Fixing bikes & creating communities

One day, Vytautas Zailskas [Vi:tautəs Zailskəs] jumped on his bike and left Vilnius. Since then, he cycled to Morocco and back, stopped over in London, opened a bar in Spain and came back to Vilnius to repair bikes, create communities and do his own thing. Margi Sakalai, his bike workshop, is a small place to stop by, drink a locally roasted espresso and have a chat with fellow cyclists. Nothing Vytautas ever did was conventional; he never had a business plan (nor a life plan to be honest), but things did work out for him. This is a story about letting go and simply allowing things to happen.

MARGI SAKALAI IS THE PRODUCT OF YOUR COURAGE TO TAKE CHANCES AND SEE WHERE THEY TAKE YOU. CAN YOU SHARE A STORY ABOUT A TIME WHEN YOUR LIFE TOOK A MYSTERIOUS TURN?

When I finished university, I didn’t want to be someone who bosses others around. I had these radical ideas, and I didn’t see myself having an office job... So I bought a one-way ticket to London. I just thought to myself: “we’ll see how this goes”. Similar unexpected situations have happened before: I would work for a month in the summer, and the remaining two months I’d spend travelling by auto-stop to find adventures. You have to be willing to initiate change - if you’re a historian, that doesn’t mean you can’t ever be anything else.

One of the reasons to let go and travel is to get ideas and become more open to new experiences and surroundings. Sometimes those new ideas pull us out to start something from scratch, and sometimes we get so stuck on things that we struggle to see clearly what’s ahead of us. I didn’t want to feel this way and that’s why I left for London.

You can read the full article in -What do people do? magazine, order at our online shop.

WORDS: RASA JUSIONYTĖ

PHOTOS: UGNĖ HENRIKO