Working Behind Bars

Some men live for sports. Some men live for business.

Some men live to be behind bars.

Chuck Cowan is one of those men.

When the door swings open to Behind Bars bike shop, co-owner Cowan raises his head from sawing display racks and yells, "Hey Butcher!"

Mark Butcher, a local artist and bike commuter, holds the shop door open with one hand and rolls his bike into the shop with the other. He spots Cowan and grins.

"Butcher called this morning and said he needed a pair of gloves," says Cowan. "And I told him to come down."

"They're cold," Butcher says, holding his bare hands up for emphasis.

Cowan looks at his selection and grabs a pair of gloves, hands them to Butcher for inspection, and the two talk bikes.

Cowan takes out a supply catalog and leans against the counter. Butcher leans in on the opposite side speaking intently on matters of a very serious nature: bicycles. Cowan starts to feed into Butcher's dreams. A new derailleur, a hydraulic disc, a superior chain guide ... "Wouldn't this be cool ..." he says.

Cool And Hip

The name "Behind Bars" just came to Cowan.

He decided to Google the name just in case it was trademarked or used somewhere else. He found another bike shop with the same name, located in England. Cowan says he e-mailed the shop to see if they would be agreeable to having the name used Stateside.

"They said, "that's just fine, we can't even believe someone would ask,'" says Cowan.

Chuck Cowan shifted gears from bike repairer to shop owner.
Photo by Sean Haley

Behind Bars is a large, open shop with a lot of floor space and a big garage door which remains open during the summer. Loud Texas orange paint is the backdrop for Behind Bars sign outside of the shop. One of Cowan's friends designed the logo. Everything about the shop and the design exudes collaboration, hard work and a very specific vision.

Little details around Behind Bars set it apart from other, more traditional, retail spaces. For example, the shop is dog friendly. A jar filled with biscuits sits next to the register and has a sign that says: "Attention Humans Please Feed Your Dog A Treat."

Framed black and white photos of old bike shops hang on the walls; Chuck pulled the pictures off the Internet because he liked them. The pictures feature wooden floors and rows and rows of vintage bikes. In one picture, the bike shop owner stands in front of a row of bikes wearing a butcher style apron, talking intently to a customer. In many ways, Cowan has brought this small-shop culture back to the present.

Like the ambiance of his shop, Cowan is cool. He is also young. At thirty-three he is an entrepeneur who doesn't fit the young business owner stereotype. He's laid back, friendly, honest and has a slight counter culture "vibe" with his attire and tattoos. Yet, he pays close attention to customers entering the shop and quickly gages their needs. He leaves customers alone if they want to poke around at bike helmets without sales pressure - but he remains readily available to answer questions.

For repairs he'll take the bike, cinch it up into the repair rack, and talk to the customer through a whir of spokes as he spins through gears and gages the derailleur. He's straightforward, too, demonstrated by when he recommends one customer to Calhoun Cycle for a specialty repair. He is genuinely concerned about customers and their bikes, not just making a buck.

Fittingly, Cowan sports a black handlebar moustache. His attire is fairly swank for a grease monkey - no jeans, Dickey work pants he makes look stylish somehow - a chain running from his belt loop to the wallet in his pocket. He wears a Texas orange shirt with the logo of his shop across his chest. Inside each of Cowan's wrists are tattoos of bicycle chainrings. Any questions about his love of his craft are dashed just by looking at him.

He greets his regular customers by name.

Discovering What He Wanted

Cowan says he attributes his love for bikes to the small and boring town of Osaka, MN. He would ride around tennis courts with a friend and do "flatland tricks" on BMX bikes.

Thanks to an old Huffy that kept breaking down, he ended up taking a lot of trips to Coast to Coast to make repairs, which would eventually become his lifelong passion.

Cowan's relationship to the bike has dictated his life in one way or antoher; he met his wife on a bike, they fell in love on bikes, he made his living on a bike.

Cowan worked as a bicyle courier in downtown Minneapolis, bike mechanic, salesperson, parts manager, briefly in the construction industry, and as store manager before he was ready to take out a business loan. He says he took away something from each job, either reinforcing what he wanted to do with his life or knowing what would never work for him.

Through each job he maintained his dream of one day being independent and being his own boss.

Cowan experienced a lot of freedom as a courier.

