Santa Rosa teen parlays his passion for bikes into a small business

Like many of his peers, Clark Howe was still in his pajamas around 8 o’clock on Christmas morning. Unlike many of his peers, the 15-year-old was on the clock, finishing up a job for a neighbor.

Having purchased a small bike for his daughter, that man was only too happy to pay Howe to assemble it, rather than stay up late on Christmas Eve, cursing a set of incomprehensible instructions while putting it together himself.

That job paid $24, and took Clark a little over an hour.

“Had to re-grease the headset and bottom bracket,” he said. “When it comes from the factory, everything’s pretty rough — they’re really skimpy on the grease.”

He recounted that gig on Monday afternoon while working in his repair shop, which has taken over roughly two-thirds of the garage in his parents’ house on Tuliptree Road in Coffey Park. As he spoke, Clark applied a fine line of grease to the lower bearings on the headset of a dual-suspension, Santa Cruz mountain bike.

Whether it’s a 5-year-old’s princess bike or that $7,000, carbon fiber Santa Cruz, Clark can fix it. A sophomore at Northwest Prep Charter School, he is also a budding entrepreneur. Since hanging up his shingle outside the family garage in April 2019, he’s earned some $2,000 repairing bikes.

That doesn’t include the money he’s made working at Trek Bicycle on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. After learning about his savant-like repair skills and passion for all matters velo, manager Matt Roark offered Clark a part-time job four months ago. In addition to his abilities with a wrench, “we were just really impressed by how personable he is, and how passionate he is about bikes,” said Kyle Bundesen, Trek Bicycle’s sales manager.

Clark is blessed with other gifts, as well. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about his wheelie-riding abilities,” Bundesen added, “but he’s a wheelie master.”

What Clark’s mother Shelly Howe describes as his “fire” for bicycles began, sadly, with the Tubbs fire. She has a picture of her then 12-year-old son standing with the charred frame of his beloved cruiser bike just days after that inferno leveled their house.

His replacement ride was a mountain bike that he helped build — in the process becoming fascinated with how it all came together. “With that opportunity to rebuild and replace things,” he said, “I wanted to learn more and more about my bike.”

“The next thing you know, I really got into it, started buying tools, and pretty soon I was just wrenching on everything.”

Shelly and Darren Clark say their son has always been interested in “how things work.”

He agrees. “There are so many different things you can change and adjust on something that seems so simple. Being able to look at everything and understand it — that’s what I really enjoy.”

He learned by devouring instructional YouTube videos, by asking for and receiving a bike repair book for Christmas, and by spending hours every week at Community Bike on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa. He’s also learned much, he allowed, “from messing up.”

Finally, he got to a point where he knew enough to go into business.

On April 26, 2019, he put up a sign in the yard that said “Bike Work.” Neighbors started bringing bikes around, in need of new brake pads, shifting adjustments, new chains, or just good washing and some TLC. Traffic has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as customers have found dusty, rusting old bikes in sheds and garages, and asked Clark to bring them back to life.

He reinvests his wages in the business, buying more tools, including his $200 bike stand. The 15-year-old Howe shakes his head and laughs at some of the mistakes he made as a callow youth of 14.

The first dollar he ever made hangs proudly above his workbench. The job was a basic tune up, but Howe forgot to write down the customer’s address.

Since then he’s come up with a far more detailed invoicing system, and a price list for his services, which range from three levels of tune-ups to fixing flats, installing drive trains, truing wheels and “bleeding” hydraulic disc brakes.

While he won’t describe such complex jobs as difficult, he agrees that “the average person is going to mess up if they don’t know what they’re doing.”

It’s not clear which he enjoys more: fixing bikes or riding them. The wheelies and other tricks he performs are hard-earned, as the welter of scars on both his shins attest. He also loves mountain biking with his buddies on the trails of Trione-Annadel State Park and Foothill Regional Park.

“He’ll be out there and somebody will break a chain,” said Shelly Howe, “and he’ll just reach into his pocket, pull out the right tool, and a few minutes later off they all go.

“Whereas if that happened to me, I’d be walking that bike down the mountain.”

Shelly Howe has done three Ironman-length triathlons, and knows a few things about bikes.

“Well,” said her son, laboring to be diplomatic, “she can change a flat. Beyond that ... beyond that it’s best I don’t say anything.”

While volunteering at the Salvation Army earlier this month, Clark learned that the charity intended to distribute 25 bikes for the holidays. Most of those bikes were used, however, and needed quite a bit of work.

Clark and his father Darren took on that job — “Clark as the main mechanic,” said Shelly, “and my husband as his runner, bringing him what he needed.”

“Clark just stood there working with his stand and his tools,” she added, unable to conceal the pride in her voice, “and got them all done.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.