HERE’S OUR STORY SO FAR
We’re MTL Cycles and we’ve been fulfilling your needs in bike parts history from Montreal since 2013.
MTL Cycles starts with the classic narrative behind most niche vintage shops: building a profitable business on a passion for saving history and sharing the duty with a like-minded community, dedicated to the preservation of past aesthetics, design and engineering. On top of that, there was a strong desire to provide regular folks with a green and efficient transportation mode by bringing back to life a portion of the old bicycle fleet that was rusting away in damp sheds. Combining all of those is what drove us to scatter hundreds of kilometers around in search of the hidden bicycles lots we could transform into good, running bicycles that are cherished by their owners.
Right place, right time. Montreal being a really green-minded city when it comes to transportation, operations are quickly successful for us. The lots we find and are buying are bigger and bigger which forces us to open shop under a modest warehouse-type of business. VeloMakak was born. In retrospect, this was a good thing as the aura of the place would serve us well by giving it some sense of community. An address that kinda became a reference for refurbished bicycles. Word spread out in the ever-growing biking community of the city and we got quite busy.
Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure.
Without Velomakak, there would be no MTL Cycles, as it all started through the same lots: while acquiring more and more bicycles and parts, we noticed some of them were really standing out. Good quality materials, great design, odd ideas that didn’t stick or even just the scarcity of some of them got us to wonder: what if there was great history behind some of it, waiting to get under the spotlight again? This is how we discovered the vast past of cycling and the vintage market that is associated with it. We figured we could contribute providing parts and bicycles to collectors around the world who gave themselves the mission to preserve the cycling industry’s heritage.
It got to a point where we decided to split the business in two: one of them would take care of everyday-ridden bicycles and the other one would strictly cater to the vintage market for collectible parts. Every lot that was purchased was now being seperated by purpose for the two business partners. And just like that, MTL CYCLES was born, with a presence on multiple digital platforms (mostly on ebay though), providing collectors with that single part they need to complete their project.
Mont-Laurier: The motherlode
As years pass, the unbought lots are harder and harder to come by. MTL CYCLES still manages to find enough gems to pursue its growth, getting new customers interested by its offer everyday. A few months pass without MTL CYCLES getting any good tip for an available lot when suddenly comes the hint about a shop that closed down 40 years ago, in Mont-Laurier, Québec. The shop was really invested in superior quality bicycles and it was said there was a warehouse full of stuff from the era, just waiting for us to buy it and pick it up.
You guessed it: that’s exactly what happened. We went there and couldn’t believe how much there was. It took us several trucks and a few loads to empty the whole thing. It was in fact life changing for MTL CYCLES as we secured a long-lasting inventory with this deal.
The times they are a-changin’
Providing collectors the rare, quality bicycle part they need to complete their project has always been our priority, which left us little to no time to even just think about getting a website. But as MTL CYCLES grows and expands, a website seems like the next logical step to reaching a broader audience. So this is it, after a few months of thinking, designing and writing.Welcome in our home.
In the hope of sharing more every day with our beloved community,