To set foot in Bennys Bike Shop is to step into a very particular world.

It’s not just the bikes – although a dozen of those are lifted up around the walls, each with its own story to tell – it’s the recycled and reclaimed furniture, the lustre of old joinery and the bare brick.

The site at 78 Upper Queens Street had been a white- walled, wedding photography studio for fly-in tourist couples, before Benny Devcich took it over three years ago. But he knew what he wanted it to be.

“We’re trying to recreate that old-fashioned bike shop that I remember as a child – and also just old-fashioned service and style, I suppose, which we don't get in supermarket stores or the soulless big bike shops. I don't want to work in a sterile environment, because there's enough of that around.”

He should know. In the course of a remarkably varied career, Benny has worked for big bike chains. He also spent years travelling the world as the mechanic for professional men’s and women’s cycling teams. He’s been to the Olympics, he’s worked in the pressure- cooker environment of the Tour de France. He’s been called the best bike mechanic in New Zealand. He knows what he likes.

“To me, I don't want to work in a sterile environment because there's enough of that around. We want to create warmth, history and also, for people that are new to the sport, give them a little bit of a history lesson. You know, there’s bikes on the wall from 1920 to 2023. There’s some pretty wicked collectible stuff here, which tells a story of the history of cycling. So, you know, they can find it in a book, they can find it on the internet, or they can just come and have a look.”

The fittings are complemented with branding created for him by the design agency Onfire, based on British racing green and topped off with the silhouette of his distinctive moustache, a personal trademark turned business trademark. 

Some of his customers have had Benny working on their bikes for 25 years and his long association with women’s cycling continues with his technical support for the local Black Magic women’s cycling team. But he also wants the shop to be welcoming for ordinary riders.

“We’re somewhere that someone with a $20,000 bike can come and have the safety and assurance that it’s been well looked after by a professional,” he says. “But we’ll do a $500 bike on the same day.”

Benny has been tinkering with bikes since he was five years old; when you grow up with 11 siblings, you have to learn to fix the hand- me-downs, he says: “There was a pile of bikes and if you wanted to ride one, you had to put one together.”

He rode competitively himself, initially on the road before taking up the new sport of mountain biking on the muddy trails of the Waitakere ranges in the 1970s. At the time, he and his mates built their own bikes and didn’t know about the Marin County, California, riders regarded as the founders of the sport, but he’s since met them all.

Riding wasn’t always good for Benny’s career. For nearly a decade, he owned and ran several bars in Auckland, but had to give it up after a bad mountain bike accident shattered his arm.

“I used to run the coolest cocktail bars in town, but I couldn't pour alcohol because I broke the movement in my elbow. I couldn’t shake cocktails.” 

His brother had just bought a bike shop in South Auckland, “so I worked with him, because obviously bikes had always been in the background, and things went on from there.”

The new store isn’t Benny’s first time in Uptown. In the 1980s he owned three kite shops, including one on the corner of Basque and New North Roads, where he hired Perrin Melchior, who eventually bought the business and reopened it nearby on Upper Symonds Street as the beloved Kiteworks. Some of Benny’s kites are still on the walls there.

Although the proximity of the Northwestern cycleway wasn’t a big factor in his choice of location – the shop would be a destination wherever it was, he figures – Benny is a big supporter of cycling infrastructure. He’s also enjoying watching his part of town fill up with new residents and he wants to be their bike mechanic too.



“Don’t forget to say,” he adds as Uptown heads for the door, “we do discounts for locals.” 

Bennys Bike Shop

78 Upper Queen St

Ph: 09 558 5483
Web: bennysbikeshop.co.nz
Email: hello@bennysbikeshop.co.nz