We’ve all been there at one time or another. When pedaling across campus in the late evening, you get a flat tire or have some other minor emergency. If you ever run into that situation, you can visit the Itty Bitty Bike Shop at That’s Rentertainment and get a patch kit, a new tube, some Tri-Flow lubricant, or even set yourself up with some lights. They even have a pump behind the counter that you can borrow to air up your bike tires.
Geoff Merritt, Rentertainment proprietor, explained his reasoning for making room for the bike supplies. “I’m on the Champaign County Bikes board, and somebody was lamenting that there’s no bike shop [in the central part of] campus,” Merritt said. “If we were going to promote cycling, we really should have access to stuff on campus.”
Unfortunately, rents in the built-up part of Campustown have skyrocketed since the last bike shop left, so the likelihood of a full bike shop re-settling in that golden locale bordered by Green, Daniel, Fourth and Wright streets is pretty nonexistent. Although BikeWorks (1103 W. Main St., U.), Durst (1112 W. University, U.), and Flats Fixed (911 W. Main St., U.) are on or very near campus and offer much more comprehensive parts and service, they’re not near the daily commuting path of a good portion of students and aren’t open most evenings.
So Merritt made the best of the situation. “Sometime after the meeting, I thought, well, hell, I can just get some bike stuff and stick it in Renter,” he recalled. “We’ve got long hours and we’re open late, and it made sense, so we stuck it up.”
And as a bonus, each purchase at the Itty Bitty Bike Shop benefits local bike advocacy organizations. He continued, “We give 10 percent to the bike co-op and 10 percent to Champaign County Bikes. It works out well for everybody, it’s kind of fun.”
Rentertainment’s bike-friendliness extends to their movie selection as well. They have, I would guess, a couple hundred bike-related titles, from videos of famous races to classic films such as Breaking Away and American Flyers. “Those are starting to rent a little more, which isn’t saying much because they never rented at all before,” Merritt said. And there’s more on the way: “There’s a British firm that just put out four volumes of vintage documentary-type stuff, which is pretty cool. Some of it’s on factories that made bikes, like there’s a 16-minute documentary on the old Raleigh factory.”
Merritt’s been a part of the local cycling scene since the 1970s, although his bike has become more of a part of his everyday life in recent years. “I used to be more of a fair weather rider,” he explained. “The last two years I’ve been riding every day, not a lot. I bought that [points at his Surly single-speed] and I said I was going to ride 100 miles a week no matter what, and last year I rode 5,251 miles or something like that.”
He’s even saved some money by ditching his car, not that it’s helping the overall bottom line a bunch. Merritt noted, “Of course, I spend all that money on my bike, but I feel better about spending it on my bike [than my car].”