Passing by what appeared to be a junked-out trailer this afternoon, I skidded my blue Schwinn to a halt. In front of me, on the cross streets of Humboldt and Montrose, lay the most beautiful visage I had ever seen, a restored candy green Columbia bike.

After my mouth closed and the drool dried, I looked around and saw that a BUNCH of beautiful, shiny bikes stood outside this trailer, looking rusted and drab by contrast. This was no ordinary bike shop, obviously. This was Bits and Pieces, a 10-year-old project that began as a furniture upholstery site and has evolved into a bike restoration anomaly in this otherwise dingy area.

Outside the makeshift bike shop, a young woman with large, curly hair smiled widely at me, inquiring about the camera I was using. Seemed like she herself was a camera enthusiast and luckily for me, worked at the shop as well. Yasmin Silva introduced me to the shop’s co-owner, Jared “Jay” Silva, whom she first described as her ex-boyfriend, then later in the conversation, her husband. While it wasn’t clear if the last name of the couple was used legally or with affectionate connotations only, the twosome have been working together since childhood.

“His dad started it as a furniture store, but Jay convinced him to start doing bikes!” Yasmin exclaimed, clearly the more gregarious of the two. Jared demurred, shyly explaining, “I had built a personal collection of over 30 bikes and started working on them, making new seats and cleaning them up….it just sort of happened that we started selling them.”

Either way, Jay’s bikes now go for anything from $100 to $500 (although I saw him make a deal on a yellow mountain bike for $75), the top end of the line being the green Columbian I was so set on. If only I could forgo one month’s rent….

And I almost forgot the best part, Yasmin’s poetry, which she recited for me without prompting as I was leaving. Pretty good slam stuff, and she even gave me her myspace account and asked me if I saw Tom to tell him to give me her password…she’s forgotten it.