What takes you from history school to a kayak instructor diploma? From a nature instructor certificate in sea lessons to repairing touring bikes? “A lifelong sensitivity to the environment and nature protection,” sums up Nicolas Gobault, a Saint-Jean who took the gamble on a professional level by creating “Syab Vélo” (Sant Yan Ar Biz Vélo – the name in his Breton town), his small mobile bike repair business.
Originally from Rennes, Nicolas Gobault was a student when he discovered Plougasnou in 1997, as a summer camp leader at the Keravel centre in Bremel. “I came there once, twice… Then I was hired as a kayaking instructor. That’s how the youth jobs so popular at the time led to a real job for me!” After becoming coordinator of the nautical centre, he could only see, over the years, “the waste that washed up on the beach, the quality of the environment that was deteriorating”.
From everyday cycling to bike mechanics
In 2019, driven by “the desire for something else”, he embarked on a nine-month journey to challenge the Morlaix Co family where his aspirations to reduce his environmental impact “finally found concrete answers at home”. At the same time, he created the En Bulk à l’Ouest association with the “No Waste Girls Group”. “But I couldn’t stop there. In 25 years of professional life, I gave everything I had to give to Keravelle. I did the trick, and I was thinking about what would happen next,” recalls Nicolas Gobbo.
By coming to my home, I remove as many brakes as I can from people so they can repair their bikes on site.
Then, by following his partner who had moved to Belle-Ile-en-Mer for a year and a half after Covid, he would mature. “For nine years, I only traveled by bike every day, and I took the children to school by bike…” He decided to train as a bike mechanic in Quimper. He then trained at a bike rental company in Belle-Ile, where for a year he repaired “rental bikes, those of passing tourists… and even a wheelchair once!”
Mobile workshop that goes to its customers
Back in Saint-Jean, in March 2024, Nicolas Gobault opened the Syab Vélos workshop in his home. To make his new activity “viable, while reducing the carbon footprint”, he decided to make it a mobile workshop. “By coming to my home, I remove as many brakes as possible from people so that they can repair their bikes on site.” No more loading or transport problems, less fuel: it makes sense, is ecological and economical.
The bike mechanic offers repair services “in a fixed workshop, in a place called Foen Vian in Saint-Jean, or in a mobile workshop, within a 20 km radius around Saint-Jean-de-Duyght”. In six months of activity, he has already “reviewed around a hundred bikes, from old ones from the 1970s to very modern electric bikes”. He is targeting “the fleet of electric bikes purchased after Covid-19, which are starting to show signs of wear”.
Soon to be called “home bike”?
Meanwhile, he wants to host “group workshops to teach users how to maintain their bikes and make sure parts last as long as possible, because if we change them, we create waste.” And why not offer “family-friendly bike rentals, giving people the opportunity to experiment before investing in a new way of travelling.”
But until then, Nicolas Gobault intends to obtain the “Accueil Vélo” label, which indicates bike rental companies, repairmen or accommodation providers located less than 5 kilometres from a marked bike route (here Vélomaritime). “Helping a bike tourist so that he can continue his journey is very useful. Like repairing a bike that is no longer useful: even if you only cover one kilometre, it is much less than covering it by car!”
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This. 06 30 53 47 34, Email: [email protected]; Facebook Siap Philo ; Free quote, travel costs depending on distance (free in Saint-Jean), possibility to rent a bike.
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