30 years ago this week Dave Guettler opened the doors of River City Bicycles. The iconic shop on Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Alder near the Morrison Bridge is beloved locally and revered nationally as one of the best bike shops in America. Given immense changes in the cycling industry, the culture of Portland, and small business in general since 1995; running a bike shop that still thrives after 30 years is an incredible accomplishment.
Yesterday I sat down with Guettler to learn more about him and the shop he’s tended to with so much love and care for the past three decades.
I learned during this conversation that Guettler had a successful chain of seven stores in northern California before he moved to Portland. So why come up here?
“I had tons of friends who were bike racers… I’d see all these cool bikes and all this cool stuff that they had that they didn’t buy from any of our shops. And it would just kind of break my heart. On the one hand, I was doing all the purchasing for these stores; but on the other hand, there really wasn’t anything that I would have wanted to buy for myself. So I was thinking, ‘There’s got to be a different way of doing things.’ So the concept of opening up a single store that had a very strong community tie-in with it, and that catered to more of an enthusiast type cyclist — to me, that just seemed like a lot more fun than the multi stores and just kind of doing things by the book.”
With Specialized Bicycles founder Mike Sinyard in his corner as a friend and financial backer (Sinyard gave him a significant line of credit to open the shop), the two hopped in a car after a breakfast in Portland in 1994 to look at a few buildings Guettler was thinking about for the shop. “And he saw the one on Martin Luther King, and goes, ‘That’s, that’s the one.'”
Guettler said opening a shop in Portland in 1995 was a big “leap of faith.” The city hadn’t yet embraced its perennial title as America’s Best Cycling City and Guettler worried about how much rain would dampen enthusiasm. But it didn’t take long for Guettler to see the light:
“When you do business plan, you do three: a best-case scenario, worst -case scenario, and a likely or hopeful scenario. And within six months or eight months, we had blown the doors off of the best-case scenario business plan. So we really did kind of hit the ground running, and that was incredibly exciting. Compared to what we were doing in the Bay Area all the sudden it was like, ‘Holy cow! This is a solid market.'”
Guettler was ready for our inclement weather in more ways than one. He dedicated an entire floor of the building to an indoor test track so customers could stay dry while riding any bike on the showroom floor. He also made sure his shop became a go-to for fenders and other wet weather accessories and apparel. He even crafted a line wooden fenders for several years (which he co-designed with an employee). Guettler is a dedicated woodworker who made all the shop’s signs, racks and furnishings; but his wooden fenders ended up being too popular for their own good.
“That was super fun. Never want to do it again, but it was very fun,” Guettler shared.
“You’re not selling them anymore?” I interjected.
“No, I burned the molds. I had an order for 700 pairs of fenders come in from this company called Dahon folding bikes. And it broke me. They ordered matching fenders and chain guards. We filled the order, and that was it,” he recalled.
Despite that grueling order for Dahon, Guettler, now 67 and still recovering from a very serious traffic collision in 2023, still puts in hours at the shop. “My favorite day is Saturday,” he said with a childlike smile. “That’s when I get to work on on the floor at a bike shop, the bike shop of my dreams.”
These are just some of the fun moments in the interview. Watch the whole thing on YouTube or listen in the player below or wherever you get your podcasts.
River City Bicycles 30th Anniversary Party
Saturday, March 8th from 3:00 to 5:00 pm
706 SE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
“Join us for cake, champagne, stories, music from our own DJ TWOBIT, and a few odd surprises. Everyone’s invited! We can’t wait to see all of our old and new friends and fam!” Cake and champagne toast at 4:00 pm.
Thanks for reading.
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That was a fun interview. I’ve always enjoyed River City and bought my newest bike from there. I do try to visit smaller shops whenever I can to give them my support but I still hit up River City a couple of times a year for things I would only be able to find online otherwise or certain repairs.
Dave, his whole crew, RCB, Mt.Tabor races, et al.
One of if not the best cycling shop and organizations in PDX.