With more and more Chattanoogans embracing a physically active, eco-friendly lifestyle, businesses like Trek Bicycle Store are taking advantage of new opportunities to reach out to consumers and become a part of an exciting movement. For example, this month, Trek will celebrate National Bike Month with free product demos, a weekend mountain biking clinic for women, and by spreading the word about Bike to Work Week.
Located in the 2 North Shopping Center, Trek offers a broad range of bicycles, from carbon fiber road bikes, to mountain bikes with 29-inch wheels, to aluminum recreational bikes, to bikes for toddlers. A full line of accessories also graces the walls of the store.
To encourage people to take up biking, owner Tyler Klein is letting them take his bikes home and try them out.
“We have about 15 bikes we’re demonstrating to the community for free. We want people to come in, find one they like, and then take it home for a couple of days. It’s our way of getting people on bikes,” he says.
While Klein expects business to pick up during Bike Month, he and his staff won’t be in a hurry to rush customers out the door. Rather, they’re planning on spending as much time as is necessary to make sure each individual gets the right bike.
“When someone comes in, and they’re either new to biking or they’re getting back into it, we ask them what they see themselves doing on a bike. A lot of people want to get their cardio up, and since they’re just starting out, they plan on sticking to low elevation changes. So we might set them up with a simple three- or seven-speed bike,” Klein says.
Klein has even built a “Fit Studio” at Trek that allows people to test ride bikes without leaving the store.
Although some of the bikes Trek sells and maintains have won the Tour de France, the heart of the business is geared toward serving casual and recreational cyclists, and offering ways for them to enhance their enjoyment of biking. Such was the inspiration for Girls Getting Dirty, a mountain biking clinic for woman taking place on May 21 and 22 at Chilhowee Campground in Cleveland, Tenn.
Led by USA Cycling Level One coach and USSC Trek Store team pro racer Kym Flynn, and featuring an elite women’s mountain biking team, Klein says the clinic will build confidence and skills in a fun and noncompetitive ladies-only environment.
“When you’re riding a mountain bike, and you come across a log, you might be tempted to get off your bike and walk around it. But you lose your momentum when you do that. Our ladies are going to show you how to get over that log.
“They’re also going to teach you how to climb better by optimizing your pedaling, and how to negotiate a rocky garden, or an area with exposed roots. They’re even going to cover how to adjust a suspension, because you can have a great bike, and if your suspension is set up poorly, it’s going to give you a terrible ride,” Klein says.
The idea behind the clinic, Klein says, is to get women ready to go out and have a great ride.
“There are 10 miles worth of good mountain biking trails at Enterprise South. Or you can take your bike to Raccoon Mountain, which has a 14-mile off-road loop. We want to see people taking advantage of those places,” he says.
The League of American Cyclists is the national sponsor of Bike Month. The organization is also sponsoring Bike to Work Week from May 16-20. Klein will be promoting the latter event locally in an effort to get more people to think about the benefits of biking to work.
“Take someone who lives in St. Elmo and works at Greenlife. Maybe he’s not interested in biking to work, but if he tries it, he’ll realize he has more energy on the job, and that biking home is a great way to decompress.
“A lot of people leave work, get in a car, go home, and boom – they’re done. But if you get your mind and body going again on the bike ride home, you’ll be amazed at how active you are the rest of the evening,” Klein says.
From saving the environment to saving money on gas, Klein says there are a lot of reasons to bike to work. Personally, he likes the freedom a bike gives him.
“As a kid, you learn to crawl, and then you learn to walk, and then you start to run, but your territory is your house and your yard. When you get your first bike, you can go anywhere.”
To learn more about Trek, Girls Getting Dirty, or Bike to Work Week, visit www.trekstorechattanooga.com.