Pioneer Sports/Courtesy photo
With supply-chain problems creating issues meeting a surging demand, bikes have been difficult to come by.
As such, Brent Ford and the team at Pioneer Sports in Frisco and Silverthorne received call after call from interested purchasers asking if Pioneer could help them out. Considering the demand, and Pioneer’s commitment to local customers, Ford and company decided to create an old-fashioned, three-ring binder of local customer inquiries and orders to help get the locals the bikes they wanted — whether that was the same day or four months later.
“We really went out of our way this year to kind of facilitate getting customers — pretty much all locals — bikes this year,” Ford said. “We turned down anyone out of state seeing if we had a bike. A lot of shops went through this.”
Pioneer even sold the bikes before they were in stock.
“For some bikes, we even verbally told someone, ‘If we get this bike in, which we are hoping we will, we’ll give you a ring, and your name’s on it — no deposit,’” Ford said.
This year, Ford said Pioneer sold 80 bikes in this format, which is a slight increase from 2020. As for bike rentals, Pioneer said customers appreciate that the shop brought in a brand new fleet of Giant rental bikes, despite supply-chain issues for the manufacturer based in Taiwan.
The shop also prioritized the fastest growing portion of the bike industry: electronic bikes. Pioneer routinely sold out of its Class 1 e-bikes in the spring, summer and fall as customers were eager to bring them out on the recreation paths to take in a loop of the Dillon Reservoir.
In total, Pioneer’s fleet consists of about 85 cruiser bikes, 40 mountain bikes, 20 road bikes and 30 e-bikes to give renters the same customer satisfaction as the locals who got their dream bike via Pioneer’s three-ring binder.
“In general, all bikes are in high demand,” Ford said. “People want to get outside, which is understandable.”
The Frisco shop, 842 N. Summit Blvd., Suite 1, can be reached at 970-668-3668, and the Silverthorne shop, 191 Blue River Parkway, can be reached at 970-468-1632. Learn more at PioneerSportsColorado.com.
This story previously published in the Best of Summit guide. See complete results at SummitDaily.com/bestofsummit.