A host of CSRA bikers were gathered outside a garage along Edgefield Highway in North Augusta, Saturday, with the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce, celebrating the grand opening of Art’s Motorcycle Shop.
Art Robinson had been into fixing bikes as a teenager, though he drifted away as it proved an expensive hobby. A winding path would gradually bring him back to it: serving in the Army, working security, eventually working on the railroad for nine years. He spent a year off from the railroad learning how to repair Harleys at the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Orlando, Fla.
He would go on to use that knowledge working in a retail shop in New Ellenton for a friend who collected motorcycles.
“[He] just gave me free rein at the shop, and I kind of turned it into more of a business than what he wanted,” said Robinson. “Unfortunately, there was a number of dealers or mechanics in the area that were retiring, or a couple of them have died off… I kind of ended up being one of the only places other than Harley that does this over in this area.”
Robinson and his wife Elizabeth moved the business to North Augusta last year, just a few miles from Exit 5. He says the community—from other local businesses to the American Legion—has been welcoming and supportive, and the new location has proven lucrative as well.
“We’ve been very blessed with it… We thought coming over here from New Ellenton, that we would bring six years of customers,” he said. “We do get a lot of those customers, and we probably got just as many new customers because of the exposure with the traffic volume here and the location being closer to Augusta and close to the interstate so we can get people from over towards Columbia.”
Another significant part of that journey was the Robinsons’ connection to Freedom Biker Church in New Ellenton, which ministers to the biker communities throughout the CSRA, a crowd that Art notes may not always feel in place in more conventional congregations.
“A lot of churches do biker Sundays. We do biker Sunday every Sunday,” said Gary Hanna, pastor of Freedom Biker Church. “Our worship service is a little bit different, high energy; it’s like going to a biker rally every week.”
The small congregation has benefited from the Robinsons’ faithfulness and generosity, helping fellow riders in need. Hanna mentions that they have even aided others at financial cost to themselves. The shop even serves as a kind of satellite ministry of the church, says associate pastor Travis Brown.
“We’re called to live on mission for God, live out the Gospel and be prepared to share it with anyone and everyone when the opportunity comes up,” said Brown. “Art and Elizabeth do that here. This place is as much of a ministry as it is a motorcycle shop.”
Art Robinson even recalls staying at the shop—which normally closes at 6 p.m.—until about 9 p.m. to fix a flat tire for motorists traveling from North Carolina to Texas for a veterans’ ride.
“I told my wife, kind of my philosophy toward all this when I was growing up, and when I did have a bike, I had to do my own work and to do the best I could, because I couldn’t afford to take my bike to a professional mechanic,” he said, noting the cost finding and swapping the right parts for repairs. “So I want to be the shop that the guy who can’t afford to take it to Harley for his office can bring it to me instead of trying to do it himself… It’s sort of a fortunate and I’m blessed that it’s I can just do my hobby and make enough money to pay the bills.”
Art’s Motorcycle Shop is located at 551 Edgefield Rd. in North Augusta.
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
