(Photo © J. Maus)
Portlanders will get a sneak peek at a major new bike shop in downtown Portland this Thursday. West End Bikes (which we reported on in more detail back in October) at the corner of 11th and Stark will host a party in their shop as part of First Thursday.
According to shop co-owner Mark Ontiveros, they’ll host the unveiling of the 2010 Bike Photo Contest winners. The photo contest is sponsored by Pro Photo Supply and Canon and is managed by Bicycling Northwest. The event will feature a slideshow of the photos submitted to the contest and an award presentation for the lucky winners. There will also be drinks and snacks.
Ontiveros and his partner Mike France have been working hard to get their large corner location open for business. On Thursday night, event attendees won’t see a fully-stocked bike shop (their inventory hasn’t arrived yet), but Ontiveros says he plans to have a few bikes on display. “The fixtures are arriving from Specialized [they are investors in the store] that morning, so we’ll literally be putting things together right before the event.”
Join Mark, Mike and Pro Photo Supply to support bike photo contest and to welcome this exciting new shop to our community. The event is on Thursday, January 6th from 5:30 to 7:30 at West End Bikes (1111 SW Stark). (More details here.)
Sweet! Are they hiring?
I saw this on pro photos site some time ago…been waiting patiently for the show 🙂 Cool to see another Willier dealer too, I have a soft spot for Italian bikes.
Wilier that is…I apparently don’t have a soft spot for spelling 🙁
I was down by there Monday night and it looks like they did a good job of remodeling. And, there was still a D’jango’s sign in there. I hope they keep it as that is what I will always remember that place as.
“… Specialized [they are investors in the store]…” is this common – to have a bike company be an investor in a bike shop? Is Trek/Gary Fisher/Le Mond an investor in the Bike Gallery?
Yes, it’s somewhat common. Trek has “concept stores” that they invest in and the store owners are obligated to present a certain mix/quantity of Trek (and trek-owned) products. Bike Gallery is not one of those stores. It is wholly independent of Trek but it is one of their largest dealers.
The situation with West End is simply that Specialized is allowed Mark and Mike the ability to pay for their building and have some start-up costs covered. I don’t know the details of the relationship, but Specialized clearly has a vested interest in having a large, successful dealer in a prime location in Portland and West End hopes to provide that.
The term Invest in would indicate that Trek is a part owner of the concept stores. This is not the case. Trek concept stores are independently owned bike stores. I’ve worked for/with many of these stores.
Didn’t you previously post that they were a concept store? West End Bikes is listed as the only concept store in Oregon on the Specialized website.
http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCDealer.jsp?lid=100018581
Yes, I did post that. And yes, they are a concept store… But when I think of concept stores I think of stores where the brand has an obvious and overriding presence. I think at West End, the Specialized vibe will be in the background if noticeable at all. Mark Ontiveros is smart enough to know that Portlanders don’t tend to link a strong corporate feel to stores.
I hope they offer bike rentals in the future….would be good exposure for the brand.
Wow, I now count five shops (WestEnd, Veloshop, Bike Gallery, Recyclery, Performance) all within easy walking distance of each other downtown. Hopefully there’s enough business to go around and keep everyone happy.
Good thing all of those shops have a distinct brand identity and they all offer different things for different people. I think choice is important to finding new riders and I think having a shop you feel comfortable at is important to making the choice to either begin riding or to continue riding.
A large component of having a Specialized concept store is the agreement to carry a certain percentage of Specialized product in ratio to the stores entire offering. This is usually combined with an agreement to maintain a certain appearance in the store, for example, having the Specialized brand and merchandizing plan in place. I, for one, would much rather see a Specialized concept store come to Portland than another Performance. Performance exists only to put our beloved independant shops out of business.
Jonathan, are you going to the event tonight? I have some photos entered in the competition and was planning to attend.
Hey Matt,
I’m still on the fence. I’ve worked late the last two nights and I really want to be there. We’ll see. If I do, I might just take tomorrow completely off! Good luck… it’s been fun to see you get so involved with photography of late. Cheers.