February 11, 2025

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Chelsea

Chelsea Bike Shop Trades Hands

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Chelsea Bike Shop Trades Hands

Former head of service Kevin Sanchez at the shop Aberdeen Bike has become the new owner of the local business.

After having discussed it for several months, the bike shop officially changed ownership in October of last year, and Sanchez has been working tirelessly since. According to him, he’s had a passion for biking since he was young.

“I’ve always loved bikes since I was a little kid,” Sanchez said. “I used to take my wheels apart and repack my bearings when I was eight or nine. I’d take apart my bikes and break them all the time.”

Following that passion, he traveled the world on a bike trip in his twenties with his partner of the time, hoping to see beyond his hometown of Ann Arbor.

“We started in Hawaii and rode three of the islands, and then lived there for a little while, just to get as far away from Michigan as we could without having to have a passport,” he said. “But in Hawaii, we got our passports and flew to New Zealand, rode both islands, then flew to Australia, rode from Sydney to Melbourne and then around Tasmania, flew to Greece… then three months in Greece, and then to Chicago.”

The two of them were traveling for almost a year and half, with eight months of it spent almost exclusively “living on the bikes.” After returning from his trip around the world, Sanchez began working at a bike shop in Ann Arbor.

“I learned a lot while biking,” he said. “I worked in my first bike shop in Hawaii, got a taste for it, and when I got back, I was just like, ‘I don’t want to be away from bikes anymore. I love this.’”

While working on transferring ownership, Sanchez’s close companion Maddy, a dog he had had since she was a puppy, passed away. The shop’s new logo now includes her with a bike as a way of “honoring her memory” and keeping her presence in the shop.

New merchandise for sale at Aberdeen Bike

“She was like my heart,” he said. “She passed away a month before I bought the business. She was 15, and she was just a spitfire. She dragged me on my bike for hours and hours. So, she’s sort of become her mascot. We’re proud to have her here.”

One of Sanchez’s biggest hopes for the new direction of Aberdeen is becoming more involved with the local biking community and sharing the joy he finds in the activity with others.

“Shops get involved through sponsorships, mostly,” he said. “But there’s also providing SAG support and technical support, like a vehicle that can pick people up that are unable to finish.”

Aberdeen Bike will be providing this kind of support for Waterloo’s upcoming Grit and Gravel race in the spring. With a skatepark in early planning stages in Chelsea, Sanchez is hoping to see a boost in local activity. Aberdeen Bike now includes a small skateboard section as well as its variety of bikes for different types of cycling.

The shop’s new skateboarding section

“That was another big change from the previous ownership, but for the most part, I want to carry on the spirit and just put sort of my own kind of adventure into it,” he said.

Sanchez encourages people to stop by and talk about anything, “even if it’s not bikes.” Being involved in his community is one of the most exciting aspects of starting a business for him.

Donated jerseys from loyal customers

Aberdeen Bike is located at 1101 S. Main Street Chelsea, MI 48118 open 10am-6pm Monday-Thursday and 10am-5pm on Saturday.

Photos by Matt Rosentreter.