Of all the changes in her Queens Village hometown over the decades, what Tesha Sewell misses most is seeing neighborhood kids play outside: the skid of skateboards, the roughhousing and the teens bustling into her family’s bike repair business with busted-up, suspiciously expensive bikes.
Her grandfather opened Flash’s Bicycle Barn in 1980, in part as a gathering place for young people, back before screens started keeping them indoors. Over the years, Sewell’s friends and other neighborhood kids became the arbiters of cycling trends, bursting in to ask for the latest 10-speed, or later, mountain bike, hybrid bike or skateboard.
Grandfather Flash’s legacy
In the 1960s, Tesha’s grandfather, Harold Thompson, an immigrant from Jamaica, opened two businesses in Queens Village: a deli and a bar lounge on the same block. In 1970, he bought the building that housed the deli, which he later turned into the bike shop. Tesha remembers the deli’s gumball machines dispensing toys and “a little joy” for a little change. She and her cousins would later get a windfall when Harold emptied the machines before clearing them out while converting the space.
Harold was among the first Black residents and business owners in a largely German and Irish area. It was not the easiest time and place to be a very dark-skinned man, Tesha said: “He wasn’t welcome in the neighborhood … because of the color of his skin. But he let them know, ‘I’m here to stay.’ ”
Harold had started repairing bikes after being inspired by a friend in Brooklyn who owned a bike shop. The venture got started using some of his friend’s unused equipment. A former cabinetmaker, Harold made wooden racks to show off new bikes for sale, while bikes awaiting repair hung from ceiling chains or rested on milk crates. Flash had been his nickname growing up in Jamaica, where he raced bikes “quick as a flash,” Tesha said.
Flash’s Bicycle Barn soon became a place where Harold and his friends would shoot the breeze while fixing bikes in the backyard. He trained his six children — and later his grandchildren — to run both the bike shop and bar, with lessons on everything from cleaning and customer service to counting cash. “All the dollars had to be facing one direction, toward the wall,” Tesha said. “He ran a tight ship.”
A mother and daughter’s mark
In the early 1980s, Tesha’s mother, Doreen Thompson, took over running the store from Harold, who concentrated on repairs, and expanded the shop to carry more bikes for sale to meet demand for birthday, holiday and graduation gifts. Harold passed away in 1985.
Tesha began co-managing the shop with her mother after losing her secretarial job in the 2008 financial crisis. She first saw the return as a setback. “I was like, ‘I’m back at square one,’” she said.
But then she saw an opportunity to make her mark. In 2009, Tesha added skateboards to the inventory after noticing young people skating off school railings and along the block. Without a neighborhood skate park, “they didn’t really have anywhere, so they were doing all kinds of crazy stuff,” she said.
Despite such adaptations, Tesha and Doreen struggle to compete with big-box stores and online retailers selling cheaper bike parts.
As two Black women running a bike shop, they have also faced customers who questioned their expertise. “Men would come in, especially Caribbean men, and boss us around,” she said. Tesha and Doreen would show them where the brake cable went. “I’ve been here all my life,” Tesha would say. “Don’t tell me that a brake cable doesn’t go here.”
One major hybrid bike brand refused to sell them bikes that were available at other Queens retailers, citing geographic restrictions, Tesha said. She suspected discrimination: Flash’s was the only Black-owned bike shop nearby. But the elected officials they complained to said they couldn’t compel the company to sell to them.
“They wouldn’t let us sell it and it burned me, it burned me,” she said. “I just wanted to know why? Why? Why can’t we sell these products?”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, neighbors lined up for repairs of old bikes they’d dusted off from garages to ride during the lockdown. Though that surge faded, the family’s ownership of the building and neighbors’ trust have helped keep Flash’s open.
The business has always sought to serve up old-fashioned service – with a side of honesty. Customers came to know a family that steered buyers away from unnecessary purchases. When 12-year-olds requested training wheels, she recalled the staff saying, “Look, your feet can touch the ground. I can take $50 from you really easily … but the objective is for you to learn how to ride the bike.”
That honesty also meant staff didn’t hesitate to call a 13-year-old’s mom to find out why he was trying to pay with a credit card. (The mom confirmed she had authorized the purchase.)
Transparency is still their currency, and teaching bike safety is their unofficial job. “I tell them the truth,” Sewell said, of convincing young neighbors to wear a helmet when they worry that it cramps their style. “I tell them stories of kids that I know hit their head on the pavement and haven’t made it.”
Longtime neighbors, and even some customers from across the city, come for the staff’s “love for the work, the sense of community and family,” Tesha said. “Just wanting the best for the customer and how they receive the work that we do.”
107-34 Springfield Blvd
(718) 479-3119
Flash’s fall hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and by appointment on weekdays. Call to confirm store hours before visiting.
Follow on Instagram at @bicyclebarn.
This post has been updated.
