Barking Spider Mountain Bike has moved into their new location just below the Ramada Inn at the ‘Y’ Intersection in the lakecity.
Owner Scott Gordon is thrilled with his store’s new digs.
“It’s an incredible location being at the busiest intersection in town.
“This gives us a lot more exposure and having a more prominent location has allowed us to start our new bicycle rental promotion,” said Gordon.
Gordon has had his eye on the property for about five years.
The Barking Spider Wednesday night riding group always finish off their ride with some drinks and food at the Overlander Pub owned by Lindsay Gasparini. Gordon admits that his continual hounding of Gasparini to rent them the building finally paid off.
“One day Lindsay came by the store and said he’d tossed the idea back and forth and said ‘let’s do it,’” said Gordon.
Gasparini left all the renovations up to Gordon and his employees which allowed them to customize the shop exactly to their likings.
“We were really able to personalize how we designed the new store. We wanted to focus on using the store as a going to and from point for their rides,” said Gordon.
“People can park their cars here, go out on their ride and then come back here, chill out and enjoy a cup of coffee and tell us all about their ride. This place has a real homey feel to it.”
Gordon, who just finished a one-week enduro bike race called Single Track Six through the Rocky Mountains in late July noted that between the move and preparing for the race it was really hectic getting the store ready.
“It was a bit of a rush to get moved in here between getting the store ready and having to go to the race, we were unable to do an official grand opening or anything like that,” said Gordon.
The store has been operating for three weeks now at the new spot and Gordon does plan on organizing some type of grand opening celebration in the next while.
One of the additions to the store was a coffee and espresso bar which features local Dancing Goat Coffee.
Gordon started Barking Spider in the garage of his home on South Lakeside back in 2000 with partner Scott McCreight.
Eventually McCreight moved to Yellowknife, NWT for work and sold his share of the business to Gordon.
The business relocated to First Avenue in 2007 below Caribou Ski Source for Sports where they were located prior the new location.
“Just being above ground makes a huge difference. We get a lot of sunshine here and there’s definitely been a huge spike in the tourist side of the business,” said Gordon who credits this to the new location at Highway 97 and Highway 20.
“We have a lot of people coming in and asking for maps and discussing trails and how to get to them.”
Another luxury of the new location is that all the mountain biking trailheads in Williams Lake can be accessed about 10 minutes from town — using Barking Spider as their headquarters.
“Most towns you have to drive about 20 minutes or more to access the best trailheads where in Williams Lake it’s under 10 minutes,” explained Gordon.
Up until last year Gordon worked as a body shop repairman at Lake City Ford but in October he decided to make the store his full-time job.
“It was great because body shops are busy in the winter and bike stores are busy in the summer,” said Gordon.
Barking Spider is now a year-round operation as they also specialize in many winter sports such as cross country and back country skiing featuring a line of equipment from Rocky Mountain Underground company.
Gordon said the men’s Tuesday night road ride group and Wednesday night groups are always looking for new people and he encourages all bicycle enthusiasts to come check out the new store.