MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Fall 2020

59 words & photos :: Colin Field The Instagram handle @officialkingofbikes may seem a bit arrogant. Until you start looking at the feed: It includes every kind of bike there is and it never stops. There are BMXs road bikes, bicycle board games, bicycle cakes, fat bikes, bike tools, tire patches—if it’s slightly related to bicycles, it’ll be in there. It’s the feed of the official King of Bikes himself, Clayton Foxall. If he wasn’t such a nice guy I’d be reluctant to award him with that majestic title. But he simply loves bikes. He’ll talk to anyone and everyone about anything bike-related all day long. And there’s no arrogance there; as he puts it, “I just love bikes.” And that passion is contagious. If you’re lucky enough to be invited into Foxall’s barn in Grey County, you’re in for a great tour. That is, if you’re interested in bikes. There is every kind of bike in there: CCMs, Norcos, Hutches, Rocky Mountains. There are Gendrons, Penny-farthings, boneshakers and ordinaries. Mountain bikes, road bikes, tricycles and track bikes. There is everything a bicycle enthusiast could ever want to look at. And Foxall is ready to talk about them all. He knows where every one came from, what he paid for them, and the stories behind each of them. When asked how many bikes he owns, he quips, “Too many. Or never enough.” He guesstimates there are 300-400 in the barn and we joke that for him the n+1 principle (where n is the number of bikes you currently own and the result is the number of bikes a person should own) is actually n+100. Foxall owns Guelph’s 5,000-square-foot Backpeddling bike shop. Now with a manager to run the day-to-day operations of Backpeddling, he’s able to focus a bit more on his current passion: his private collection and barn in Grey County. The place where he squirrels away the bikes he really wants to hold on to. “There are all different vintages in here,” he says. “Vintage and antiques. People buy them too fast if I have them in the store in Guelph. That’s driving me crazy. During COVID the push for all vintage stuff has been huge. I’ve been selling so much. I lose a part of me when I sell one though, that’s the hard part. I guess the main reason for having this place in Grey County is I can have them longer. Not feel like I’m being pushed into selling them. There are too many I regret selling. I’ve had people at the store get mad at me when I won’t sell them a bike. They’re like, ‘What are you in business here for? You’re here to sell bikes!’ And I’ll be like, ‘No I’m here to keep this one!’” THE KING OF BIKES WHEEL WELL Clayton Foxall really loves bikes and the passion is contagious