About the only thing capable of tying Evan Pack down would be a bicycle shop.

India, Mexico, Britain, France, Alaska, coast to coast across the United States - the part-time Sobelman's bartender and former UW-Milwaukee business student has biked them all. He estimates he's logged 40,000 miles over the last several years, and he's not yet 30.

Now, though, Pack figures to be busily occupied in Milwaukee, bringing new life to a vacant retail spot downtown.

Sometime in the coming days, he'll open the Vulture Space bike shop and repair center at 651 N. Plankinton Ave. in a spot vacated a few years ago by the Van's Shoe store.

With the place organized as a nonprofit fueled by $5,000 of Pack's savings and cheap rent from its landlord, The Shops at Grand Avenue, Vulture Space will be sort of an exercise in scavenging and recycling.

Pack said he'll accept donated bicycles, refurbish them and sell them at low cost - from maybe $20 for a cheapie to a couple hundred for a quality bike. Also on tap: free repair space and tools for people to fix their own bikes.

"Pretty much it's a do-it-yourself bike shop," Pack said. ". . . We want to show people it's not that difficult."

He said his goal is to encourage bicycling, not generate a ton of cash flow, and the homemade look of the still-unfinished, 1,700-square-foot shop bears him out. He's building out the space with scrap lumber, donated paint and items that otherwise might have been junked.

Pack, for example, is big on patching tire tubes rather than throwing them away, and a heap of punctured tubes sits in one corner of the shop.

He'll be taking bike donations May 12-18 at Stone Creek Coffee, 2266 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in Bay View.