‘It’s a piece of art’: A Delco man finds his talent in making wooden bikes

As a kid in Essington, Joe LaVallee couldn’t stop getting in mischief. So his dad, at once annoyed and concerned, took his son with him everywhere he went, including trade school.

Surrounded by the whir of machinery, the younger LaVallee felt it: the first inklings of wanting to do something — anything — with his hands. Woodwork beckoned.

Over the years, he made wooden tables, chairs, and the oddball knife block or wooden sculpture. Now, it’s bikes. Wooden bikes.

They’re sophisticated pieces. Each demands dozens of slabs of smooth, quality timber and a sense for artistry married with practicality.

LaVallee, 59, sequesters himself in his basement workshop for two hours three days a week, after he returns from his day job as an insurance adjuster. It takes him from 30 to 40 hours over two to three months to make one bike, usually out of cherry, oak, maple, or black walnut.

The first wooden bike he made to sell was a beach cruiser built of ash.

“It was a cruiser, but it was a larger ash cruiser. So on here," LaVallee said, gesturing to the bike frame, “I wrote, ‘Big Ash Cruiser.’ And I had a license plate on the back that said, ‘Nice Ash.’ That’s Delco humor all day long.”

The bike sold almost immediately.

He’s been making wooden bikes, mostly cruisers, for just two years. He’s self-taught. And his creations sell for $2,000 to $2,700.

The lifelong Delaware County resident is the only person behind his new business, LaVallee Bikes, which he started in January and runs from his home, a brick house just miles from Philadelphia International Airport.

“If somebody says they want 10 bikes, I’ve got a group of guys that can help me," LaVallee said. “But I’m not looking to build a big corporation, a Schwinn bicycle company or anything. This is LaVallee Bicycles. We just make ‘em one at a time, custom made for you.”

He then shrugged and admitted he didn’t have an official slogan. "I don’t know. I just made that up.”

Choosing to build with wood has set LaVallee apart from most other bicycle-makers who favor lightweight carbon fiber. One of LaVallee’s cruisers is a hefty 30 pounds, nearly double the weight of most conventional bikes.

His bikes are solid wood — not cladding or veneer over metal support. That means they aren’t meant to be roughly ridden, but they are visual standouts, LaVallee said, ones he’d like to see displayed in storefronts or hotel lobbies.

Think of them as a restored 1935 Chief motorcycle or 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk. Good for casual use, but only in safe environments.

“It’s a Sunday drive," he said of his bikes. “It’s a piece of art.”

The first wooden bike he made — and the one he’s reluctant to sell — is a mountain bike made of black walnut, cherry, and maple, with leather handlebar grips he cut from a leather jacket that was a gift from a former girlfriend. He regularly rides the bike around town.

What started as a hobby has turned into a full-blown obsession. LaVallee is constantly scoping for bikes with interesting lines. He’s got firm opinions about the best kinds of wood. Black walnut is the pièce de résistance, he said, the kind of timber he’ll drive far to get. He’ll never use pine.

All the wood is repurposed in some way. Some pieces are old boards from a spiral staircase. Others, leftover lumber from a shop going out of business, wood from an old farmhouse, or homeowners who are pruning a tree.

LaVallee takes the splintered treasure down to his work studio, a small basement outfitted in white cinder block, these days coated light brown from wood dust.

“This is my happy place, if you will," he said. "I don’t usually invite anybody down. It’s my place.”

Nestled between work tables and power tools, LaVallee ponders the bike he wants to make. Recently, he’s considered building his first wooden road bike.

But he won’t start building until he can envision the finished product. It’s why he’s stockpiled a few bikes — duds he plans to transform into polished wood masterpieces.

“I won’t build a bike until I can see it," he said. “I bring bikes into the house, and I wait until they talk to me.”

His dining room, at the moment absent a table, is filled with secondhand metal bikes that he aspires to rebuild. Among the lineup: a tandem bike and a baby’s bike for his first grandchild, Sage, now 4 weeks old.

“I feel like I’m one with them. And that’s the weird part,” LaVallee said of his wooden bikes. “I feel like I’m becoming obsessed a little bit, because I just love to make them. And they really come to life, you know what I mean?”

A finished bike, which he wheeled out with pride, gleamed under the light. The wood is never stained, LaVallee said, only glossed with translucent varnish, which protects the bike from the elements.

“I love working with my hands, and I always have," he said. “I’m not looking to get rich. I just want to build bikes.”