On Maintenance: A Conversation with John Martin

John Martin is a farmer, architect, cyclist and mechanic. In 2015, he founded the Bradley Street Bike Co-op, and stepped down in the winter of 2022.

Zach: In a practical sense, what does maintenance mean to you?

John: The ongoing caretaking of objects, of communities, of place. It means repetition, and through that repetition, a lot of subtle forms of learning.

Z: In the Manifesto for Maintenance, Ukeles places maintenance in opposition to development, consumption, building. I was wondering if, for you, the two are co-constitutive, alternatives to one another, or their own distinct things.

J: I would place maintenance in relation to creation. They are two pieces of a whole. Building a thing, creating a thing, whether that’s a building, a community, a project, a relationship, whether that’s a piece of woodworking or a bicycle, you’re building it from parts.

Z: Within that understanding, where the line is blurry between the two, where does one end and the other begin for you?

J: Maybe—that is the question. The premise is that creation is valued more in our capitalist society, or rather growth is certainly valued more. Then maybe we need to try to frame things in a way that maintenance has more value. If we didn’t live in a world that was bound by things like climate change, we didn’t live in a segregated, racist world; if we lived in a utopian world, then maybe creation would be dope. But, when you actually apply the real world to this conversation, then it’s important to hold them equally, in terms of the way we value them and reward them—financially and socially.

Z: If the general assumption is that creation comes first and then maintenance, what happens when we flip that over? How can maintenance impact creation?

J: There could be a lot of lessons learned from starting from a place of maintenance and allowing that to inform creation. Maintainers know the ins and out of a thing. So, when it comes to designing a new one, maybe they’re the first and best people to ask. For example, it would be really cool to have more janitors involved in the architectural process. Maintenance is, in many ways, anti-consumption. Obviously, there can be consumption within maintenance. When I fix a flat tire, I will put on a new tube, which I’ve consumed. But, it’s usually on a smaller scale than creation.

Z: You are trained as an architect. What brought you to begin working on bikes?

J: It’s just a life answer for me. In short, I was an architect for a couple years after graduating—worked at a small firm in Boston doing public libraries. I’m from New Haven. My dad is a fourth-generation electrician and they owned the bike co-op’s building. He was having a lot of health problems and the building had a lot of money problems. My brother and I talked about it with my dad a little bit, and I decided that I would leave my job and take a year off and try to solve this building. I had some bike tools. So, I just took over a little front corner and incorporated a little business thing for fun. The romantic, the unromantic parts are it’s my dad’s building, and I didn’t intend on doing it, and I was going to go back to architecture after. This is a temporary thing and I’m here to help my family solve a problem.

Z: It’s unusually poetic to me. My own father got sick a few years ago, and I had to go home to help take care of him. It was a really meaningful period for me, even if it wasn’t glamorous. But, it seems that it all began, out of your own life maintenance.

J: I’ve never thought of that in my life. And I really love that. I’m gonna hold on to that.

Z: It seems like a pointed choice to make a bike co-op instead of a community bike shop. How does community knowledge building fare into your work?

J: There are a lot of volunteers who come in being like, I want to learn more about maintenance of bikes. I’m curious about them. I ride one. I want to learn how to fix it myself. And, essentially, if you’re a volunteer for a year, you’re going to be a pretty good bike mechanic at the end of it. There are a lot of people who struggle in our segregated city where you live in your bubbles, whether that’s Yale or non-Yale, whether that’s your neighborhood—which are really racially and income-based segregated—whether that gender-related. The bike co-op is cool because it’s a ton of different people who are all there for the same reasons. I love the stories of where the hierarchy flips and the interactions feel way different than you could have in other places — which is that you have someone like me, a person with privilege, and a kid from Fair Haven teaching me how to overhaul a derailleur. I’ve been a bike mechanic for eight years, and I never thought about using that tool in that way. And, that’s amazing, right?