Is First Flight Bicycles The Best Bicycle Shop In The World
First Flight Bicycles in Statesville, North Carolina is to bicycles what Willy Wonka is to candy. Jeremy Sadler, a valued member of Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer team, raved about First Flight to the point where the shop couldn’t meet such high expectations.
Wrong. Owner Jeff Archer’s First Flight Bicycles may be the best bicycle shop in the world. First Flight’s store is in an old building next to an Army / Navy surplus. Jeremy called ahead after a nail punctured his back tire making it all the way through the rim. I met Jeremy managing The Bicycle Chain’s Franklin Street Bicycle Store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Jeremy knows bicycles and cyclists. He called several friends. In years of riding experience his friends shared only one example of a nail penetrating a rim.
Wes Davidson helped Jeremy as Brian, Martin’s Ride Intern, and I looked around Willy Wonka’s magical bicycle shop. Bicycles and bicycle components everywhere describes the beautiful Pell-Mell atmosphere in the store. Half the bikes on the main floor are for sale. The rest represent years of riding and design innovation. Hundreds of bicycles form an impromptu bicycle museum.
First Flight Bicycles understands The Experience Economy. Their love of all things bicycle is unavoidable. Wes has worked for First Flight Bicycles for thirteen years and loves it. It is easy to see why. Anyone who is remotely interested in bicycles could spend hours in First Flight Bicycles in Statesville, North Carolina.
Incredibly enough, they love it when you paw through their collection of over a thousand bicycles. We went upstairs unattended to look through their attic. I found an old banana seat bike. My first bicycle was a Schwinn banana seat (see picture). I remember having a debate with my father. Dad wanted to get a ten-speed explaining larger tires and lighter bicycle meant I would get where I wanted faster. I didn’t care. It was 1968 in Dallas Texas and banana seats were cool. All my friends had them. Cool beat my father’s engineering logic. My boss at Procter and Gamble would explain this lesson to a much older me as, “people buy with emotion and they justify with logic.” I was emotionally hooked in 1968 and had to have a banana seat Schwinn with the chopper handlebars.
Once the chopper handlebar banana seat bicycle was in my garage I customized it. Old playing cards attached to the rear spokes make my Schwinn sound just like a Harley (or what ten-year old me thought a Harley must surely sound like). Next decals for the seat. I couldn’t ride something that looked so “out of the box”. I dropped the bike a couple of times to scuff up the finish and dragged a chain lock over rear seat pipes to take shinny chrome off. Beat up, stickered and sounding loud, large and in charge I choppered out of our driveway toward Harry C. Wither’s Elementary where other members of the banana seat brigade nodded approval.
First Flight Bicycles brought this sense memory back. The store’s bicycle museum is chaotic and random but loving. Lance Armstrong posters sit next to old framed team photos. And then there are the bicycles. Want to see one of the first Mountain Goat bicycles ever made? Want to see component parts from famous bicycle manufacturers and designers? Want to remember your childhood by seeing not one but a dozen banana seat Schwinn’s? First Flight Bicycles provides so much visual stimulation for bicycle lovers you don’t know where to start or stop.
The shop is a lesson is what happens when people do what they love – it shows and is fun to be around. I wanted to buy a bicycle from Wes just because…. I did purchase a First Flight Bicycles jersey striking up a conversation about Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer. I told Wes we would blog about his special shop. “Send me the link and I will tell all of our friends,” Wes said generously. Generous and trusting are words to describe First Flight Bicycles. Jeremy, Brian and I toured the attic with no thought of supervision.
Think of that for just a second. We live in an age where big box retailers have sensors on every piece of merchandise in the store. It is possible to trip an alarm even after paying. First Flight Bicycles takes a different approach – treat people like you want to be treated. The golden rule works well in any business including bicycle retailing.
What may make First Flight Bicycles the Best Bicycle Shop In The World is dedication and love for cycling. A chalkboard on the sidewalk announced, “Tour Starts July 3rd”. In order to do justice to a First Flight Bicycles tour would require hours or days. If you are anywhere near Statesville and want to visit what may be the best bicycle shop in the world set your Garmon to
First Flight Bicycles
216 S. Center Street
Statesville, NC 28677
704.878.9683
Web:
http://www.FirstFlightBikes.com
Best Bicycle Shop In The World Competition
Visiting First Flight Bicycles got me to thinking. Who owns the best bicycle shop in the world? If you own or have visited what you think is the Best Bicycle Store In The World please email me at Martin(at)MartinsRide.com. Be sure to use “Best Bicycle Shop In The World” as your subject and include pictures and a good story.
Deadline: September 1st (end of Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer)
Grand Prize: Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer Tees for entire Staff, love and appreciation from people who love bicycles (i.e. no money LOL) and $100 donation to Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer and the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center in the shop’s name as The Best Bicycle Shop In The World (so it has to be true)
Who Can Nominate a Cycle Shop: Anyone from anywhere. If you know of a great shop in Paris send us a note.
Judges: Community Pole