the Vagabond Journalist

On Nov. 9, Tara Jones-LeGros got on a plane to Saudi Arabia to meet with her husband. These occasional visits and daily video chats they have online before she goes to work has been the only contact she has with her husband.

Two years ago, Tara Jones-LeGros was living with him in Saudi Arabia while he worked as a safety engineer for Saudi Aramco, a Saudi-owned oil company. It was there that she rediscovered her passion for cycling. Today, Jones-LeGros runs their bicycle shop, the J&L Bicycle Company, in downtown Burlington. Her husband still lives and works in Saudi Arabia.

While she didn’t intend for her life to end up like this, the business opportunity didn’t give her the time to wait.

“I landed here in Burlington, didn’t know a soul and started my business,” Jones-LeGros said, “It’s crazy but this is how it worked out.”

For Jones-LeGros, owning a bicycle shop fulfills a passion for cycling she has had since an early age. But living away from her husband while she starts up their business has had its challenges.

Enthusiasm for cycling, lost and found:

Jones-LeGros has had a passion for cycling ever since she was a teenager.

“I got my first job when I was 15 to be able to buy my first real road bike. From that point on I was always really into it,” Jones-LeGros said.

Tara’s passion for cycling was interrupted, however, shortly after she bought her first road bicycle.

“Two weeks after I bought that bike—that I worked so hard for— I was riding it home and this guy had just robbed a house and was running away and he saw me, tackled me and took off with my bike,” Jones-LeGros said.

The bicycle was later found at a Wal-Mart by an employee who had read the police report about her stolen bile. Even though she got her bike back, it still took away from the cycling experience.

“Riding a bike is such a sense of freedom. When something like that happens, it takes that away,” Jones-LeGros said. “I was really pretty traumatized by the event and, until I was in college, I never rode by myself.”

College, careers and a hobby shop:

Jones-LeGros, having grown up in Tennessee, started college at University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. She later transferred to Louisiana State University and got a degree in environmental science.

“I worked in consulting first, doing groundwater issues and then I went on to work at Borden Chemical and did more groundwater but started managing hazardous waste from the plant,” Jones-LeGros said.

It was at Borden Chemical that Jones-LeGros met her husband, Marc, working at Borden as a safety manager. They both moved to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, where they worked at the Hovensa Refinery. While working there, Jones-LeGros managed the hazardous waste at the refinery. They eventually both left their jobs to move back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Jones-LeGros and her husband discovered they shared a passion for flying remote-controlled planes.

“It was really cool when we found that out about each other,” Jones-LeGros said.

While living in Baton Rouge, they considered opening a hobby shop and even went as far as to line up suppliers and buy a storage unit for the shop. But when a headhunter contacted Jones-LeGros’ husband about a job position in Saudi Arabia, they put their plans to own a business on hold.

Saudi Arabia and rediscovering a passion for cycling:

In August of 2004, Jones-LeGros and her husband relocated to Ras Tanura, a small beach community on the Persian Gulf.

“When we moved to Saudi Arabia, I wasn’t allowed to work there in my real profession,” Jones-LeGros said. “They didn’t let woman in the refinery and to do my job I needed to be in the refinery.”

Having the free time, Jones-LeGros bought a bicycle in Bahrain and got back into cycling.

“I started training and lost a bunch of weight and just totally fell back in love with riding again,” Jones-LeGros said.

She did her training on the 12-mile loop surrounding the compound where they lived.

“I’ve ridden over a thousand miles on that 12-mile loop,” Jones-LeGros said.

Living in Saudi Arabia as an American, Jones-LeGros found a different reality in Saudi Arabia then the news-media portrays.

“People here, based on Fox news or CNN or whoever, have the impression that Middle Eastern Muslims hate Americans,” Jones-LeGros said. “This is not true. And I can sit around with some Saudi friends and they will tell you they hate the terrorism that has mangled their religion.”

A plan trip to Elon:

Still having the dream to own their own business, Jones-LeGros and her husband started looking at business listings online.

“We went to Saudi with the idea of saving money so that we could start our own business,” Jones-LeGros said. “We didn’t know what kind of business, so kind of as a hobby we would peruse the internet and look at businesses for sale all over the world.”

It was in this search online that Jones-LeGros discovered that the Elon Bike Shop was for sale.

“So we decided, ‘yeah, that looks pretty good.’ North Carolina is just prime bicycling country, so we flew over [to Burlington] from Saudi Arabia for three days to meet with the owner of the Elon Bike Shop,” Jones-LeGros said.

Although the deal fell through, Jones-LeGros decided to stay in the area, eventually finding where they are located today, in downtown Burlington.

“So here was Burlington and Alamance County, with no bike shop. The opportunity kind of slapped me in the face, and even though my husband was not finished working in Saudi, we couldn’t pass up the business opportunity,” Jones-LeGros said.

Before she knew it, she was starting up business and a new life in Burlington, North Carolina.

Shifting gears:

In May of 2007, Jones-LeGros moved to Burlington to start up her bicycle company. Moving to Burlington, where she had no connections or a place to live.

“I rented a car for about two months, rented a room at the corporate suites for a couple of months and then finally bought a place here and t a car,” Jones-LeGros said.

While starting up the business, she quickly fell in love with the downtown Burlington area.

“We wanted that classic downtown feel, so that’s how we designed our store front, with the hopes that Burlington will continue to move towards refurbishing and getting some more business downtown,” Jones-LeGros said.

J&L Bicycles Company opened for business in 2007. According to Jones-LeGros, one of the things she loves most about the location is the walk-in traffic.

“Where we are, we get walk in traffic all the time. Being near the public library is fantastic,” Jones-LeGros said.

Elon senior Whitney Waters has been working at J&L Bicycle Company since the beginning of the school year. While working there, Waters has come to consider Jones-LeGros a friend as well a boss.

“I’ve gone out to dinner with her and stuff and just talked to her,” Waters said. “She’s really easy to talk to, really friendly, really funny.”

“I really respect her for being able to run that business when her husband is far away,” said Waters, “she’s kind of having to go back and forth and live in two places.”

Until her husband is able to retire in the next few years, Jones-LeGros will continue living her live in two places and running a start-up bicycle company by herself until then.