Smokey’s is mobile
Broyles, Farragut resident, takes pride in his mobile bike repair biz
Smokey, the bluetick hound, flies down the dirt trail, right in front of Shannon Broyles’ mountain bike.
“We do about 7 miles,” Broyles said about the dog, the namesake for his business. “She gets tired after that.”
They finally arrive back at the waiting pickup that bears the name Smokey’s Mobile Bicycle Repair.
Smokey rides shotgun on the way home and then watches from her Watt Road area yard as her owner drives away again.
Broyles is a sort of doctor. He makes house calls, diagnosing ailments and mending broken parts.
His pickup could be thought of as the ambulance.
“I work basically out of the back of my truck,” he said. “I have all the parts a bike shop has except bikes, but I do keep one brand, Eddy Merckx, a higher-end brand. Merckx is out of Belgium and is one of the best bike racers of all time.”
Broyles said his typical clients are road bike customers.
“I work on every [type of] bike,” he said. “I don’t turn any bike away: mountain bikes, comfort bikes with skinny tires, a big cushy seat and extra suspension, road bikes, hybrids that have no suspension and are typically used as commuter bikes, and gravel bikes that have a road bike frame and knobby tires that grips the gravels better.”
After he got out of the Navy, Broyles said he stayed in Virginia Beach for a while, working in a bike shop there before he moved back to his native East Tennessee. He spent several years working at West Bicycles, then transitioned to UPS in the mornings and running his own repair service in the afternoons.
“I started January, 2016, and it’s been going good ever since,” he said. “People can set up an appointment on the website or call,” he said. Customers who drive by his shop in the Watt Road area might find nobody at home. “A lot of times I won’t be home – I’m out doing jobs.”
Broyles is all about bikes in his spare time, too.
“I do a little bit of everything,” he said. “I like to ride my road bike and my mountain bike. I’ve only been on the gravel once, but it was fun. Me and my dad on Father’s Day went up to Rich Mountain and rode that all the way down to Cades Cove on a gravel trail. That was super fun. You’re not really on the road, but you’re on a road bike with tires that have tread and you’re in woods, which I like.”
He said he came down with bike-repair fever at a young age.
“My uncle, Randy Broyles, used to build Huffys for Sears and Walmart and stuff back when I was a kid,” he said. “I’d go help him. I thought it was neat. I would hand him tools and play, but on the weekends, he had a garage and extra parts and stuff and we built a couple of old-school 10-speeds just for fun.”
Now, his wife, Christie Broyles, often rides with him.
“That’s how we met,” he
said. “She came into West Bikes one year. We rode a few times and became really good friends. After four or five years, we started
dating and we got married a couple of years after that. She’s a sweet wife. She supports me in everything I do.”
