Rialto bike shop flourishes despite the recession
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03:28 PM PDT on Thursday, June 25, 2009
RIALTO - Walk into Don's Bicycles on Riverside Avenue and you would hardly know there is a recession.
The shop, which recently celebrated its 50th birthday, is a bustle of activity. Riders pull up to the front door in a Rialto strip mall, brush past the bikes dangling from the eaves in front of the store, dodge exiting bikes and customers and then browse the shiny new bicycles and latest snap-to-your-shoe pedals.
While more than 1,000 Rialto homes have been in foreclosure in the last year, bike shop owner Scott McAfee has been having his best year ever.
Last month was his best month ever, with sales of more than $200,000. That is nearly double the average for one of his traditionally strongest seasons of the year.
"I wouldn't say we're recession proof," the 45-year-old Upland resident said while tightening the seat on a white road bike about to be picked up by one of his customers.
"I wouldn't want to jinx myself. But I would say the industry is a bit more recession resistant than most businesses," McAfee said.
The reason, he said, is that bicycle owners are devoted to their bikes.
"Even in a recession economy, people may give up new furniture or a vacation, but they won't give up their bike. They don't want to give up their passion."
Rob Lane, 53, a customer from Highland, agrees.
"You get the endorphins," said Lane, who has been shopping at Don's since the early 1990s. "I'm in pretty good shape and I attribute that to bike riding."
Justin Libby, 25, a dental student at Loma Linda University, is new to the shop but not to the sport.
"I feel total enjoyment," he said. "I think it's about the speed combined with the intricate machine of a bike."
He was there to buy a Cannondale Six road bike for $2,400 and have it fitted to his body.
Libby shopped for a road bike for five years. He came to McAfee two weeks ago to take advantage of a sale, but mostly because of the recommendations of fellow bike riders.
Word of mouth is a big part of McAfee's customer base.
"What customer service means to me is doing the unexpected," McAfee said. "You treat everybody who walks through the door like they've got a sign on them that says 'Treat me like I'm special.' You treat them like family, like they're your best friend."
He says that means devoting as much time and energy to a first-time customer buying a $3 tire patch as to the shopper gazing admiringly at a bright red $12,000 racing bike -- the wind-tunnel-tested one made of carbon fiber hanging from the rafters in the middle of the store.
Jerry Cowden, 60, of Redlands, appreciates the good service.
"They take good care of me," said Cowden, a customer for 10 years who was picking up a bicycle that had been in for a tune-up of its gear mechanism.
"When I bring the bike in, they look at it, they tell me when I'll get it back and they always keep their promise. That's very important to me," Cowden said.
McAfee said he learned the importance of customer service from his father, Don McAfee, who opened a curbside bike repair business on Foothill Boulevard in 1959. The work kept him busy during the day while he worked as an aircraft mechanic by night at the former Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino.
In 1981, Don McAfee opened a 500-square-foot indoor bike shop on Riverside Avenue, about a block north of the store's current location. Scott would help out, but his father never intended for him to go into the business.
"He didn't see much future in it," Scott McAfee said.
One evening that year, when Don McAfee was out riding his bike in the neighborhood, a stroke changed his plans.
"We were getting ready for dinner and some kids came to the house," Scott McAfee said. "They said, 'Scott. Your dad!' I ran down the street.
"It's strange. I had had a dream a few nights before in which my dad died," he said. "When I ran down the street I found my father on the ground. Paramedics were working on him. There was a crowd around him. The dream clicked in and I knew my dad was gone."
Scott McAfee had a sit-down with his mother, Daphne, now 84, and his brother, Wayne, now 54. They decided that Scott, then 18, would take over running the bike shop.
"Basically, I was a small business owner at that point," he said.
"It was a little scary. But I knew the basics already because even as a kid I was purchasing for my dad. I was into BMX (bicycle motocross). I knew what products were hot. I knew customer service."
By 1983, he ran out of room for the equipment he was selling and moved to a larger store down the street. His rent tripled, to $1,500 a month. He worried about paying the bills, but the business grew, and so did the store. Three more times.
Now there is an annex a few doors away.
"It seems like every time I have invested money in expansions, it has always paid off," McAfee said.
He doesn't see himself running the business 50 years from now, although he said, "I might be the old guy puttering around the bike shop at 95."
He is into road racing, having won a few trophies, and frequently makes the 40-mile round-trip commute from home by bicycle.
Scott McAfee has four children. The oldest is 13, he said, too young to decide whether he wants to take over some day.
"No pressure," the dad said. "If they want to."
Reach Darrell R. Santschi at 951-368-9484 or dsantschi@PE.com
