mountain cycles bikes

South Mountain Cycles Under New Ownership

Customers Chad Shafer and Heather Jones bought South Mountain Cycles & Coffee Bar on Saturday. The business has been in Emmaus for nine years.

June 6, 2013

ADVERTISEMENT

Special to Emmaus Patch By Chrissy Cilento, Emmaus High School Senior

Business: South Mountain Cycles & Coffee Bar
303 Main St. Emmaus
610-967-4490
Like “South Mountain Cycles & Coffee Bar” on Facebook
heather@southmountaincycle.com
chad@southmountaincycle.com
Owners: Chad Shafer and Heather Jones
Hours: Monday, 7 a.m. to noon; Tuesday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (new hours to come soon)

What inspired you to start this business?
We actually just bought the business on Saturday! We were customers beforehand. The previous owner, Mark Bowman, had wanted to sell it for quite a while. We talked and joked about it, and one day he was like “Hey, do you really want to do this?” and I said, “Yeah let’s do this!”

Is there a business you'd like to see highlighted in Biz Bites? Tell us in the comments.

What you sell? 
We sell new bikes, parts, and accessories and service bikes. We’re also a cafe, so we sell coffee, lattes, espresso, etc. 

Why was this business located in Emmaus? 
The location was chosen because it makes sense based on how much of a cycling community is here in Emmaus. There’s a ton of community activity, with the passion that the cyclists have and how cycle-y Emmaus really is. It’s unbelievable all that we have right here, with Rodale and all the trails. It’s just a bike-friendly community.

How long have you been in business?
The business has been here for a little over nine years. 

Where do you hope to see this business in the future?
We have a lot of new things planned. We’re going to have a re-grand opening with a ribbon cutting. We’re painting -- the whole building is getting a facelift and a re-do. We’re hiring some new mechanics, and we’re going to bring in some different coffee flavors and breakfast offerings. We’re going to probably work with one of the local bakeries to get some more fresh, local stuff delivered. We’d like to have a more in-depth involvement in the community, a deeper customer base, and just expand everything that we’re already doing.

What makes this business different from the competition? 
A lot of those other guys don’t think outside the box or try different things. We try not to stock things that other people stock. Granted, we’re going to have some basic things that people need, but we like to try different things, too. Our staff is very knowledgeable -- we’ve got a lot of bike experience. Of course, the coffee and bike thing being together definitely makes us unique. We also do community rides on Saturday mornings and Tuesday lunch rides, and we’ll have a calendar up soon for those. If you come in, on the TV we’ll always have something bike-related so anyone can just come in here and relax.

What do you do in your free time?
We do a lot of fishing. We used to -- now we don’t know how much time we’ll have left! Chad: Prior to this, I used to be a pro ATV racer. I did a lot of professional local and national racing. Heather: I craft -- I make beads and ornaments and cross-stitch. Never finish anything, though!

Anything you’d like the community to know about this business?
Stop on by and take a look! We have a little bit of something for anybody -- from beginners to experts. Just come in and have an iced coffee, latte, espresso -- it’s here.

Chrissy Cilento, a senior at Emmaus High School, plans to study journalism in college. She is a periodic contributor to Patch.

durango mountain bike

Sweet P Web Development & Internet Marketing

Durango Mountain Bike Tours had a self hosted blog website but really wanted to take their business to the next level as one of Durango’s premier mountain bike tour companies. With tours for every level of rider, DMBT wanted to share some of the stories from the singletrack on their blog as well as create a clean, well optimized place to show off their different tour options.  They also wanted a nice, responsive web design so that people can find them and have a good web browsing experience no matter what kind of device they are using.

So we built them a visual friendly site that is responsive on all device types.  It is also well optimized to help them tell their story of how they help people make the most out of their mountain biking in the Durango area.

