When bike mechanic Curtis Evans got a phone call from a student living in Bobb Hall saying he had something Evans had “never seen before,” Evans responded with disbelief.
“I said, ‘I’ve seen everything,’ said Evans. “But someone had dropped a TV set from the third floor and snapped the bike seat off. The difference between North Campus and South Campus is amazing.”
Evans, 43, started his company, We Fix Bikes, seven years ago with the help of his wife, Annette Wallace. For the past six of those years, he has helped Northwestern students. The appeal of the company is that Evans makes house calls directly to the door of his busy student customers, he said.
Evans is a sight familiar around campus. On his large green bike, he carries an attached bicycle stand, 35 to 40 extra tires, 40 inner tubes and large “We Fix Bikes” signs. He also wears a 25-pound tool belt.
“I look like a circus out there,” he said.
Evans grew up on a small farm in northern Illinois and began his career as a bike mechanic when he left the U.S. Marine Corps at age 24.
“Where I grew up, anywhere you wanted to go was miles away,” Evans said. “With a large family, my parents couldn’t drive me everywhere. Even after I got my driver’s license, I still rode my bike. I was looked at oddly when I was a teenager.”
After starting We Fix Bikes, Evans began working on the lake shore bike trail.
“I calculated that in a weekend probably about 10,000 bikes go through there,” he said. “What I found out was that even though there’s 10,000 bikes, they are 10,000 bikes that worked. I couldn’t get any business.”
Evans then realized the importance of working bikes to a student body. He moved his business to the Evanston Campus.
Traveling from his home on Dempster Street, Evans meets with students for bike maintenance appointments. In the process he often is stopped by other students for impromptu fixes.
“There’s an amazing difference between girl and guy customers,” Evans said. “I’ll make an appointment with a girl two weeks in advance. She’ll pull out her day planner. I’ll talk to a guy at 11 in the morning and he won’t know what he’s doing that afternoon.”
When not working on campus, Evans is a self-proclaimed “green guy” who tends an organic garden. Evans also spends time fixing his home, which is more than 100 years old.
Along with giving out free oil and air, Evans does basic repairs five days a week in the fall and spring and three days a week in the winter.
“I’ve noticed it’s most important for students to have their bike just go,” he said. “I concentrate on basic maintenance — kind of like McDonald’s. You don’t go to McDonald’s for a steak.”