Corsham’s beloved bike shop Spindles is led by a team of five cycling enthusiasts – Richard Moulton, Tom Skinner, Tim Lammin, Edgar Stringer and Nicholas Brakspear. What started as a Saturday morning gig became a High Street star. We caught up with Richard to find out more…
Where did the business begin?
On the High Street, literally. Edgar and Richard had the idea to set up on Saturday morning on the pedestrianised High Street in 2009 as part of Corsham’s summer fete. It was so popular it was promptly offered a space in The Pound Arts Centre to offer bike maintenance and to repurpose old bikes for people living in Corsham and surrounding villages. It was named Spindles and Sprockets and it quickly became a popular weekend drop-in for everyone from serious cyclists who used it as a pit stop (repairs or maintenance and coffee at The Pound’s cafe while they waited) to families needing to fix a puncture.
As The Pound grew and needed the space, ‘Spindles’ moved to the old Community Centre, then into a temporary space in the Martingate Centre and – finally – in December 2015 becoming Spindles Bikes and moving into number 30, the grade II listed building that is its current home. Along the way we all started to reduce our other work. For me that was a job in IT, latterly in Chippenham. I went down to four days, then three and then in 2019 I decided to retire from IT completely and focus on the shop. The partnership always knew that without a bike shop in Corsham people would have to go into Bath or Chippenham for a bike repair. There was a gap for something local, distinctive and easy to get to.
No one saw Covid coming, but when it did and during lockdown, the bike industry exploded and sales surged. We suddenly had long queues running down the High Street for our ‘at the door’ service. We took orders over the phone, offering specialist advice on makes and models for buyers and offering safely distanced maintenance to those getting bikes out of their garage for the first time in years. We were now five-strong having been joined by Tom who had his own bike building business. At the start of 2021 we decided to open a second shop and café and turn the partnership into a limited company.
There has been a downturn – look at the number of bike businesses closing. People who bought bikes in Covid enjoyed riding on empty roads. But there are a lot of bikes that have simply been put away. We love what we do and the specialist service we offer, but we know we have to work to reach a new, wider audience.
We need the High Street to offer something that cannot be obtained from the internet. All the shops are interdependent and rely on each other’s customers to get the footfall. But we know we also need to tell our story to a new, wider audience. Attracting new customers into cycling can be very rewarding but how do we reach them and show them what the possibilities are?
Richard’s favourite bit of history tells the story of the underground tunnels beneath the town. In the 1950s, as the threat of nuclear war loomed large, the Tunnels became an underground facility for the potential relocation of Government in time of crisis. This role was retained until 2004 when, the Cold War having ended, the site was declassified, though still remaining part of the Ministry of Defence estate. Much of what remains today reflects the Tunnels’ service as a nuclear bunker, code-named the ‘Burlington Bunker’.
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