On yer bike: it’s been some spin as Cork’s oldest bicycle shop closes its doors after almost 100 years

It’s been some spin, but now after almost a century of keeping the cyclists of Cork on the road in both city and county, Leeside’s oldest bike shop, Kilgrews, are applying the brakes and easing to a halt to take a well-earned rest.

Barry Kilgrew is the third generation of the family to run a bike shop in Cork. With almost 40 years in the cycle business under his belt, he is now stepping back from the trade and closed his shop on Kyle Street in the city centre last weekend.

“My grandfather, Larry, opened the first Kilgrews in Cork back in 1930 at 23/24 Merchant’s Quay, up near Patrick’s Bridge – it was a bike and toy shop, and he was the first to import Rudge Bicycles into Ireland – Rudge were a big brand at the time, along with Raleigh,” says Barry.

“My grandfather was a motor mechanic and there were a load of other bike shops in Cork at the time, but Rudge became my grandfather’s big brand and they proved very popular, and he continued trading there on Merchant’s Quay until about 1969 or 1970.”

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By then, Barry’s father Cyril had entered the trade, starting out alongside his father but later opening his own business at 30 North Main Street – where, like his father before him on Merchant’s Quay, he sold prams and toys as well as bicycles to the good citizens of Cork.

“My dad was on North Main Street from 1963 until September 1988,” says Barry. “He was where Scotts Tools are now, just up from us here on the corner of North Main Street and Kyle Street and again it was bikes, toys, and prams that he sold.

“I worked for a while with my dad but then I opened my own place here on Kyle Street in 1984. I just got sick of the prams and the toys – I preferred the bicycles which was my thing – I overlapped with my dad, just as my dad overlapped with his father, because he kept going on North Main until 1988.”

Barry can’t begin to estimate the thousands of bikes he has sold since he opened his door in September 1984, but among those who bought bikes from him over the years were Tánaiste Micheál Martin, rugby players Moss Finn and Doug Howlett and Cork GAA star Niall Cahalane.

In his time, in the trade on Kyle Street, where together with bike mechanics, Brian O’Donovan and Trevor O’Connell, he has kept half of Cork ‘a velo’, Barry has noticed a huge change in the business. Notwithstanding his own retirement, he is optimistic for the future of small bike shops.

“Raleigh would have been huge when I started, and then a lot of the American brands like Giant and Trek came in. Bikes themselves changed from standard cable brakes to calliper brakes to disc brakes and then carbon fibre parts came in, and now electric bikes are the thing.”

The introduction of the Cycle to Work Scheme in 2009 saw a huge upsurge in the business, with more and more people cycling. The introduction of cycle lanes around Cork city and the expansion of greenways has also got more people taking to two wheels rather than four, he said.

“Everything has improved dramatically over the years - from the bikes themselves to the gear. There’s proper gear out there now, bib shorts, bib leggings, better chamois, all more aerodynamic and more comfortable, and of course greenways are going make a huge difference to the trade.

“I think there is a future for the small bike shop. I think there is always room in the trade for a guy that can offer service and reliability. There are still a lot of guys in the trade who are really good and are going to do good quality work and are reliable and know what they are talking about.”

So how does he feel about bringing down the shutters on almost a century of cycling history in Cork?

“I loved the trade and loved it for years and had great fun, but it’s like when you go to a good film and it comes to an end, you love it but you wouldn’t go back to it again. I loved it while I was doing it but I have enough. I’ve done this since I’m 19 and I’m 58 now and need something different in my life.

“It does make me sad that over 90s years of cycling history is coming to an end, but it’s good to know when the time is right to go as well. and the time is right for me.

“You have only one life and you have to live it for yourself, you don’t live it for other people.

“I was never good enough to race but I like touring and I do a lot of charity rides and that’s what I like, doing 120kms, 130kms spins – sometimes more but not at speed. Retiring from the trade now will give me time to get out on the bike more so I’m looking forward to that.”

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