It’s Funked Up! by Orla O’Connor

In a kaleidoscope of neon colours, vintage bike parts and funky music, we discuss bicycle customisation, bringing bikes back to life and being a cyclist in Dublin with Mark from Funked Up Bikes.

Roof at Funked Up Bikes featuring the customisation system. Photo by Anne Woetzel.

By Orla Jane O’Connor

As you walk through the doors of Funked Up Bikes you are whisked away to a 70s dream oasis of bright colours and chill music. As you wander under a canopy of technicolour wheels and twinkle lights, you can admire the bicycles fashioned like something out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory adorned on the walls. The vibrant aesthetic is matched only by the amiability and patience of the staff. The tight-knit team of three Olaf, Mark, and Rory, the founder and his two trusted repairmen, receive their customers with a smile and a sense of calm that puts them immediately at ease.

At Funked Up Bikes, not only do they repair and sell bikes, they can create the bike you could have only concocted in your wildest dreams! Using their smart tech software they begin with a simple model, a single speed fixie-bicycle, and then the customisation begins. Any shade, any colour combination under the sun and any parts you may so desire. Mark, the shop repairman, walked us through the simple and efficient software, “ They start at €640 unless you upgrade them parts wise any colour configuration is €640. That was the idea, an affordable bike with little maintenance, customised to your taste, that can get you where you need to go.”

A “fixie-bike”, also known as a fixed gear bicycle, is single speed, meaning no gears to increase or decrease the base speed. This is the smart reason Funked Up set up shop in 2011 during the “fixie-craze”, “We mainly did that because Dublin is quite flat, and there are not a lot of hills, and not a lot of people like to get their bikes maintained. It’s a bit of a hassle so what we did was design a bike with as little to maintain as possible, to suit the Irish market.”

The next step in the evolution of the store is restorations. Taking battered and bruised vintage bicycles and mending them, “The idea is to keep it as original as possible. Fix what you can, maintain what you can and at the end of the day if something needs replacing it has to go. Our intention is to bring the bike back to life. That in the window is a JKF (vintage manufacturer) and his initials were originally JFK, because the owner was named Jean Koffman but obviously to avoid confusion, they went by JKF. I have only ever seen two other frames from that manufacturer ever (online) so it is pretty obscure.”

Irish interest in bicycles has been growing slowly over the past decade but the quiet of lockdown brought on a new burst of activity as people searched for ways to get out of their houses! “ Big boom in bikes during Covid!

The only issue was that with Covid all the factories had to close. So the initial boom was great and then no stock. So there was about 6 months last year, where we had very little parts to repair bikes, which was an issue and we could not get any. But the public interest in cycling and getting out certainly is there. It has certainly increased. It is fantastic. The amount of bikes that I have had come to the store that have been dug out of sheds and people say, “That has been sitting a while but can you fix it?” Of course I always say, “Sure, yeah, sure.”

Though Irish interest in cycling is piquing, the structure is not exactly rising to the same height. With thin or tilted cycle lanes scattered with maintenance and sewage grates cyclists need to keep an eye out, especially in the rain. When discussing the “cycle-friendliness” of Dublin with Mark after some cheeky chuckles he said, “Dublin is trying to become one, a cycle friendly city.

I enjoy the ‘Bike to Work’ scheme but the rest of it, the bike lanes and infrastructure for the bikes, it is really great that they are doing it. It is just not being done very well. Unfortunately, it is most likely people in an office in a tall building somewhere, who haven’t been on a bike in years, making these plans. I am an avid cycler, I was a courier, I know how “cycle-friendly” Dublin is, which is not very.”

A hidden gem in the centre of the New Market area, Funked Up adores the community it is surrounded by, “I love Dublin 8. It is one of the few places in Dublin that still has a sense of community. We help out all the shops along the road, they help us. Everybody knows each other, all up and down the road. There are a few characters here as well. It is so weird to think that a place like this still exists. The antique shop next door for example we are quite connected, we fix things for them and they help us. During our renovation a few months back they provided us with lights and our prized disco ball, anything weird and wonderful that does not look like it should come from a bike shop, came from them.”

A true reflection of the quirky and lively neighbourhood of Dublin 8, the cycling haven that is Funked Up Bikes always has its doors open for all ready to receive you with a gracious attitude and in-depth knowledge. As Mark the repairman said, “We want to provide for the community as much as we can, keep everybody happy and keep the wheels rolling!”

Front view of Funked Up Bikes featuring several models including the ‘Vintage JKF Bike’ , at the bottom left corner. Photo by Anne Woetzel.