End of a two-wheeled era in Lismore

One of the oldest continuously operating bicycle shops in Australia, Harris Cycle Co., is closing its doors this month, in what will be a very sad day for local bike enthusiasts and the wider Lismore community.

Shop owner Darryl Pursey told The Echo the shop has been going in Lismore since at least 1918, and he’s been involved personally since the 1980s, when he married into the business. For most of that time the shop was at 85 Keen Street, in the heart of town, but after the 2017 flood, Harris Cycles moved across the river to Bridge Street North Lismore, where it was hit by the even higher 2022 floods, despite having a supposedly flood-proof storage area.

Still, the business survived all that, and Mr Pursey wants people to know he was always planning to retire at this time, and isn’t closing the business because he’s lost faith in Lismore.

He says he’s ‘looking forward to a bit of freedom’, and expects another bike shop to step into the gap left by Harris Cycles. During his interview with The Echo, he frequently had to stop to assist customers.

Darryl Pursey says the bike business is a bit like selling yoyos, with trends always coming and going. The most recent boom and bust in cycling internationally was caused by COVID, but Harris Cycles has seen it all over the years.

‘During the Depression, things were tough, and they actually put a wall up through the middle of the shop and split in two, because they couldn’t afford the rent for the whole thing,’ he remembers.

Years later, as things improved, the shop returned to the size it had been before, with all sorts of people riding bikes, for transport as well as fun. ‘Back then, people didn’t buy a car, they bought a bike. When they got fit riding to work, then they’d race.’

Mr Pursey remembers always being into mechanical things, and riding bikes. His interest in the sport developed from childhood, including racing and mountain-biking.

How do you explain the enduring appeal of cycling?

‘I think it goes back to when you’re a kid, with that first taste of freedom and independence. As a teenager, you can get a bit further away from home. And then as an adult, it often kicks back in. There’s the fitness aspect. Then as you start getting a bit more into it, and join clubs and things, there’s racing too,’ he said.

‘If you’re in a big bunch road race, that’s probably one of the best feelings you’ll ever have. That’s probably the pinnacle of cycling, if you get fit enough, and can hang in there and race at that sort of level.’

Mr Pursey also loves exploring wild places on the bike. ‘Yes, we’ve been places you’d never get to any other way. You might end up pushing your bike sometimes, but it opens up a whole world out there.

‘Everyone’s got their own reason for cycling. But yeah, there’s something about it. There’s an attraction about it. Even after ten, twenty years, so many people seem to come back to cycling.’

How are you feeling about leaving the shop, after such a long time?

‘It really hasn’t hit yet. There’s still plenty to do. It’s a seven day a week job sometimes. Costs have gone up, and margins have shrunk. It can burn you out, if you’re not careful.’

With many smaller, boutique bike shops closing down around the country, single brand shops and franchise operations are increasingly muscling in.

Mr Pursey says, ‘It’s a shame, because it’s making it very hard for the regional shops – not just in the bike industry – to survive, and the regional town is going to get hurt.’

As a bike customer, you can also end up feeling like a cog in the wheel at bigger shops, which doesn’t happen at places like Harris Cycles. ‘Yes, it’s getting harder and harder for the independent bike shops to compete with those bigger ones.

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in the end. I think it might go full circle.’

What are some other big changes you’ve noticed over the years?

‘When I first started, most of our customers were kids… We didn’t really make a lot of money, but Christmas was so big. It was THE Christmas present, and that’s what kept you going the rest of the year.

‘Now most of our customers are adults. That’s been the biggest change I’ve seen over the years, more and more adults riding bikes and getting repairs.

‘It’s very much weather-affected as well, like this year being so wet, it’s been a pretty standard sort of year. If you get good weather through winter, you can have a boom sometimes.’

Darryl Pursey says the local rail trails have also had a very positive impact.

‘Yeah, definitely. When Murwillumbah opened, Lismore was still struggling, but we noticed a direct benefit as soon as the trail opened up there. I think people were looking for something positive to do, and our sale and repair figures just went straight back to where they should have been before the flood. We haven’t looked back since.

