Newark’s Wooden Wheels Service and Repair will reopen on Saturday.
Former employees of the bike shop that closed earlier this year are opening the shop at 405 New London Road in the Fairfield Shopping Center area.
The celebration will feature coffee, music and group bike rides.
A group of employees earlier launched a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $18,000 of its $20,000 goal. A website has also been established.
“For more than 40 years Wooden Wheels has been a staple for the cycling community of Newark and for Delaware as a whole. We started from a small shop and expanded into what so many of you have known to love,” according to a statement on the fund-raising page.
The statement continued: “With that said, a few of us are working to sustain the same quality of service that you all have expected from Wooden Wheels in a friendly, healthy, and productive environment. A lot is changing, but the wheels are in motion to set up a smaller, more sustainable and service-oriented location not far from downtown Newark. Our community has relied on us for many years to keep them rolling, now we are relying on our community to keep us rolling.”
Newark’s other long-time bicycle shop, Bike Line, was purchased last year by Wisconsin bike manufacturer Trek. Bike Line was a small Philadelphia-area chain of shops.
The GoFundMe effort drew support from the Newark Bike Project, a community group that promotes bicycling in the city offering do it yourself bike repairs while selling used bicycles to pay for its activities.
