My wife always gives me a hard time about being drawn to a new bike shop like a kid drawn to the candy store. I’m sure there’s nothing new or all that exciting in the shop, but I always have to go in, kick tires, check out the latest bike stuff. Imagine my excitement when I got to go to Seattle Bike Supply to return some bikes and take a quick tour. That place is HUGE. Wall-to-wall bike stuff. 6’ stacks of just anodized rims. Big boxes with the words “Shimano” and “SRAM”. It was great. I’ll have to do a formal interview with Tim Rutledge (he’s our contact down there) once he gets back from the Tour of California, but in the mean time – I’d wanted to give you a little perspective on what goes on at this cool place.
SBS is the shop behind your local shop. As many in the industry know – stores are only as good as their supplier. If you ever walk into your shop and need a part ASAP that just isn’t something they carry – the shop may hit up SBS to fill that gap. In many cases, SBS can get the parts you need to the shop in 24 hours – very nice since most of us tend to plan for our big events the day or so before we need them. SBS has also done a good job of identifying the need for urban bikes and has started to shift their inventory to cater to the emerging market.
Here’s the quick story I got from Tim on the SBS story:
Seattle Bike Supply is a full service bike and bike parts distributor. We also own several leading bike brands; Redline® bikes, Torker® bikes, Pryme® protective gear, Potenza®, and Inline®. As of January 2007 SBS is the exclusive USA distributor of Lapierre, and Batavus branded bicycles Our 4 warehouse locations (Kent, WA; Rancho Dominguez, CA; Reynoldsburg, OH; Dallas, TX) are able to offer 1-3 day delivery anywhere in the USA. With thousands of SKUs in stock and fast friendly service, SBS is your one stop bike and part supplier. Redline History intersects with the start of Seattle Bike Supply. Redline bicycles started in Southern California in 1974, meanwhile, 1,115 miles north of the Redline factory, in Renton, WA. a man named Terry Heller begins selling bike parts out of the back of his Ford station wagon. Seattle Bike Supply is started. Little did anyone know how these two companies would evolve.
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