Bike World has been a landmark on Broadway and a part of the fabric of the Alamo Heights community for over four decades. In fact, the company’s reach and influence have stretched across San Antonio and around the globe. Whit and Cindi Snell co-own Bike World along with Bill Simons, who began working for Bike World in 1972 and was made a partner in the mid-‘80s. The Snells channel their passion for cycling, fitness and community into their business and the causes they support. Whit had just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin when he founded the company in 1971. He credits the property’s original landlord, the late Col. Charles Noble, for believing in him and the idea for a bicycle shop in Alamo Heights.
As Whit describes, the first location on Broadway was in an old house where the garden now exists on the shopping mall property, which is now also home for a number of other businesses. “I have always had a debt of gratitude to Col. Noble for not only leasing to me in 1971, but later tearing down the original house and constructing a larger building because we needed to expand,” he explains. To this day, Col. Noble’s son, Charles Noble, Jr., remains as Bike World’s landlord for the Broadway property. Bike World was one of the first retail businesses to take advantage of the Internet in the mid-‘90s and was able to secure the Bike- World.com domain name long before taking businesses online became popular. One of the most exotic locations that Bike World has served via the Internet is the tiny remote island Diego Garcia, which serves as a Naval installation in the Indian Ocean. Bike World has shipped bicycles and parts to military personnel and their families there.
But while the Internet has provided Bike World with the opportunity to market its products globally, Whit points out that one of the website’s best virtues is offering convenience to local customers. “The website is more important for our local business,” he says. “The local customer can purchase items on our website and have them shipped at a reasonable rate to their door the next day or have them ready for pickup when they arrive at our shop.” Cindi led the effort for Bike World to open a modern 12,000-square-foot location on Loop 1604 West near Blanco Road in 2006. It boasts the most extensive collection of bikes, cycling clothing and accessories in the Southwest. Bike World further expanded the business in 2010 with a bike rental shop at the site of the Pearl Brewery under the giant Pearl can, once the brewery’s can-recycling building. The expansion to the Pearl coincided with its formation of the nonprofit organization San Antonio Bike Share, which now administers San Antonio’s BCycle program.
Cindi serves as the executive director of San Antonio B-cycle, which began operations in March 2011. B-cycle is a national bike-share program that provides inexpensive rental bicycles for transportation in metropolitan areas. San Antonio’s B-cycle stations give cyclists easier access to many locations, including downtown, the Witte Museum, the Mission Reach, the San Antonio Zoo and the 8-mile linear park along the San Antonio River. Cindi explains how various factors aligned to enable B-cycle’s creation: “The City of San Antonio had an initiative to become more healthy and green, the mayor created a fitness council, SA2020 was born, and the bike-share opportunity became available. All of these influences helped to create a biking culture, and it helped to create the idea that we could be a fit city. It’s been unbelievably successful.” Just how successful? “San Antonians have burned 16 million calories and ridden around 400,000 miles, along with a significant carbon offset since the program began,” she says.
But B-cycle is just one of the many causes in which Cindi, Whit and Bike World are involved. “Last year we participated in 92 events or activities in and around the city,” Cindi says. Those events included providing bikes for children and adults, training programs, classes and the Rock and Roll Marathon. Whit is proud of the legacy that Bike World has forged over the years by sponsoring community activities such as the Alamo Heights Little League since 1971. “We’ve been told we’re the oldest Little League sponsor in the state of Texas,” he says. “The kids who were on the very first Alamo Heights Little League team have had children who are now playing on our teams.
Some have had their dad and their grandfather playing on our teams, so it’s now into its third generation.” One of Bike World’s more innovative evolutions took place after Cindi visited the Local Coffee location in Stone Oak upon learning that its owner, Robby Grubbs, was interested in opening a second location.
Grubbs, a cyclist and Bike World customer, agreed to consider the space available in the building that houses Bike World’s Alamo Heights location, and a collaboration was born. In early 2012, Local Coffee opened its Alamo Heights location next door to Bike World, separated only by a garage-like door that is open during business hours to allow coffee customers to walk through Bike World and bike customers to walk into Local Coffee. “It’s so symbiotic, and we get along so well,” says Cindi. “What I love the most about it is that Robbie is the coffee expert, and we are the bike experts, and we can now offer both things to all of our customers. It’s a such great way to do business.”
The outdoor patio and bicycle racks provide an especially dog-friendly and cyclist-friendly environment. “Local Coffee has added to our sense of community,” Whit says. “It’s really provided a place to go and hang out in the neighborhood.” What is the secret to Bike World’s success and longevity? “The formula has always been the same,” Whit reveals. “We love cycling, we employ people who love cycling, and they’re not so much out to sell products as they are to share the joys and the health benefits of bike riding.”
