Eki Cyclery pedals off into the sunset after 109 years in business

After over a century of outfitting generations of kids with their first bicycles, recreational riders and commuters on two wheels, Eki Cyclery is closing at the end of March.

It’s not that owners Jayne and husband, Jay Kim, are having problems paying the rent or with the lease, and they’re not old enough to retire; but times and business conditions are changing, and they’ve decided this cycle of life has run its course.

Ever since the notice on television this month, Jayne Kim said, “people have been coming in; they’re very sad, they just wander around. Some of them are very shocked, saying: I can’t believe you’re closing, let me take over!” But they won’t be putting the company up for sale — “I don’t want to sell the Eki name, that’s the whole value in the business, the name.”

Hopefully, they’ve built a reputation over 109 years that Eki Cyclery “is a place where you feel you can trust the products and the service you’re getting,” she said.

Jayne Kim’s grandfather, Toichi Eki, started the business in 1911 in a cubbyhole with plantation-style wooden walls on King and Alapai streets, and often, the sale of one bicycle tire would buy the family’s dinner that night, according to ekicyclery.com.

“I think he would be very happy that we stayed in business this long. And I don’t take credit for the size of the business. It was my father — he’s the one who took it from the mom-and-pop level to the professional business level that you see today. All I did was keep it going,” she said.

Eki arrived in Honolulu from a very poor family in Japan at 19 in 1908, fortunate to have a relative get him a job clearing brush for the expansion of the Oahu Country Club golf course, instead of toiling away on a sugar plantation as did most immigrants. He was promoted to busboy, then a waiter, saving up enough money to open a bicycle store with a relative. He had noticed that more workers and students were riding bikes to commute, she said. In keeping with his vision, the store has always catered to families, and recreational and commuter cyclists, rather than competitive bike racers.

Jayne Kim, who has been hanging around the store since she was a little kid, started collecting a paycheck when she was a junior in high school in 1978, but has worked full time since the mid-1980s. She became the third generation to run the store with her husband, Jay, after her father, Shuichi Arakawa, had a stroke in 1995. Her father was married to June Eki, the youngest daughter of the founder; Jayne’s parents took over the store with her Uncle Jack Eki in the mid-1960s.

The store has moved to four different locations on King Street and Dillingham Boulevard, and had a second branch from 1966 to 1987 at Ala Moana Shopping Center. It’s been at its current spot on Dillingham since 1987.

Jayne Kim said her grandfather and father relied on mechanics to repair the bicycles while managing the business side of the company, but her husband learned how to fix everything when he started working there once they met in college. Jay Kim became the head mechanic, repairing all makes and models of bikes, and is a skilled wheel builder. He has a collection of vintage Schwinn bicycles that old-timers taught him how to fix, she said.

Jayne Kim, a former art educator, likes to work on the creative displays and be on the floor fitting customers with the best bike for their wants and needs. She feels fortunate to have been able to work with her husband all this time and raise two daughters, who have worked occasionally at the store. It’s been a pleasant way to make a living, as a bicycle rarely gets returned by a disgruntled customer, she added.

In the 1970s, when the energy crisis peaked, the store employed over 20 staffers, but when she took over 25 years later, employees averaged about 10. Now, with the impending closure, they’re down to three, including she and her husband.

Jayne Kim has seen bike trends come and go, from the BMX bikes of the late ’70s and early 1980s to the lowriders, and later the fixie (fixed gear) bikes 10 years ago. Nowadays, hybrids and city bikes are popular, but the overall bestseller has always been children’s bikes for all ages, she said. Their first one has usually been a surprise gift, picked out by parents or grandparents.

In a gentler time, kids from the neighborhood used to ride in groups on their bikes and stop by the store, which she doesn’t anymore; these days Jayne Kim said she would be wary of gangs of kids and a criminal element. The community as a whole has evolved in other ways.

Some of their regular customers are homeless who mainly buy bike parts, but in the past year the owners have had constant problems cleaning up human waste after what she calls, “the mentally ill homeless.” “They’ve been trying our patience,” Jayne Kim said.

Other discouraging factors have been a dent in sales due to online shopping, and the expected drop in business that would occur with the construction of the Honolulu rail line through Kalihi. In addition, the store’s main bicycle line, Raleigh, was recently sold and they would have to find a new brand.

The Kims intend to take a long break and take care of personal matters, with no definite plans for the future. What Jayne Kim will miss is “the energy and interaction with the people” every day and seeing them get so much enjoyment from biking, she said. As a mechanic, her husband will miss satisfying their customers, “the good feeling you get of knowing someone was happy with the job you did.”

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EKI CYCLERY

>> Where: 1603 Dillingham Blvd.; 847-2005

>> Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays

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