The job attracts people who like the absence of supervision and relish the freedom of being on and off duty as the work dictates, he says. Minneapolis couriers ride for companies like "Blazing Saddles," or "Street Fleet" but remain independent contractors.

"You never had to go to the office, never had to deal with a boss. You could do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't have runs to do ... I never knew who my boss was," says Cowan.

As a a bike courier he could ride up to forty miles a day while interacting only with a dispatcher.

Riding a bike forty miles a day gives a man time to think.

"It wasn't challenging enough," Cowan says, "I needed something more for my brain to do."

Love At First Bike

When Cowan worked for Express Messenger, he was riding a rickety fifth gear. "She" worked for Street Fleet riding a Specialized mountain bike.

"A rival," says Cowan's wife and co-business owner Stephanie Sakes.

"I was coming down out of the tower in the Pillsbury center ... and I saw a really cute girl trying to deliver a package but she looked totally confused on where she was going. So I went down to help her," says Cowan.

This is how they met.

"It was cold outside. He had a mask on so it was really hard to see," says Sakes. "But the weather got warmer."

While attending courier parties he continued to cross Sakes path. They talked about bands and bikes. After awhile, Cowan angled for a date. They went to a barbeque. They rode together along the Mississippi river, side by side, on their matching "LeMonde" orange colored bikes. He hasn't been separated from Sakes since. They expect their first baby this August.

On The Road To A Dream

Cowan still wasn't happy. He once again left couriering and started to work for a large corporate bike chain. He gained experience rounding out his skill set for owning his own business, yet he didn't know it at the time. He worked as a parts manager, supervised estimates, and eventually moved into being a buyer, specializing in the high-end BMX bikes and gear.

Being a vendor contact and being in charge of ordering bikes, Cowan says he started to develop a feel of what was going to sell and what was not going to sell.

"I would go out and talk to people who are using the products, and listen to what they liked and what didn't work," Cowan says. "It was tough deciphering what's going to sell and what's not going to sell because if everything was sitting on the shelf six months later I wouldn't have job."

At this time he moved further and further away from the repairs- one of his first loves. And something started to bother him.

"I just didn't agree with what I saw going on," says Cowan. "I don't agree with how the bigger chains are doing things ... I felt trapped in a corporate feeling environment that I didn't like ...it was not very fulfilling. Felt too much like I was getting underpaid for making someone else rich."

At this time he and Sakes started to discuss opening their own shop.

Riding Bikes to Peddling Bikes

"It was something I decided. Let's just do it and just go through with it even though there is a lot of stress figuring it out ... and there was a lot of butterflies, thinking, 'oh my god,' am I making the right decision and is this all going to blow up in my face," Cowan says. "But I think it was one of the things my dad said to me, 'If it fails, do something else.' And, you know, he's totally right. It made me relax a little bit about it."

Cowan says he noticed a lot of people rode bikes in North East Minneapolis and commuted to work in the downtown area. He zeroed in on the fact there wasn't a bike shop in the North East. He saw a need.

With the help of a friend, he worked out a business plan. This is a common theme in Cowan's business enterprise. Another friend designed their logo. And more friends pitched in to help paint, move equipment and set up shop. Once Behind Bars opened, friends made purchases to support the business.

"We would be," says Sakes, "in a lot of trouble without our friends. We owe everyone a lot. They are all a part of it."

Cowan and Sakes secured a business loan but still needed a location. By driving around in their car they found a large 1,000 ft. space for rent on 13th avenue in Northeast Minneapolis, next door to Three Potteries.

"It is a nice feeling street," says Sakes.

Even though both Cowan and Sakes were determined to make it work, Sake says they knew there would be changes to their lifestyle and sacrifices.

"You can't overpay yourself, you have to be modest," she says.

And working together can be tough.

"Working together is sometimes good, sometimes it can be annoying," she says. "We have our disagreements ... he just needs to learn to clean the bathroom more."

Behind Bars in Northeast.

Biking Down A Dream

Never mind the fact Cowan's first customer didn't pay his bill or pick up his bike. Cowan shakes his had telling this story. He has an appreciation for irony.

Chuck says he is happy getting up in the morning. He gets to work on bikes and be his own boss. Time will tell if taking a chance makes a dream, but for now Cowan says he is satisfied - and can say he did it his way.