Fort Wayne – If someone hadn’t stolen the BMX bike he raced as a kid, Nathan Art might still be a business consultant.

But the bicycle was stolen, and a few years ago, feeling nostalgic about the ride he used to race, Art decided to get it back. He started buying old BMX bikes just to scavenge the right parts. Eventually, Art was able to assemble a bike exactly like the one he used to have.

The finished bike was a lot smaller than he remembered, though. Too small for him to ride.

“But it was fun, hunting for old bike parts,” Art said. “It instantly became an obsession. There were so many different bikes, and so much thought was put into them.”

Art started accumulating old bikes and fixing them up. He heard about a couple of places billed as bike shops that were going out of business in Michigan and Wisconsin. He traveled there and came home with two trailers stacked with hundreds of vintage bikes. He traveled to New Jersey to pick up old rides.

Art had joined the ranks of what he calls “bike people.”

“I know a lot of bike people, people with 50 bikes” that they have found or bought and lovingly overhauled or restored.

For Art, the bikes became a sort of home-based business, though he never did much more than repair them for neighborhood kids.

Then last June, someone broke into his little operation and stole a bunch of valuable BMX bikes and parts. Art decided it was time to get the bikes out of his house and turn his operation into a legitimate business, so he set up shop in a little storefront in the 2000 block of East State Boulevard, near Parkview Hospital. He calls it Art Werks Bike Shop.

He’s not officially in business yet. His grand opening is supposed to be May 1 or somewhere around there, but people in the neighborhood are already dropping in, looking to get flats fixed and asking whether he repairs bikes.

When they enter, they see a bike shop that is probably unlike anything they’ve seen before: scores of bikes, some upright, some upside down, some recent, some almost ancient, some in good condition, some rusted and mud-covered, 10-speeds, five-speeds, three-speeds, old cruisers with gigantic balloon tires.

The average bike in his shop, Art estimates, was made in 1965, and what makes them unique in today’s world is that the majority were made in the U.S.

The brands are mostly ones only people middle-aged and older will remember: Columbia, Mercury, Sears, JC Higgins, Evans, Wards, Ross, Roadmaster, Western Flyer, Huffy, Schwinn, Free Spirit, Murray, Rollfast.

The old bikes were never top-end racers, but they were solid. They were built to last. All one has to do is clean, grease and repack the bearings, true the wheels, maybe replace some cables – and many of the 45-year-old bikes will ride fine, Art says, almost good as new.

Look carefully and you can see where the frame tubes were welded together, Art says. It was all done by hand by people in places like Chicago and Dayton, and the workmanship was outstanding. The bikes are a reflection of their times, Art said.

“I love the space race bikes,” he said. “What was going on in the world was translated into the bikes.”

It’s still true today, Art said.

Today we live in a disposable society. Look at the bikes made today, he said. None of them are made in America, and unless you’re buying a high-end bike, they aren’t built to last. They are built to be sold cheap.

Art’s plan is to sell his old bikes three ways. He will sell them “as is” for people who want to overhaul them themselves. Or he will overhaul them, or, if a customer wants, he can completely restore a bike. The bikes won’t come dirt cheap, but Art says for just a little more than the price as a new bike designed to fall apart quickly, he can provide an old bike that will last for years.

There’s a bike for almost any period you care to wax nostalgic about. There’s the old Western Flyer with huge balloon tires, made by the Pennsylvania Rubber Company, and heavy skip tooth gears – a brutish 75-year-old bike.

There are more bikes from the ’30s and ’40s, with Gillette brand tires and fenders as heavy as those on today’s cars. Then there are the once-sleek-looking 10-speeds from the 1960s, everyday bikes that are no longer made.

“I’m selling America,” Art said. “I’m reselling it. I’m giving people a reflection of what we once were.”

But what kind of customer do you expect to attract? I asked. Most of the bikes need work, a lot of work.

“People who love bikes,” he said.

If you love bikes, you know exactly what he’s talking about.