‘We had another spike when the Casino end opened. We’ve seen the consistency of people coming in to buy bikes to ride the rail trail from here, and whole families coming in getting bikes. It’s been a consistent thing. With the next section yet to open, it’s got so much potential.’

What do you say to the naysayers around the community who don’t understand the benefits of rail trails?

‘They don’t understand that people don’t just travel Australia, they travel the world to go cycling. It’s a big industry.

‘I always use New Zealand as an example. A big chunk of their economy is based on summer tourism now. Originally it was all about skiing, but now with walking and mountain bike riding and cycling, their summer now is bigger than ever.’

The current popularity of gravel bikes is also driving the popularity of rail trails, following the mountain bike boom, and before that BMX.

‘The trails provide a safe haven,’ said Mr Pursey. ‘The biggest problem with many people riding bikes nowadays is safety – people are getting scared on the road. They have too many close calls. We’ve got a brilliant network of roads for cycling on, but they are can be quite dangerous, so that safe haven is important, particularly for getting kids into the sport.

‘You’ve got to have somewhere to take your kids and not be worried about them getting hit by cars. Then there’s commuting. If you’re brought up on bikes as a kid, you might give it away at some point, but many, many adults come back to it later, as I was saying.

‘Personally mountain biking is probably my favorite, but as I get older, I can’t do what I used to do. So gravel is the next best thing… I love being out in the bush, and it’s sort of like road riding in the bush. So it’s the best of both worlds.’

And where do you stand on the whole e-bike phenomenon?

‘I’m dead against the illegal e-bikes, but the legal ones are brilliant,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen so many people who would never be outdoors otherwise getting into e-bikes, whether because of disability, or illness, or an age and safety thing.

‘We’re so lucky here, that combination of e-bikes and having the rail trails is getting people back onto bikes who never thought they would. These are people that are in their 60s and 70s, thinking they were way past riding bikes from a fitness type point of view. Most of them actually stopped riding bikes because they had something happened to them on the road which they stopped riding, and now they can get out there.

‘They don’t have to have the fitness initially, but they can get on the bike. Multiple studies have proven that the average person who buys a normal bike doesn’t ride it enough to really gain a great deal of fitness, but with e-bikes, it’s so much fun, they’re loving it so much, they’re on it so much, they’re on it every day, and they’re actually getting more fitness than people buying conventional bikes.

‘We’ve seen evidence of that with our own customers. They just love it. They’re on the bike morning and night, they’re getting exercise. They’re getting out there and moving.’

Mr Pursey has no time for parents who buy their kids illegal, high-powered electric motorbikes. ‘These things are unregistered, unlicensed, uninsured – the riders have no experience, and they’re out in the road. I personally just cannot understand why anyone would do that to their kid.’

What’s next for the space at 63 Bridge Street?

‘I really do hope that someone is out there looking and comes on board as soon as we’re not here, to take up a new shop, because the area needs it, particularly with the potential of the new rail trail coming here and through to Byron Bay. It’s going to be a negative for us not to be here, for people coming to the town.

‘The rail trail is just a direct link to Byron, and for people who are at Byron. We can use that as a tool to get people to come here. It’s just no-brainer to me.’

Darryl Pursey says he’s going to miss the people most when he and his partner leave the bike shop.

‘Yes, that’s the standout thing. You can have a ten year old kid in here, then the next person coming in could be a specialist doctor, and one of our customers, he’s been the local judge. You deal with people from every walk of life. You’ve got people that ride a bike because they can’t get a license… it’s just so diverse. It’s incredible.

‘I’ve seen the third generation of people, families coming back to the shop in my time. That’s probably the thing that’s made it easy to stay here for as long as I have, and so many of those people are friends now. It’s all through cycling.’

The last day of trading for Harris Cycles is 26 September. Until then, all the remaining stock is on sale. Cycling tragic or not, drop in to say goodbye to Darryl and Jo if you’re in Lismore!