30 / matters magazine / summer 2026 T he Maplewood Bike Shed is just 6 years old, yet it has a meaningful story to tell. It starts out happy, turns tragic and continues with resilience, ultimately evolving into a new chap ter that keeps the vision of founder Danny Ives alive. A 2011 graduate of Columbia High School, Ives had a passion for wheels and a zest for life. It started with bicycles from the time he could walk and expanded to motorcycles and vintage cars. His childhood dream was to open his own bike store. He first launched a mobile bike repair shop that became well-known in SOMA. By March 2020, at the age of 27, he opened a storefront on Springfield Avenue called the Maplewood Bike Shed. Ed Schwarz, his mother’s partner, provided the financing for the venture, believing this was what Danny was meant to do. With the pandemic on the heels of the store’s opening, Ives helped many people get their bicy cles in riding shape. Barely six months later, he died in a tragic motorcycle accident on Sept. 5, 2020. Martine Ives, Danny’s mother, felt it important to keep the store open. “I saw all the work that he had put into putting the Bike Shed together. I didn’t see it going [away]… I’m like, ‘No, I can’t let his dream pass.’ ” She adds, “It wasn’t just for him. He wanted it so bad for the town. It’s like, ‘No, the town needs a bike shop.’ ” Alongside a full-time job, Martine managed the store with some of Danny’s staff. “I guess it helped me, for my healing sake,” she says. “I feel connected. I feel like Danny’s there, that he’s help ing me.” Working seven days a week was exhausting, however, so after a time she asked Ed to search for someone to take over the shop. “I wanted to pass it on to the right person,” says Martine. They found José Bencosme at a bike shop in Chatham and hired him as the lead mechanic in 2021 with the possibility of ownership, if he was interested. José and his wife Jazmin never met Danny, but they’ve become close with Martine and Ed. When José first joined, Martine liked to drill him on his English, which helped improve his fluency. She also relayed Dan ny’s vision that the shop was more about community than money. For that reason, they never turned a customer away. In the summer, they offered vegetables from the backyard garden that Mar tine lovingly maintained if a tomato or eggplant was ripe enough to take home. Jazmin says they sometimes call her “Mom.” “I feel like sometimes she saw Danny in José, because he is doing now what Danny, as a mechanic, was doing with working with the bikes,” she says. In July 2024, Martine sold the store to the Ben cosmes. Jazmin and José are grateful for this new phase of life. “We never thought that this would be possible or that this would happen in the com ing five or six years,” says Jazmin. She explains that she and José came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 2018, not for a better life but to try something new. They had solid careers: She was trained as an industrial engineer and José was an accountant in his family’s business. José was also a professional cyclist, having raced for his country in UCI Con tinental Circuits such as Vuelta Ciclistica Inde pendencia Nacional. Although he grew up taking bicycles apart, he was trained to be a mechanic in the Army. When the couple moved to the United States, Jazmin took a job working for an Italian bike dis tributor. That gave her the knowledge to support her work at the shop but also the know-how to run the administrative side of the business. She quit that job, she says, “when we took over this busi ness in ‘24. We understood that [José] couldn’t do it alone.” Although she was sorry to leave what she called her second home, she says, “I love to grow. I love to try different things, and also I have been taking courses about financials and investments.” The Maplewood Bike Shed sells and repairs all The Maplewood Bike Shed Comes Full Circle New owners honor the vision of Danny Ives BY ELLEN DONKER Opening the Maplewood Bike Shed fulfilled Danny Ives’s childhood dream. Martine Ives (center) in July 2024 with Jazmin and José Bencosme on the day they bought the Maple wood Bike Shed from her.
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