City Bike Shop rolls on

Apr. 18—TRAVERSE CITY — His career has officially come Full Cycle.

As an undergrad at the University of Colorado, Hunter Gardner took a job at Full Cycle Bikes in Boulder, working part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer.

Gardner ever since has been chasing the way Full Cycle, the oldest bicycle shop in that Colorado college town, functioned.

"It was a great time in that shop's history," Gardner said. "We had a great team and real great leadership.

"I've gone the last 15 years judging every workplace against that first bike shop, its team chemistry and its sense of camaraderie and family."

The hunt has ended for Gardner, who bought City Bike Shop in Traverse City from long-time owners Steve and Julie Baesch. The deal was completed on April 5 to purchase the business, which launched in 1955.

Gardner intends to continue the long tradition of City Bike Shop, 747 E. Eighth St. In the fall of 2019, the business moved from its previous home at 322 S. Union St.

Loyal following

"I want to be respectful to what Steve and Julie have built," said Gardner, who will turn 37 on May 4. "They created an amazing and loyal following. For the most part, especially this year, we'll just keep things rolling along."

Steve and Julie Baesch bought City Bike Shop in 1996. Julie Baesch worked there for more than 20 years.

Steve Baesch's tenure goes back even further.

"I was there a total of 46 years," Steve Baesch said. "I had worked there for the previous owners for many years before. I started when I was 13 (years old). It was my main and only job for the most part. I've been there a long time."

The 59-year-old Steve Baesch said that after 60-plus hour work weeks "for years and years," it's time to spend more time with Julie, their three kids and two grandkids.

"I want to enjoy the Traverse City area," he said. "Go to the beach, ride my bike."

The Baeschs, who said the shop has been a great ride, purchased the business from Nancy and the late Mike Elliott.

"It's been very good," Steve Baesch said. "I enjoyed all of our customers and I'll miss them, too."

Talks began in January

Gardner said conversations about buying the business from the Baeschs began in January and moved quickly from there. An store inventory a few months later and Gardner was the owner of his own bicycle shop.

Gardner said the transaction had to come together quickly because the busy bicycling season is approaching fast.

"Things had to happen in a really condensed time frame to make it work for Steve Baesch, the former owner, and for me," Gardner said. "You have to capture a lot of your revenue in a limited time frame."

Gardner said he plans to modernize business at City Bike Shop. He said a computerized sales system will better manage work flow, special orders and inventory.

But while pen and paper changes to binary and bytes, one emphasis will remain constant.

"We'll keep the focus on service, above and beyond everything else," Gardner said.

Service also will be important during a post-pandemic period taxing the entire recreation industry. Bicycles sold at City Bike Shop in 2021 while be units the Baeschs ordered before Gardner took over the business.

Consumer demand

It's a refrain heard from retailers in many different industries, particularly bicycles.

Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with consumer demand that peaked in early 2020 and shows little sign of cooling.

"The focus this summer is to maintain where we're at in the industry," said Gardner, whose main product lines include Giant, Scott, Electra and Niner. "Supply is more fragmented this year than ever before.

"America bought 12 months of bikes in six weeks."

Gardner was born in Traverse City at Munson Medical Center, but he took a circular route back to the area.

He grew up in Carmel, Indiana. It was during college that Gardner said he "fell in love with riding mountain bikes and (bicycle) shop life."

He worked for a year at Full Cycle after his 2007 graduation, but the recession and "internal and societal pressures" to use his degree in ecology and evolutionary biology led him to employment at an environmental consulting firm.

After five years fell away from the calendar, Hunter and Maggie Gardner had a discussion about the future.

"My wife and I, for whatever reason, had 30 as an age when we would start talking about having our own family," Hunter Gardner said.

Life choices

With the desire to "raise family around family," Hunter Gardner said the decision was between central Indiana where Maggie's parents lived or Traverse City, where Hunter's parents had retired.

So Hunter Gardner said he and his wife "traded mountains for the water" and moved to the area in October of 2014 after "taking the long way here" living out of a trailer for five months seeing the American west.

A nurse, Maggie Gardner landed a job at Copper Ridge Surgery Center. Hunter got a job in sales at TentCraft.

"We were extremely lucky, looking back," Hunter Gardner said. "We had no game plan."

Hunter Gardner said TentCraft was prepping him for the role he now holds.

"It was an experience I'm extremely grateful for," he said. "It gave me a tremendous learning opportunity in regards to sales and customer service that I haven't had before. It was also a learning experience in terms of creating a culture."

Full circle

So now with his own family — Hunter and Maggie Gardner have two children, Hazel, age 5, and Harrison, 3 — Hunter Gardner's career has come full circle from when he worked a Full Circle in Boulder.

"This is a lifetime dream of mine," Gardner said. "It felt like the universe was opening a door I always wanted to go through, as corny as that sounds."

"I think that he's going to do a good job," Steve Baesch said. "He's excited. He's a little bit older than when Julie and I first took it over. He'll take it to the next level."

City Bike Shop has two full-time and two part-time technicians who stayed with the store following the ownership change. Gardner said he — like many other retailers in different industries — is looking for additional help.

Gardner said he'd like to add one more full-time person, as well as help for the summer.

He said some of the additional staff would help fill the shoes of the "very hands-on" former owners of City Bike Shop.