Business focus: Bike store for life cyclists

In North Idaho, bikes are big business.

From the triathlon trails on the roadways to the bike corridors of the mountains, this is an area rich for a two-wheeled way of life.

For John Bowman, providing the means to traverse all Idaho has to offer for cycling enthusiasts has become his own way of life.

“This is definitely a very fit-minded area,” said Bowman, owner of the nearly three-month-old shop Mountain View Cyclery and Fitness in Post Falls.

The reason cycling is so popular, he said, is simple: “It’s not that hard. It’s something that basically anyone can do and decide how far they want to take it.”

The Post Falls store is Bowman’s second business enterprise in Kootenai County, following his original Mountain View Cyclery and Fitness at 9521 Government Way in Hayden.

Before heeding the call to open his bike businesses, Bowman, a Michigan native, was purely a cycling enthusiast.

In his former life, he and wife Beven Rich lived at the southern tip of Lake Huron in Port Huron, Mich., where Bowman was an account executive for a commercial carpet company.

He remembers the exact day when biking changed his life. It was in 1986, when the then 21-year-old hopped on his brother’s mountain bike and without thinking rode for more than 30 miles.

Bowman recalled lying on his deck afterward and thinking, “Huh, that felt really good.”

Since then, the 42-year-old has made many memories while seated on a bicycle. Like when he first rolled up to his future wife, brimming with bravado and full of gusto, rode a few miles alongside her and proceeded to wreck at the first intersection.

Despite that ego-bruising moment, Rich and Bowman married in 1993. About biking, Rich, a certified athletic trainer with North Idaho Physical Therapy, said: “We share that interest; even though we work in different environments, it’s something we can share.”

In Michigan, the couple spent their off hours riding through the countryside, where “it was good, but flat,” Bowman said.

At that time, traveling was a major part of his job. That allowed the budding entrepreneur to stop by local bike shops, where he started to cement ideas for his own possible small business.

“It was just something I thought about for years,” Bowman said.

But he still needed a location.

The ideal site, it turned out, came about as a peripheral part of a cross-country cancer benefit bike ride Rich made in 1999. On a leg of the Seattle-to-Washington, D.C., trip, where the group of nearly 135 cyclists traveled almost 100 miles a day, they passed through the Lake City.

“When I came through here, I was definitely like, ‘Wow,’ ” Rich recalled. “I remember telling a friend: ‘Boy, I could live here!’ “

The good word soon got to Bowman. “I started to give it more serious consideration and putting a plan together,” he said. “I actually made the commitment to move here before I even came. I just knew in my heart that it would work.”

Though he first considered making Post Falls the original store’s home, Bowman decided Hayden was a better fit at the time.

“I just felt that it wasn’t quite ready yet,” he said of Post Falls.

When he and Rich made the move from Michigan, bicycle mechanic and family friend Shane Myr, a cycling enthusiast for 15 years, decided to do the same.

When Bowman made him the offer to help get things going in Idaho, said Myr, who’s now the store’s manager, he knew the entrepreneur’s premonition would prevail – not to mention the thousands of miles of trails in North Idaho to look forward to.

“If you have a passion for the business and a love for what you do,” like Bowman does, Myr said, “then you shouldn’t fail.”

After a flurry of business planning and preparations, Hayden’s Mountain View Cyclery and Fitness opened its doors in 2003. The store also sells fitness equipment and bike accessories, in addition to the dirt track out the back door that customers can use to test drive bikes.

However, with the detours and ongoing road construction outside Bowman’s Government Way shop, he started to revisit his original idea for a River City location.

“I thought I’d eventually want to open a store here,” he said. “With the road construction, it kind of moved this project up.”

Once several different locations were ruled out, Bowman decided the Milltown Center, with the Centennial Trail a few pedal pushes out the shop’s front door and Post Falls Landing nearby, was the premier spot.

“There’s a lot of bike traffic here,” he said.

After another frenzied few weeks, the 306 N. Spokane St. location was ready for business. In choosing the product line, Bowman decided to offer more mountain bikes and easy riding bikes than the other store offers.

“I’d say the population here is a little more diverse than in Hayden,” he said.

Featuring obvious items such as road bicycles, recumbents and mountain bikes that range in price from around $100 to a few thousand dollars, the shop also sells somewhat unconventional bike shop objects like a full line of fitness equipment and clothing.

Both the Hayden and Post Falls stores also offer bike maintenance and a new eBay service where Mountain View will post a customer’s used bike online and then put the sale toward a new purchase.

Resident Dave Holinka, a recreational cyclist who “goes in spurts,” just found out about the Post Falls bike shop from a friend and had to check it out for himself. Dropping off a bike for maintenance, Holinka said he’s glad to finally see a local bike shop in town.

“We haven’t had a Post Falls bike shop in a while, and I’m really pleased there is now,” he said. “We like to support local businesses.”