Flashback Friday: How has the Salt Lake City-area market changed since 2014?

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (BRAIN) — Bicycle Retailer's Dealer Tour visited Utah's capital in May of 2014. Since then, several shops we visited have added new locations, while one rebranded and another retailer remodeled and reopened three shops as Giant Partner Stores. We also know that two of the shops we visited have closed, including City Cycle in Ogden and urban-focused dealer Beehive Bicycles in Salt Lake.

We've heard of new stores opening in the area since 2014, like Shiftworks, a service-oriented shop in Ogden, and regionally, Park City continues to be a destination and hub for mountain biking, where Park City Bike Demos opened a brick-and-mortar location two years ago. In both towns, efforts on the part of local governments to promote cycling and attract bike and outdoor companies to relocate to Utah have been well publicized. And the industry also continues to flock to Park City for dealer and other events at the area's many resorts, which are well suited to host large groups and have lift-access riding and quiet mountain roads for exploring by bike.

While in Salt Lake three and a half years ago, our group of sponsors and BRAIN staffers also experienced the city's growing bike infrastructure firsthand, including a multi-modal 80-mile roundtrip jaunt north to Ogden on one day of the tour. The Utah Transportation Authority's extensive and affordable lightrail train network allows bikes on its cars, and many stations offer protected bike lockers throughout the valley to facilitate commuting by bike.

Many of the 14 shops we visited on the tour were longtime fixtures in their communities, with several in operation for more than 30 years. We visited one Taylors Bike Shop location, Canyon Bicycles (now Hangar 15), Infinite Cycles, Go-Ride Bike Shop, Contender Bicycles, The Bike Shoppe, Bikewagon, Bountiful Bicycle, Bingham Cyclery, City Cycles, Beehive Bicycles, Sports Den, Bike Peddler and Skyline Cycle.

We'll be diving into the Salt Lake City market as part of our look back at Dealer Tours past in our next issue of the magazine. Since it's been a few years since we visited, we want to know what's changed in the Salt Lake City market — and this is where our web readers come in.

Help us learn more about what's going on in the Wasatch Valley — shop closures, openings, moves. Also, what do you know about bike infrastructure developments, trail building and other efforts in Salt Lake, Park City, Ogden, and surrounding communities? What are some of the trends in the market (what types of riding are growing, etc.)?

Please share in the comments section below or email BRAIN's features editor, Val Vanderpool, who will be writing the update story, at vvanderpool@bicycleretailer.com.

Look for our coverage in the December 1 issue of Bicycle Retailer.

More information: PDF of Salt Lake City Dealer Tour features.