January 20, 2026
City Bike Stories is a reflection on urban cycling, craft, and community, written by our longtime friend Tim Scott. For Tim, who worked in the shop while he was an architecture student in the 1970's, the city bike is more than just a tool to get to work. It’s a quiet companion, a design problem worth solving properly, and a lens through which to understand the city.
Tim’s story is intertwined with the early days of Mariposa and the Bicyclesport shop, and Mike Barry Sr., whose uncompromising ideas about function, aesthetics, and durability shaped generations of cyclists. City Bike Stories is a story with a thread that runs from basement workshops, to french craftsmen, to modern city streets still navigated best by thoughtfully conceived bicycles.
This feature moves between memory, design, and advocacy as Tim draws on his education and experience both as an architect and professor to explain functional design.
He shares the same belief that has guided our work for decades: that a well-made bicycle, designed with care and intention, can shape daily life in subtle but profound ways.