No gear, no complexity, ride freely

Park Ik-sung, left, general manager of fixed-gear bike shop Spellbound poses with staff members at the shop in Shinsa-dong, Seoul, Wednesday. / Korea Times photos by Shim Hyun-chul

By Nam Hyun-woo

Fixed-gear bike shop Spellbound is full of chatter. Customers keep asking the shop’s staff how they can customize their bikes. Park Ik-sung, Spellbound’s general manger, is as passionate as the customers are, sharing his tips on how to give the customers’ uncomfortable bicycles just the right fit so they will be comfortable.

For the past couple of years, the shop in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul, has been a nest for hipsters fascinated by the simplicity and sleek design of fixed-gear bikes, or fixies. For some conservative cyclists, this physically-draining bike transformation is something they can’t understand. Without gears, a freewheel mechanism, a derailleur and all the other complex installations that go with them ― and even brakes sometimes ― the bike simply has a crank chained to the single rear wheel hub, and riders cannot resist pedaling while the wheel is rotating.

Dosnoventa frames hang on the wall in Spellbound

This “bike-that-goes-against-evolution” was initially used for velodrome racing but hit the streets of New York and London by cycle messengers about 20 years ago. They sought cheap, easy-to-maintain, but explosive bikes and started to convert old road bikes into light single-geared ones. In many cases, those bikes did not have brakes, so they had to figure out various ways to slow their bikes down ― resisting the rotation of the cranks with their body and leg force, skidding or even using their feet as brakes.

This gave many fixed-gear riders more control over their bikes and made them feel “the joy of how they ride,” over “the joy of how long or fast they can ride,” that happens with riding modern cycles.

Colorful frames are aligned at Spellbound.

Another attraction is that the bikes are easily customized, thanks to their simple mechanism, so that cyclists can easily make their bike with the parts they want ― just like messengers did. For some fixed-gear enthusiasts, this second attraction is bigger than anything else. As it was for Park.

“I used to ride bikes, but was not into it as crazy as people think. I started this business because I love ‘having cool stuff,’” said Park during an interview with The Korea Times at his shop.

“I’m close-fisted in dressing up, but I’m passionate about decorating or converting my gear so that it can be different from others. Oftentimes, I end up spending so much money and time on that.

Chainrings are placed at Spellbound. The size of the chainring is one of the factors that determine the speed of a fixed-gear bike.

“I began to think about starting this business when I realized this craving for ‘something different’ is not confined just to me.”

And the craze was huge enough to drive Park to make one of the biggest decisions of his life. Unlike other bike shop owners, Park has no career in professional cycling or anything similar to that. Rather, the 35-year-old was a consultant at a renowned foreign consulting firm in Seoul about six years ago. It was a so-called dream job for many jobseekers here, but not for Park. Despite his parents’ threat to stop him, he quit the company after 30 months, having saved up some 30 million won during that period.

“I came up with the idea (quitting the company) while I was eating with other consultants who started their careers together with me. Two years earlier, all of us had said ‘this is not going to work,’ or ‘we’re going to quit this job’ because of hard work, but two years later, all but me said ‘we’re doing fine.’ They were accustomed to the job, but I wasn’t. So I decided to quit and pursue what I really wanted to do.”

Front wheels of bikes are displayed at Spellbound.

He said he just wanted a “really nice and cool-looking bike” for himself at first. But he couldn’t find a shop in Korea that was selling what he wanted, so he decided to custom order a bike from a foreign fixed-gear company.

“However, it was hard to bring in just one bike, because it could be easily damaged. So I decided to order dozens of bikes, which was an official import. Back then, buying goods directly from a foreign company wasn’t easy, so after I had succeeded in importing the bikes to Korea I thought to myself that, ‘I can do business with this.’”

In 2009, he opened his business online at his home and soon his website went viral among fixed-gear fans who later visited his home to see the products in person. Then the business moved to a small corner of his friend’s office, a small shop. His business began thriving, which led him to set up a shop where he is now, a pricy plot in Sinsa-dong.

During that time, the fixed-gear fad had hit Korea and was diminishing, along with some “first-generation fixed-gear shops.” However, the bike’s boom returned to Korea, along with the success of the webtoon and movie “Premium Rush.” And Park, still regarding fixed-gear cycling as a long-lasting culture, not an easily deflated fad, his shop, Spellbound, is now regarded as “the fixed-gear cathedral in Korea.” Enthusiasts as well as kids flock to his store to look up which flashing bike or parts they would ask their parents to get for them for Christmas.

“I’m not trying to show off, but Spellbound is Spellbound. I believe this is our shop’s status in the Korean fixed-gear scene,” Park said.

His confidence does not come solely from the shop’s dockets full of rare and prestigious items, such as Dosnoventa frames or Affinity’s carbon frame, which is one of only two in the world ― the other one is at Affinity’s headquarters in America. Park said his shop reached its current status because he and his staffers made friends with customers.

For customers, Park is like an older brother, who nags them when they try to buy goods that are too expensive. For a boy asking his parents to buy expensive parts or bikes, Park tells them no and makes a deal with the boy, such as “get better grades at school first, and then I will sell this to you.” It seems he’s not so much interested in selling bikes. Rather, it’s more like he’s making friends with them, talking about how to maintain a bike, how to get a good reputation at work, how to live a happy life, almost every possible subject. No wonder Park has saved the phone numbers of some 3,000 customers and remembers all their faces and names.

“I don’t think I’m in the retail business. Rather I’d say I’m in the service business. When you look up our website, we not only display goods but tell stories related to bikes. Whenever we customize a bike, we have an episode, such as how the customer came up with that combination or what troubles he or she had before assembling the bike. We show bikes and tell the story. I even posted your (this reporter’s) story,” Park said. “The total number of bikes uploaded well surpasses 1,000 and this portfolio of our work is shared all around the world.”

Such leverage helps Spellbound negotiate with leading fixed-gear bike brands including Dosnoventa, Affinity, Leader and Rolf Prima to engage in projects to build “Korean editions,” in order to promote to the world how good Korean riders are at customizing their bikes and get the world to pay more attention to the Korean fixed-gear bike scene.

To many customers visiting the shop and asking what they would do with a bike, Park always says, “Have fun and be free.”

“Unlike road cycling which requires riders to equip themselves with cycle wear, shoes or other heavy safety gear, I believe fixed-gear culture is always free. Of course you can equip yourself with safety gear, and it’s always better to ride safely, but you can be more casual with fixies and there are no regulations about it.

“It doesn’t matter whether you build your bike with fancy or cheap parts. What matters is having fun. That’s why I started a fixed-gear-related business and fell in love with it,” Park said.