Devil’s Gear Ushers In Micromobility Era

The storefront at 845 Chapel St. offers a glimpse into New Haven’s past and future.

The overhead sign …

… and one of the old-school recessed display windows focus on the two-wheeler that has always powered some New Haveners to work.

The other window displays a fleet of skateboards and designs by graffiti artist Harvey Lotus, with a sign at the bottom offering repairs for electric bicycles.

Across the street, meanwhile, two fast-rising apartment complexes are taking shape amid a citywide residential building boom.

That summarizes much about the current moment in New Haven: more people biking to work on new bike lanes, more people moving to town with expectations of getting around without cars, and more people buying not just fully foot-powered cycles but e‑bikes and scooters and skateboards.

Devil’s Gear, the bike shop at 845 Chapel between Orange and Church, is at the center of it all.

It helped spark New Haven’s current embrace of bike culture back in 2001 when Matt Feiner opened the shop at its original cramped space in an old Wooster Square factory space at 433 Chapel near Hamilton.

Now, in its 2400-square-foot space on the ground floor of the Institute Library, its fourth location, Devil’s Gear has progressed along with the city it has helped shape.

“New Haven is evolving. We’re constantly seeing new faces,” tenants of new apartment complexes who moved here from bike-embracing cities like New York, Boston and Seattle, John Brehon said Tuesday during a late-Bike Month conversation on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. ​“It’s great. It’s bringing eclectic people to New Haven.”

The commuters bringing bikes into the shop include construction workers building those apartments.

Brehon and Greg Ledovsky, who also appeared on the program, became co-owners of the shop with Feiner five years ago and have been running it ever since, including through the bike-crazed early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I consider it a ​‘transportation’ shop, a ​‘micromobility’ shop,” not just a bike shop, Brehon said of the store. ​“That’s the future.”

New Haven has in recent years created new bike lanes in neighborhoods through town, with another 100 miles worth promised in coming years.

Meanwhile, the popularity of e‑bikes has exploded. Brehon and Ledovsky said they’ll account for more than 50 percent of bikes sold at the shop within the next decade.

Interest in skateboarding, too, has skyrocketed. So last August Devil’s Gear added a skate shop, run by J. Joseph within the store. (Click here to read more about that, and click here to read about the skateboard shop Plush that opened across the street last year.) The owners decorated the shop with artwork by Lotus, among others. The crew also finds itself repairing scooters, wheelchairs, and walkers.

Ledovsky spoke of how New Haven lags behind other cities in its designing streets for slower vehicles and medium-speed e‑bikes. ​“The infrastructure is getting there,” he said.

Amid all the changes, he and Brehon said they expect that Devil’s Gear will always be called a ​“bike shop,” with acoustic two-wheelers for sale. Who knows? Maybe the sign will once again hang outside 433 Chapel, which now sits in the midst of an emerging busy residential and commercial neighborhood taking shape inside long-shuttered factories. 

“It’s my dream,” Brehon said, “ to go back there.”

Click on the video to watch the full conversation on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” with John Brehon and Greg Ledovsky of Devil’s Gear. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of ​“Dateline.”