Check out their site and let us know what you think at www.MountainBikeDurango.com!

the mountain bike shop

MTB Thursday - No Cyclocross bikes at this years Winter Park Hill Climb

Submitted by Kris Thompson on Thu, 06/06/2013 - 06:32

Winds of change are coming to the Winter Park Hill Climb this year as any bike besides a mountain bike is being strongly discouraged according to their marketing email. As a former winner of the Winter Park Hill Climb myself while using a cross bike I feel this is a good public statement for them to make to clear up any ambiguity of what bike to use however I'd rather prefer to see them alter the course to make cx bikes at a disadvantage then to simply request for no CX bikes - think of it as a more Darwin approach to the solution than a marketing one.

From Marketing Email from Epic Series

"The Epic Hill Climb is in just a few weeks. Please note that this series is a MOUNTAIN BIKE race series, so let's have people racing on mountain bikes: Leave the road, the hybrid, the cross bike, the unicycle at home, and race the hill climb on your mountain bike. We are not the bike police but you guys know the difference. If it's advertised as, sold as, and called a mountain bike, it probably is one. Please bring the mountain bike!"

For me the Winter Park HC starts my season for Cyclocross training and that course is perfect for a cx bike but a lot of negative energy is focused on cross bike riders for that course as this race series is one for Mountain Bike riders. My win didn't matter much in the end for the series as I rarely did all the races and the others I did I got my ass kicked.

But with no course correction than why not let the best bike be used? Kind of saying no TT bikes can be used in a stage race. I imagine you will see some very stripped down hard-tails this year but at least they will be mountain bikes. Either way, hopefully this request from the promoter will clarify and bike issue and even the field for others as cross bike riders have a advantage because it is the perfect bike for the event.

Photo Credit Mountain Moon Photography

www bike shop

Frank Arroyo Dismisses Bike Share Bluster, Focuses on Running His Business

The other day, we paid a visit to Frank Arroyo of Frank’s Bike Shop to see how the beloved (and now – bizarrely – controversial) Lower East Side businessman is weathering the Citi Bike storm.  Frank, operating on Grand Street for 37 years, found himself at the center of a bike share hullabaloo after the New York Post “exclusively” reported that he feared a nearby Citi Bike station could “run him out of business.”  A petition demanding that the city move the station has more than 1,000 signatures.  A counter petition has only attracted a couple dozen supporters, but commenters on The Lo-Down and elsewhere, longtime friends of Frank among them, have been arguing that Citi Bike is no threat to the local bike shop.

The Citi Bike station at Grand and Henry streets, near Frank Arroyo’s shop.

This week, Frank made it clear to us that the Post took a lot of liberties (shocking!) with their story, which fit nicely into their established narrative that Citi-Bike is evil.  There’s no question Frank has concerns about the impact of the bike share program on his rental business, which makes up 20-30% of the store’s revenue.  But he’s actually pretty circumspect about the situation.  Since the story was published May 27, the phone has been ringing off the hook from opponents of Citi Bike — people anxious to recruit him as the “poster boy” for the anti-bike share cause.  He has zero interest in that.

What he is focusing on is figuring out how to compete in a changed environment.  Frank said the biggest concern is not the Citi Bike docks near his shop but the ones located near hotels (there are two on Allen Street adjacent the Thompson LES).  Frank’s rental business comes almost entirely from referrals from hotels in the neighborhood.  He’s never sought out the tourist business — it’s just come to him.  Now, Frank is talking about reaching out to the hotels to make sure concierges don’t forget about his shop.

It’s probably a little early to tell whether Citi Bike is impacting Frank’s Bikes.   Last weekend, Frank said, rental business was down. That’s not too surprising. On Sunday, we noticed quite a few tourists checking out Citi Bike (it’s the talk of the town, after all).   Tourists may very well use bike share for short trips around the city, but they’ll soon find out that the Citi Bike fee structure makes longer excursions prohibitively expensive.

If there’s a bright side from the controversy of the past two weeks, Frank says, it’s this: 37 years in business has earned him intense loyalty on the Lower East Side. Longtime customers are extremely protective of a local businessman who’s established an abundance of good will over nearly four decades selling bikes to generations of families.