Charlie McCormick, founder and owner of City Bikes in Washington, D.C., died of natural causes on May 11 under the stars at a remote camping spot overlooking the Potomac River in Poolesville, MD.
Charlie McCormick was a D.C. institution, running the independent bike store City Bikes for over thirty years. Awake, original and generous, McCormick was a one-of-a-kind. He lived the lives others dreamed, and, on contact, he made people just that little bit more happy.
After graduating from Stonehill College in Massachusetts, and following the sudden death of his corporate lawyer father, the twenty-four-year-old McCormick decided he wanted to live a life less traveled and headed for Nicaragua with his twin sister to work on building houses in the jungle.
After six months, he returned to the U.S. and planned to travel on a school bus. It was to be a great adventure. But then the vehicle broke down in D.C., and he did not have the money for repairs. So, McCormick became a motorbike messenger until he broke his leg in an accident. “It turned out to be a lucky break for the 26-year-old,” The Washington Post reported at the time, for it was now that he discovered an old petrol station on the corner of Euclid and Champlain Streets in Adams Morgan and had an idea—given the environmental dangers posed by the car industry, wouldn’t it be symbolic if he set up a bike shop here? It was 1987.
Along with his friend Robin Stallings, McCormack built a new glass-fronted structure above the old gas station (he was a world-class problem-solver or, as his Twitter account declared, ‘”Expertise” mostly from Youtube videos). They poured the concrete floors, painted the walls, purchased a handful of bikes, and, using a small inheritance from his father, opened the doors.
The business did well with its focus on commuter bikes, repairs, and customer service. So well, after persuading a few family and friends to stump up the cash, McCormack purchased the building next door. When Ben and Jerry’s became a tenant, he commissioned a local artist to paint a mural on the side of the building—two giant ice-cream-licking cows pedaling on a bright red tandem. It became a community icon and an effective marketing tool.
Selling bikes was not enough for McCormack. When a new apartment building threatened Rock Creek Park, he tied himself to a tree and got arrested. Later he took part in efforts to save the woodland around Klingle Road, which was saved. When a local non-profit asked for help, he taught neighborhood kids how to fix old bikes and fine-tune their new ones. He was also instrumental in launching the capital’s Bike To Work Day ride and was a Washington Area Bicycle Association board member.
In 2008, McCormack’s wanderlust resurfaced, and he set off on his 1970s BMW motorbike. The first week was not so auspicious. In Detroit, he was hit by a car, and the bike was totaled. Though he had broken ribs and a sore ankle, he wouldn’t be stopped. He took on a new steed, a more up-to-date Beamer, and headed north through the icy passes of Alaska, then down Highway 1 on the West coast and through Central and South America to the tip. As he went, he kept his friends and family informed with photographs and stories on social media. And all the while, from beaches, mountain tops, flea-infested boarding houses, and wherever the internet was available, he kept running the business—an early digital nomad.
Four years, five continents and sixty-five countries later, the journey ended after another accident, this time in Ethiopia. When McCormack returned, he pivoted and transformed City Bikes into the premiere e-bikes business in Washington D.C. Again, ahead of his time.
While as a young man, McCormack was not always in control of his domestic affairs (a dead squirrel was once found under the sofa in his apartment) and enjoyed the most hedonistic of highs (in the bars on 18th Street, at Burning Man, in the taverns of Hawkley, Bamako, Buenos Aires, and Dushanbe), in recent years he placed health and fitness at the center of his life. He had a hunger for life and didn’t want it to end.
McCormack was born in Duxbury, MA, on September 11, 1962. He is survived by his mother, Marga Dieter and sisters, Cam McCormick and Sam McCormick, predeceased by his father, Robert F. McCormick. His friends around the world will sorely miss him.
