My new shop has been open about 2 months now and we are slowly working out the commuter station and various areas of the shop to promote using your bicycle for transportation, utility or recreation.
The first thing we did when laying out the shops floor plan was make half of the shop for recreation. This means hybrids, commuters, comfort bikes and all the accessories to go with it.
We have a display with racks and fenders (this rack is now 50/50 of racks from Trek and 3 different width full coverage fenders from SKS.)
On the other side of this rack display is our bags. We are stocking the basic essentials now until folks really catch on to the riding bug. First are basic grocery panniers which now I even have a display of one in use using empty cereal and food boxes. Then we have trunk bags and mesh wire baskets for front handlebars or rear rack mounting. I think those two things are the most sold so far in the store. Most of our bags will be Trek specific that work with the “Interchange” system that Trek has out. It’s a pretty cool system that we will have on review next week. Essentially you have on and off with the bags via one push button. Easy to manage many of their bags, baskets, and panniers.
Locks come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes with durablity being the key question. Having experience with major cities and then also suburbia I did my best to mix in a couple good higher end Kryptonite locks with recreational locks to keep the honest person honest.
With daylight being at its yearly low we are stocking a good selection of lights. Since the photo above we have received in more CateEye lights and a couple Light & Motion Vega rechargeable commuter lights. We do our best to explain the difference of being seen verse seeing the road.
Riding clothing is something we are continuosly trying to approve. I have not taken any photos but right now we stock jackets from Bontrager and Pearl Izumi. Into the spring months I hope to carry more urban wear for the recreational cyclist or something that really isn’t comfortable wearing spandex or tight fitting jerseys.
The month of January I am working on a focus wall to tie all this together. It will include a large map of Charlotte with 10-15 places that are good biking destinations. They include greenways, bike lanes, mountain bike trails, parks and even coffee shops.. Once this part of the project is complete I will add more photos!