Brick & Mortar: Contender Bicycles
Contender Bicycles has been a mainstay in Salt Lake City's 9th and 9th neighborhood for over thirty years and has stood among Scott's top dealers for more than twenty of them. Their recipe for success is simple, though not easily replicated: a passionate, dedicated staff who take great pride in their work and the reputation they’ve built within the community. Add to that a tech staff respected throughout the market, and it’s easy to see why their customers remain loyal for years.
We recently sat down with Ryan Littlefield, President and founder of Contender Bicycles, to talk about what it means to earn trust in today's bike business.
How did your relationship with Scott begin? What made Scott the right fit for your shop and your customers?
It was 2003. We’ve always been a shop that carries a lot of brands, and back then we had five or six European brands in the mix. It was harder to keep up with what was happening in those days because the internet wasn’t nearly as robust, but I’d been paying attention to the European scene. There was a Pro Tour team riding the Scott CR1, which was well known at the time as the lightest frame out there.
The year before, my wife and I had planned to go to the Tour de France, tagging along with a few pro riders’ wives. But before the Tour, there was a crash that forced the riders out of the race. So instead of making it to the Tour, we all ended up spending three weeks in Girona, hanging out and talking. These riders weren’t on the Scott-sponsored team that year, but they all kept raving about how cool the CR1 was.
When I got home, I saw a press release announcing that Scott bikes would be available in the States. I called right away, and I think we were the first shop to sign on as a dealer.
We brought in the CR1 as a frameset, along with maybe a Dura-Ace build and an Ultegra build in a couple of colors—nowhere near the range we carry today. From there, we started bringing in some of the pull-shock bikes. We still have a few of those hanging around that we built up super light with Maverick forks, since you needed 140 or 150 mm of travel for those bikes.
Since then, Scott has grown into a substantial part of our business, especially once Spark and Scale really took off around the start of Nino's career.
What does a first-time customer experience when they walk through your door?
When they walk in, or visit our website, I want them to feel like they have a real breadth of options. We pride ourselves on not being a one- or two-brand store, so that means options not just in brands, but in categories too. With the exception of DH bikes, we take pride in offering a wide selection across different brands.
We also take a lot of pride in the stores themselves. We want to offer a high-end retail experience. But the most important are the people. We have a big staff full of people who are passionate about riding, and I think that's something customers really appreciate: having someone with real experience helping them find what they need. It's a fun challenge.
How do you find those people, and how do you keep them?
Great question. A lot of it comes down to our brand selection, the quality of our stores, and the strength of our existing staff. When someone's looking for a shop to work at in the bike world, hopefully we're their first stop. There's also the friends-and-family approach: people who know each other through the cycling world.
Keeping them isn't always easy. We know we're not the last stop for most people who work here, but we try to be fair and offer what it takes to keep them around. Again, I think being exposed to so many different brands and categories takes some of the monotony out of the day-to-day. Working on something different every day, with a lot of different people, keeps it exciting.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of Contender specifically, and the sport of cycling in general?
For Contender, I see a lot of opportunity. Cycling continues to grow as both a hobby and a sport, which is exciting beyond just the business side. I'm a passionate cyclist myself, and I feel like cycling is a meaningful part of a lot of people's lives. Hopefully more people get exposed to that.
From a business standpoint, there's a lot of opportunities too. It's interesting watching brands navigate the current landscape. As long as the economy stays strong, I think there's plenty of room to grow, and I firmly believe consumers gravitate toward stores like ours that aren't just one- or two-brand shops. As riders become bigger enthusiasts in the sport, it becomes less about the transaction and more about service and relationships. Those relationships we've built over the years are the most rewarding part of this business. We know a lot of great people, and we're proud to be part of this community.
As for the sport, setting aside the competitive side, cycling has really become something for everybody. More kids are riding, e-bikes have made it more accessible, and lower-priced bikes have opened it up to even more people. It's genuinely cool to see how many people are riding up Emigration Canyon on a Tuesday night at 6 p.m. The demographic up there is so much broader than it was thirty years ago. You'll see groups of college kids, and for them, it's clearly more of a social outing than a hammer fest. I remember when you'd be excited to see two or three other riders in the canyon. Now, at that same time of day, you might see fifty. That's pretty cool.
