His store has earned a reputation as one of the greenest retailers anywhere. He's been featured in Green America's National Green Pages. His environmental tips, aired weekly on WXGR (101.5 FM), have helped earn him the nickname "Green Guru".
But beyond the plethora of green accolades and accomplishments, Paul Keegan's true passionunlike the eco product-stacked shelves lying in view throughout his Congress Street store in downtown Portsmouthrests in a place largely out of site to most.
In the basement, to be more specific. That's where dozens of bike frames and requisite fodder line the walls, beams and floors like so many lifeless metal skeletons. But unlike their more organic brethren, these bones will one day walkor ride, as it wereagain. Keegan is taking recycling to new heights. What might be worthless handlebars, wheels or brakes to most of us, are jewels ripe for re-use for bike restoration master Paul Keegan.
"They've just been collected piecemeal over time," says Keegan, who estimates upwards of 30 bikes awaiting a new lease on life.
Since opening his Portsmouth storefront in late 2009, Keegan had made the renovation of vintage bikes a side project of sorts: a novelty to help supplement the more recognizable green retail shop. But a steady increase in sales - particularly to hip youngsters living within a mile or two of downtown - have allowed Keegan to focus more specifically on renovating bikes. The re-fashioned bikes are the perfect compliment to 1 World Trading's super-green products - not only are they made from recycled parts but once owned and on the road, they offer perhaps one of the best manifestations of renewable energypeople power.
As part of his commitment to sustainable commerce, Keegan's store joined the Green Alliance last year, a green business union that certifies local businesses green and promotes them to the eco-conscious community in addition to providing its consumer members significant discounts. 1 World Trading's re-invented bikes are already a great bargain in comparison to the cost of a new bike but Green Alliance members enjoy another $25 off of any bike in his store.
At first, Keegan was merely refurbishing the bikescleaning them and applying fresh rubber and grease, all without eliminating the original stickers and chromeand offering them more or less as-is. However, with the increased interest came more specialized demands from potential customers.
"We'll fashion a custom bike if that's what the customer wants," explains Keegan, who has managed to sell 40 of the bikes since last spring. "With the gas crisis getting worse, it's really helping people out who live nearby and want another option other than driving their car in."
The store's Web site describes them, with no shortage of alliterative flare, as "recycled, refurbished and re-invented relaxed retro rides radically reducing reliance upon reprocessed rotting Rexe.s But for as much fun and pure joy as Keegan gets out of building and riding the retro two-wheelers, his passion also harbors a more serious motivation, one reflective of his eco-friendly store.
From May 13th through the 17th, Keegan, along with hundreds of other riders from all over the world, will be participating in the 4th Annual Brita Climate Ride.
The near 300-mile, five-day journey will take the riders from New York to Washington, D.C. The purpose, as with the last three Brita Climate Rides, will be to raise awareness on a national level about the importance of climate change legislation.
Each rider will be tasked with raising $2400 for the charity or non profit of the choice. Not surprisingly Keegan's share will go help Green America. In the wake of the last two world climate summits, Keegan, a participant in the event since its 2008 inaugural running, sees the Brita Climate Ride as another important opportunity to help raise awareness about global climate change.
"We're hoping there's a high profile and that enough people turn up, particularly when we get into Washington, D.C.," says Keegan. "It's really impressive when you see that mass of people when you ride into a town, because you know they're all wondering, what are they doing?' It makes people think about the issue, and that's what we want them to do."
To help aid in his fundraising efforts, Keegan will be raffling off one of his refurbished bikes. Called the "Polar Express", the anointed prize bike currently sits in 1 World Trading Co.'s glass display window, where it will remain until the final raffle takes place on May 7th (tickets are $5 each).
Far from a new hobby, Keegan has maintained a lifelong love of riding. In 1986, he took part in an 800-mile sprint from Russia to Czechoslovakia in the first and only Bike For Peace Ride, which included riders from the United States and Russia peddling together to help ease tensions between East and West.
And that was just the first half: the second half of the ride - again 800 miles - took place in the "west", where participants rode from Montreal to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Yet for as tense and precarious as those times no doubt were, Keegan thinks the Climate Rides might ultimately prove more crucial.
"It hits home more," says Keegan about the Climate Ride.
"When I rode in Bike for Peace - for as much as I wanted peace to be possible - I was doing it more because of the biking opportunity. But with the Brita Climate Ride, it's definitely more about the issue itself."
With the ride still a few months off, Keegan still has time to welcome in the New England Spring and the increase in store foot traffic he hopes is the result.
With any luck, he might even see traffic of a different sort: that of a few old customers riding in.
To learn more about 1 World Trading, go to www.1WorldTradingCo.com.
To find out more about the Green Alliance, visit www.GreenAlliance.biz.
Current Issue - April 2024