http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobiuscycle/4562048073/
The Stranger
Taylor Hurley, bike stylist
Taylor Nichole Hurley, aka Niki, builds dream bikes at Mobius Cycle. After one too many times getting hit by a car as a messenger, Hurley, an experienced mechanic, decided to focus on her downtown bicycle boutique full-time. Mobius is known in the bike-geek world for hot, stylized fixies and steel road cycles that withstand daily use (and abuse). The bike she was plotting when I dropped in: a frosty purple vintage road frame on hand-built wheels with purple spokes, silver nipples, and matte white phosphorescent rims that glow purple in the dark.
It's a bit tricky to find the shop at first (official hours are late afternoon to late evening, details at http://www.mobiuscycle.com/), with its alleyway entrance and four floors to climb, but the huge loft space inside is like a secret world. You'll find a rack of hand-screen-printed Mobius T-shirts (one design has the namesake strip, another a 1973 compact Leica CL camera above the word "grain"). Some messengers might be winding down with pool and air hockey after a long day while an artist weaves cashmere underwear on a giant loom—the shop shares space with an array of artist studios. Hurley is also a professional photographer, a skill she honed to catalog her creations—find her bike-porn shots at www.flickr.com/mobiuscycle. But Hurley's bicycles aren't just sexy in appearance. "A junky bike will abuse your body, and your body will acclimate to the abuse," she explains. "When you ride a good bike that's solid under your body, and the wheels sing and the frame sings, you realize how good it can be." JESSE VERNON
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