wall being divided into open-fronted boxes with brightly painted interiors, each of which contains a folding bike - aimed at displaying how they can be stowed in modest spaces.

There are, of course, all the other areas that you would expect of a good bike shop - with space for accessories and clothing, maps of London used as a mural on the exposed brick wall and, at the back of the store, a semi-discrete space for children’s bikes.

In total, there are now 36 Evans cycle shops and the retailer opened four last year. So does this make this a chain rather than an indie? Evans is adamant that he oversees an independent enterprise and that it is viewed as such by its customers. “It is about people who know about bikes and providing them with the service that they would expect,” he says. It is also about a form of camaraderie that is probably absent in the chains where the person serving you may well have been selling a sat-nav just prior to helping you.

Service and “authenticity”, as Evans put it, are what this store is about. Those seeking to see what can be done with a little thought and application would do well to pay a visit. And being underground, it is cheaper than having an extensive shopfront in this pricey part of the capital. Visiting this part of the chain gang is a pleasure.

Evans, Mortimer Street, London

  • Size: 7,800 sq ft
  • Design: In-house
  • Location: A former underground car park
  • Major design feature: Use of the concrete pillars to define the different bike categories on display