Shenandoah Bicycle Company is a bike shop in Harrisonburg, Virginia, owned by Thomas Jenkins. Jenkins has always wanted to own a business for himself and he and his friend Tim Richardson had been working in local bike shops for a while to better understand how to work with bikes. They knew that they wanted to own their own business, but they faced many problems while starting off, like how there wasn’t enough space downtown.
“That was kind of hard to get our foot in the door and find the right people and find the right space,” Jenkins said.
Another problem that they were up against was local bike shop competition. Blue Ridge Cyclery, another bike shop downtown, was the main competition for SBC when Jenkins first started. Now, Blue Ridge Cyclery has closed all across Harrisonburg and has been replaced with Bluestone Bike and Run. Despite the challenges, Jenkins and Richardson founded SBC in downtown Harrisonburg in 1999.
“Downtown wasn’t that lively at the time, and we wanted more life to it,” Jenkins said.
Running the shop came with many ups and downs, Jenkins said. For example, during COVID the market for bikes skyrocketed and bike materials became scarce and expensive not only in Harrisonburg but all around the world. Jenkins added that right now, the company is actively getting out of a low area in bike demand, likely because of the surge of bike shopping at the beginning of covid.
SBC has assisted and sponsored many local and regional mountain biking races, such as Six Packs and Hoo Hahs. His plans for the bike shop’s future are to ideally keep it going for at least 25 more years.
“The future is bright but you have to be optimistic,” Jenkins said. “We just have to continue what has brought us success in the past.”
