A Bike Shop Built for You

Written by Mark Blacknell

With summer well under way — but not yet sweltering — we’re at the high seasonal tide of cycling in Arlington. And just as high tide brings a little more sand to the beach, this seasonal tide brings more customers into bike shops. Lucky for Arlingtonians, there’s a shop here for just about every kind of buyer.

Arlington’s seen many shops come and go over the years, but we seem to have developed a stable and healthy shop ecosystem. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that — try as some might — a shop can rarely excel at serving all kinds of cyclists. With such a broad base of cyclists in Arlington, this means there are lots of opportunities for the shops to specialize in serving a particular kind of rider.

Revolution Cycles, long a fixture in Clarendon, is probably the shop with the greatest range of appeal. They’re the store folks go to when they‘re looking for a bike to ride on the Mount Vernon Trail, a mountain bike for their daughter, or perhaps an upgraded road bike for faster weekends out in the countryside. It’s quite possible to spend a lot of money on a top end Trek Project One race bike, but the bulk of Revolution’s sales are of solid bikes at a decent value. I’d venture to guess it’s the first place that most Arlingtonians go when they start thinking about a new bike.

If you want to see what a $10,000 bike looks like — and who buys them — head over to Freshbikes in Ballston. A bit over 5 years old, Freshbikes has grabbed ahold of the high-end market for fast bikes, employing top-flight mechanics who enjoy the trust of the area’s competitive cyclists. The shop also deserves credit for creating Arlington’s biggest group ride, the Tuesday Night Ride. While Freshbikes has recently moved to include some more affordable bicycles on their showroom floor, this is the place you go when you’re prepared to invest some real money in your next bike.

Speaking of investing, Tri360 — located near the East Falls Church Metro — opened last year in the hopes of better serving the triathlete market. If you can’t understand why someone wouldn’t have a set of aerobars on their bike, check out Tri360. It’s run by and for your people. It’s also conveniently located just off the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, so it’s a good place to grab a spare tube or CO2 as you head out for a day on the trail.

Thankfully, Arlington isn’t all carbon bikes and expensive cycling kits. For a lot of us, cycling is transportation. Papillion Cycles — Arlington’s longest existing shop, I believe — does a fantastic job of providing affordable and reliable bikes. They’re also the kind of shop that’s willing to try to fix something, rather than immediately suggesting an expensive replacement. They’re planning to double the size of their shop, near the corner of Walter Reed Drive and Columbia Pike, and it will be interesting to see if that changes the market they serve.

You know the guys who hauled out a few truckloads of used bikes to the Arlington Farmers Market in Courthouse on Saturdays? Well, they’re The Old Bike Shop now. Located at the corner of Pershing Drive and Washington Boulevard, they buy, refurbish and sell used bikes. They’re a good place to go if you want to try cycling, but you’re not quite prepared to invest in a new bike — though, really, anyone at that point would do well to visit both The Old Bike Shop, Papillion and Phoenix Bikes. If you haven’t been, the shop’s display case of antique bike memorabilia alone makes it worth the trip.

Lastly, there’s Phoenix Bikes in Barcroft Park. Like the Old Bike Shop, Phoenix refurbishes and sells used bikes. Unlike the Old Bicycle Shop — or any other shop listed here — Phoenix uses that as a means to support a youth program designed to encourage and help young people in Arlington develop the skills they’ll need to succeed. Since Phoenix depends on donations for its inventory, that means you never know what kind of complete bikes you’re going to find on sale there. There’s a lot of what you might expect — mid-80s road bikes, mom’s neglected hybrid, etc. What you might not expect is that they’re an excellent source for used parts. If you’re trying to find a matching replacement for that broken lever on your old bike, Phoenix is a great place to look. It’s also ideal for the kid’s bike that’s only going to fit for the next year.

Fairly or unfairly — and usually both — the customer experience in bike shops can be described as a little challenging. By starting out at the kind of shop that’s trying to serve your particular needs, you can skip some of the frustrations born out of shop-customer mismatch.

Thankfully, that’s easy to do in Arlington.

Mark Blacknell is a member of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee, president of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and a League Cycling Instructor.

About this column: A regular examination of cycling in Arlington and what its growth means to our community.