It’s not every day a new bike shop opens in my street, so when Oxford Bike Company rolled up its shutter doors for the first time last month I was well excited.

Right on the corner of Southfield and Cowley Roads, the premises has hosted several failed businesses in recent years, most recently a photography parlour. I was keen to get in there and introduce myself before a similar fate befell Oxford Bike Company.

I needn’t have worried. Every time I rode down there, notepad and pencil in hand, the shop was so busy with customers there was no way I could get a word in edgeways.

Their success seems to be because of, rather than in spite of, the three other massive bike shops on Cowley Road. There are now four bikes shops within a third of a mile of each other on this stretch of Cowley Road. Throw in Reg Taylor’s on Iffley Road and this corner of East Oxford must have the highest density of bike shops per square mile or per capita than anywhere in the world.

So what is Oxford Bike Company? The owner, Dave Cozier, looks more like a biker than a cyclist: a giant of a man with a lumberjack-check shirt. But the look is belied by his amazing calm and charm on the shopfloor. Bike shops are not renowned for their customer services skills, but watching Dave with his customers, I knew instantly that his business was here to stay.

Dave started out 15 years ago, fixing bikes as a hobby. The hobby soon became a career, and with a few brief forays working for an engineering firm and in a theatre, he’s run a succession of bike businesses.

Oxford Bike Company’s long white van says it offers mobile repair services, but in reality they now get few call-outs for mobile repairs. The business is mainly the shop, bicycle hire, and a university service and repair contract.

I was curious to know how the shop differentiated itself from Beeline, CycloAnalysts and Cycle King, all a stone’s throw away. The answer is two-fold. Dave specialises in second-hand bikes. None of the other bikes shops in Oxford has ever taken the second-hand market terribly seriously it seems to me. He also sells new bikes in a niche the other local shops don’t serve.

Beeline and CycloAnalysts have their top-end brands – Specialized, Trek, Giant – that reel the punters in.

Cycle King caters for another part of the market.

Oxford Bike Company mainly sells brands that I’ve never heard of – Barracuda, ProBike, Forme. And one I have heard of – Dahon, the folding bikes.

The bikes seem well-built with decent components throughout. They have much of the quality of the bikes sold by reputable local shops but not the price tags.

I’m happy to report that Oxford Bike Company is here to stay. There’s bags of space for this new kid on the block.

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