By Jayson Wechter

The bicycle wheels that were rolling in and out of Nomad Cyclery on Irving Street for more than 50 years came to an abrupt and unexpected stop last September when its longtime owner, Roger Cook, died of pancreatic cancer.

The Sunset District shop closed with no public notice, though a bouquet of flowers taped to its door with a note reading “RIP Roger” offered some explanation. For months, it was closed and frozen in time, its stock of new bikes arranged in neat rows on the floor or hanging from hooks on the ceiling, their reflective tires glowing at night when struck by the headlamps of passing cyclists or cars.

In August, to the delight of Sunset residents and bicyclists, the shop was reborn with a new name, Barbary Coast Cyclery, and new owner George Didescu, who had worked as a mechanic and manager at Nomad, bought the shop’s inventory from Cook’s estate in April 2023.

The new name, which appears in ornate gold lettering on its plate glass window, evokes San Francisco’s colorful history. It is also an homage to rumors Didescu heard that the space was once a speakeasy, and to the shop’s own long history in the City.

Nomad Cyclery opened at 2301 Irving St. in 1969, and was there until 1997, when it moved to 2555 Irving St. That space had previously been occupied by Sunset Stereo, Didescu said, and before that, a grocery store (city directories from 1953 through 1960 list the 27th and Irving Market at that address, and the 1940 San Francisco House and Street Directory places Andrew’s Market there).

Cook, who had managed the shop since 1982, bought the business on July 4, 1997, from Steve Schroeder, a longtime Sunset District resident. A Quaker from Pennsylvania who participated in anti-Vietnam war protests on the east coast, Cook came to San Francisco in the late 1960s or early ‘70s because, according to his longtime friend Gordon Clapp, it was “where the ‘60s were happening.”

He was an avid bicyclist who made and sold bicycle saddles and saddle bags to local bike shops, including Nomad Cyclery, before becoming an employee there in the mid 1970s. The shop had a casual, inviting atmosphere then, with jazz from a vintage stereo as the soundtrack for foggy Sunset District mornings, and a custom coffee blend known as “Rocket Fuel” from Alvin’s Coffee Shop up the street.

Cook was a founder of the Fogtown Frenzy Cycling Club, of which Clapp was also a member. “Roger was a very strong rider,” Clapp recalled. The club’s Sunday rides, which started at Nomad, included “Cook’s Folly,” a 92-mile route through west Marin into Sonoma County with 7,000 feet of hill climbing.

Cook was old-school in his approach to bicycles, said Didescu, and refused to carry electric bikes despite their rising popularity. Clapp said that for years, “Roger hand-built high-quality wheels for track, racing and touring bikes.”

Although Cook could be “a little gruff, he “cared for his bikes and he cared for his customers,” said Flo Kimmerling, president of the Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association, who had known Cook for 45 years.

“Roger knew what to do with any problem,” she said. “He was all-purpose. He was the Macy’s of bikes.” The shop “was almost like a community center. There were always guys there sitting on the stools schmoozing.”

The shop’s 2022 application for Legacy Business status described how “an open room, and the nature of cycling, fosters a sense of collective shared experience, though not always opinion, which frequently turns to conversation of politics, neighborhood scuttlebutt, and other matters affecting the world at large and small.”

Cook, according to Clapp, was “a stubborn guy who didn’t like going to doctors.” He worked at the shop until the week before his death – which was also when he learned he had cancer. He died on Sept. 14, 2022.

Didescu is excited about reopening the shop with a “new vibe,” and continuing to provide high-quality bike sales and service in a neighborhood-oriented shop that is welcoming and unpretentious. He is modernizing the business (Cook was famously against anything modern and was, in Didescu’s words, “pen and paper.”) The shop offers appointments for repairs, will sell bikes and parts online, and carries (and can service) electric bikes; Didescu currently stocks Yuba and KHS cargo e-bikes that can accommodate up to 220 lbs. of cargo or a passenger, and will be carrying Santa Cruz Bicycle mountain and gravel bikes.

Didescu has also changed the shop’s 4,000-square-foot layout to a more open floorplan that will encourage an inviting atmosphere where everyone from a family buying a first bike for their kid to a road-racer will feel welcome.

An East Bay native, Didescu was a 15-year-old BMX enthusiast who hung around a Lafayette bike shop after school every day until the owner hired him by saying, “grab a broom or get out of here.”

Opening Barbary Coast Cyclery is the culmination of his 30 years of experience working on bicycles. “I’ve wanted to own a bike shop since I was in my 20s,” he said, “so this is a bit of a dream for me.”

Barbary Coast Cyclery is located at 2555 Irving St., on the corner of 27th Avenue. For more information, go to barbarycoastcyclery.com, email Barbarycoastcyclery@gmail.com, follow on Instagram @BarbaryCoastCyclery or call 415- 742-4672.