The many positive additions to York continued to roll out as the new bicycle shop held its grand opening Saturday. The bicycle shop started as a wild project by local artist Richard Saxton and continued to grow.

Saxton said the idea grew from a need to house bicycles he had been using for other projects.

“This project started in 2003 when I cam here as part of the Rural Studios,” Saxton said. “I did a project called Utility Now, which was a series of experimental projects trying to use utility bicycles and tricycles for some projects around town.”

From there, Saxton began to discuss the need for storage with people around town. What he discovered was a common hobby they felt they could use to relate to the youth in the area.

“That kind of grew into the need to have a place to store those,” Saxton said. “We talked to some people and they told me they had an interest when they were growing up in making chopper bikes and we thought wouldn’t it be great if we could house the city maintenance bikes and do a building the provided a place for kids in the county to bring in their bikes and fix them up.”

The bicycle shop is a very unique building. It is housed with solar panels to provide electricity and also has a system to gather water. Saxton has put a gutter system in place to gather rainwater and run it into drums. The drums run to a sink through a hose where water is provided fro hand-washing and other necessities.

Jessie Cunningham, who will help oversee the operations of the bike shop, said they would open once a month.

“We will be open the first Saturday of every month from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.,” Cunningham said. “We hope to have a good response.”

The shop received a positive response the first day as several people’s curiosity brought them out.