At 268 Albert Rd, Woodstock, you will find a rainbow-decorated garage with half a bicycle stapled above the entrance of a bike shop. This is the Bicycle Maintenance Company (BMC).
Without knowing BMC, you might assume it is just a regular, humble bike store. However, once you've entered and greeted staff, you realise BMC is different.
The shop is a unique and special place that plays a beautiful role within the Woodstock cycle shop ecosystem - providing customised paint jobs for the most discerning cyclists.
Going custom
Married in 1999, Jared and Melane Mahaffey are the people behind BMC. Sharing their love for bikes and customisation, they decided to establish one of the first bike custom shops in the Western Cape.
"When we started this business in 2004, it was just Mel and me. I was doing repairs. She was doing admin. The business grew and grew, and then people started asking us to touch things up or if we did resprays because nobody was doing them," notes Jared.
"When we started, we were about to have a kid, renting a place for R1000 a month, and in that month, we made about R250. But that's how we started," says Melane.
