Kicking ass and playing piano: BRAIN talks to retailers at CABDA East

By JP Partland

SECAUCUS, N.J. (BRAIN) — We sent New York-based journalist JP Partland to CABDA East last week to talk to retailers about what they expect for 2025 and how recent trends might affect their business. This is what he found.

Erich Leas, Casa Bikes & Outdoor Gear, Cambridge, Mass.

We’re going to stay the course for 2025 with the core brands we’ve had. We’ve only been open for about two years, and we lean heavily on Rad, Velotric and Lectric. And yes, they are all D2C brands but we have agreements both on service and supply with them. We are going to continue going forward with them and we are going to push harder into the family-cycling end of things. Right now we do commuting and recreation and we try to capture as much of the family business as we can with cargo bikes, but we’re going to try to move more into those bigger bikes if we can. We see a lot of demand for that. Particularly in Cambridge, Mass. — which is where we based — there is a huge contingent of people who have traded at least one vehicle out, and are becoming the next person on their block that becomes a family cyclist.

A family cyclist for us is someone who carries at least one kid on their bike and who replaces a vehicle, usually a car, with a bicycle. They don’t have to replace all their cars, but they have to replace one car, and they (use their bike) to do those little rides that used to be (in a car) 4 to 5 miles. And they usually end up getting other friends and family members into that.

All we do is e-bikes. We do carry Priority and do some of their belt-driven bikes that are not e-bikes but we are primarily doing e-bikes because there are not nearly enough people doing that now.

I think the overall acceptance of e-bikes in the cycling community has been really positive. And e-bikes are developing as a parallel market with a parallel ecosystem of media and YouTube channels. That has been a good development because it takes peoples’ preconceived notions about bike-shop snobbery and judgment on choices of bike, of not having a “real” bike, and says that’s all a bunch of crap, you are on a bike, you are a cyclist.

And as Boston rents continue to increase it’s been driving (family cycling) because you can’t afford to have a house and a car at the same time. Which isn’t a positive but it’s positive for our business.

Also bikes are getting better quality without a consequent increase in price What you can get for $1,500 now is better than what you could get for $3,000 10 years ago and it’s crazy. It shouldn’t — the economics shouldn’t work out that way — but it absolutely does, and we are getting so many more people out of cars and onto bikes that otherwise couldn’t have afforded to do that.

JT Look, Rutland City Bikes, Rutland, Vt. 

What is changing for 2025 is that we were a Yamaha dealer last year and they are pulling out of the U.S., so I’m literally here to pick up another company. As for change I don’t see much that I would change in the way I’m running our bike shop. I just want to find a bike company that is not just there to make money but is there to be a quality bike company. 

I just love fixing bicycles —  and skateboards.

I’m really good to my customers … I can’t believe what other shops are charging for tuneups. So when you you offer a decent price and do good quality work, people will come in and they’ll tell their friends. 

(Question: What about tariffs?)

The tariffs, if that happens I defintely think that’s going to be a challenge for a lot of shops that want to do big inventory. And for the next few years that's going to be a challenge in what is our economic system going to do? I was skeptical of just doing repairs, I live where I work so I can survive on just repairs. The tariffs, I don’t know how much they are going to do except make things more expensive and isn’t that normal?

Kevin Sensenig, Sensenig's Bike Shop, Shippensburg, Pa.

2025 is probably not going to be a whole lot different from previous years. The focus on e-bikes is the most significant thing: we do well with that. 

We are about 80% is e-bikes and the rest is human-powered. I’m looking forward to a better year in 2025. 

I hope we see new customers this year. We do market to them. We are a growing business. 2020 is when I got in, and every year we've grown so far. We are always reaching out trying to find new ways to reach customers.

Leila Everett, Northampton Bicycle, Northampton, Mass. 

In 2025 I look forward to turning more new product. We’ve done a pretty good job of selling what on sale, now I'm hoping to bring in more stuff that’s more interesting and just getting new stuff in the shop because we’ve had the same stuff for a year and a half. We are probably not going to hire new people this year. We will stick with the crew we have and work a little harder. I'm hoping margins return, because it was dim in 2023. Last year was better and I hope 2025 will be even better (on margins). 

As for 2025 trends, e-bikes are of course always on the up and up. They've taken over more than half our business at this point, which is insane.  

I just hope to make more people happy. I don't care if you are on an e-bike or not, as long as you are on a bike.  

Margins were borderline zero in 2023. 2024 was better: We were down 2% in dollars, but the margin increased so we actually made some money. Hoping to see even more of that this year. 

We are starting to see some (customer who say) 'this is what I bought during the pandemic and now I want something better.' Which is great. And we also hear a lot of, 'Do you buy bikes because I bought this but I don’t ride it." And I say, 'Let’s see if we can figure out how to make it better for you to keep riding.'

(Question: Are you looking to add new brands?)

No, it going the other way, we are going to kick a few brands out of my shop. We have too many options, so instead of having five options, let's make it three. WE don't have space to have the full line on five brands. We could do that during the pandemic but now we just don't have space for it.

We have Cannondale, Trek, Salsa, BMC and Gazelle. ... BMC is on the chopping block; it just didn't do what we were hoping, which was to access a higher-end line of bikes and clients. But those people didn't come find us, and that's OK.

It's going to be a good year, we're going to kick ass.  

Thomas Cuccias, Valley Stream Bicycle, Lynbrook, N.Y. 

I expect another great year. We've been having better years every year. 2024 was a great year. In two months I'll be starting my 33rd year of owning a store. 

SE Bikes were a big seller for us. Bikes for kids have been a huge seller. Repair have been great.

We get great reviews, we have a great rapport with all our customers. We ask them why they picked out store and why they came to us. We want to find out why and do more of that. It's still fun after all these years. My son works with me now.  

We get good customer reviews because they feel like we put a lot of care into it. We don't put a lot of pressure on them, in fact we encourage them to go do their own research, think about it and come back. We're blessed. 

Tony Stagliano, Hershey Cycles, Hershey, Pa.

The trends are so difficult to try to navigate through. We decided in lieue of doing anything different for branding we would bring an upright piano into the service center and we are going to try to incorporate that. It’s been a huge hit: everybody that walks by and hears the piano has to stop and do a double-take and say 'what’s going on in there?'

We try to drive traffic that way by being a little unique and a little weird. 

Where we are going in 2025 should be a continuation of what we've been building the last couple of years.  

We still see a big trend with step-through comfort e-bikes and step-through analog bikes. We are a family-oriented bike shop so we go through a ton of those.  

We are also pushing a little more into mountain bikes and we will try to have a more well-rounded fleet of demo bikes that customers can try.

We are in downtown Hersey, tucked in just off the downtown. We feel like we are able to give a kind of service that you are not going to get in a shop in a strip mall or most shops we've been into.  

Yes. the piano is real. It's from around 1918. We both play. We are just down there having a good time and bringing the fun back into running a bike shop.