Eddy’s Bike Shop in Peninsula destroyed by fire early Friday. What we know so far

A beloved bicycle shop in a historic Peninsula building was destroyed in a fire early Friday.

Fire crews were called to Eddy’s Bike Shop along Main Street just before 1 a.m., with flames fully engulfing the property, according to Beacon Journal partner News 5 Cleveland.

Authorities spent multiple hours working to get the fire under control. Firefighters are still investigating the cause and origin of the fire.

“What can we say? It’s been a long, incredibly heartbreaking night,” Eddy’s posted on its Facebook page. “Our Peninsula location caught fire and burnt to the ground. We are relieved no one was injured and are thankful for the hard work of the Valley Fire District and all the crews that spent hours battling the blaze.”

The shop, which was closed for renovations ahead of the 2025 season, is especially popular among visitors to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, conveniently located just off of a heavily biked stretch of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail.

What caused the fire at Eddy’s Bike Shop?

A cause has not yet been determined for the fire.

“Around 1 o’clock in the morning, we got the call from the police department that they received a burglar alarm,” Valley Fire District Chief Mike Packard said. “When they arrived on scene, the building was fully involved.”

Because there are no hydrants in the area, he said, his department received mutual aid from 10 other cities, providing water and manpower. The fire, Packard said, was “pretty much under control” by roughly 4 a.m.

No one was inside and no one was injured, he said.

The fire isn’t currently being treated as an arson, but investigators are looking over the scene. Packard said the investigators generally try to wrap up within a few days.

Mayor and foundation director, both Peninsula natives, reflect on loss

Karen Walters, executive director of the Peninsula Foundation, lives across the street from the scene.

“I saw it when it was already engulfed,” she said.

Walters said she heard popping noises around 12:45 a.m. and thought it could be vandals.

“It kind of sounded like somebody throwing something against metal,” she said. She watched the police arrive and close down the bridge. She went outside, she said, and saw the smoke.

Peninsula is a village on the National Register of Historic Places, she said, and the building itself was historic.

“It’s one of our hubs in the summertime,” said Walters. “So many people come here and rent bikes, they bring their families here, they buy gear; it’s devastating. It’s just devastating.”

She said that she’d spoken with the owners of Eddy’s, who, she said, are taking it very hard.

Peninsula Mayor Dan Schneider said police officers reached him via phone at roughly 1:30 a.m. He said he knew immediately it was bad news.

“In a village like Peninsula, when your police officers are calling you in the middle of the night, you know something’s up,” said Schneider.

He said people were looking forward to the remodel and grand reopening.

Schneider said he and Walters grew up in Peninsula, and they’ve seen the building progress through its various forms.

“Yeah,” he said, “it’s tough, I tell you what. For us, we both (he and Walters) grew up here. We knew it as the old-school tie shop. My dad, of course, when I talked to him — he’s still alive — he said, ‘Yeah, that was always a bar before it was a tie shop.”

Destruction of ‘iconic store’ draws reaction from area cyclists

The news of the fire brought people from all over to the scene, smoke still billowing from the charred remains of Eddy’s Bike Shop.

Cleveland cyclist Peter Traska said he’d been patronizing the bike shop in its various iterations for decades. He came to Peninsula, he said, to “pay his respects.”

“I’m not looking forward to telling my 15-year-old that the shop where we got the bell for her first bike has burned down,” Traska said.

Sagamore Hills resident and cyclist Dave Miller said he hopes the business will rebuild.

“I patronized first Century Cycles and then Eddy’s for a number of years,” Miller said. “This has just been a sort of an iconic store, with the rentals and the history if it, and it’s kind of sad to see it burn down.”

Kim Stehli, from Broadview Heights, was walking her French bulldog, Festus, past the smoldering wreckage.

She said she used to ride the Towpath often and had previously stopped in to Eddy’s to see about getting her bike serviced. She said she felt bad for the owners because they’d just been preparing to reopen, but now they won’t get the opportunity.

“It’s sad,” Stehli said. “It really is because this is been part of the whole historic area of Peninsula.”

History of Eddy’s Bike Shop building

According to the Summit County Fiscal Office, the 4,000-square-foot structure was built in 1893. It was on the eastern bluff overlooking the Cuyahoga River, nestled between the Route 303 bridge and the tracks for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

Randy Bergdorf, director of the Peninsula Library & Historical Society, said the historic building has contained several businesses over the decades, including Garvey’s Saloon, Scottie’s Place, Millie’s Inn, Old School Ties, Peninsula Bridge Antiques and Century Cycles.

Century Cycles opened on Main Street in the 1990s and operated there for nearly 30 years until it closed in 2024 when Eddy’s took over the site.

Bernice Poole Bishop wrote a lineage for each of the properties in town in 1963, Bergdorf said. In Bishop’s history, she noted that Dan Garvey built the saloon in 1893 to replace a building that had burned down.

Bergdorf pointed out that the community has lost two historic buildings in a short span: The bike shop and the Peninsula Players’ Barn, which dated to the early 20th century. The village tore it down a couple of weeks ago.

This story has been updated.

Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at [email protected], or on Twitter @athompsonABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Eddy’s Bike Shop in Peninsula destroyed by fire early Friday