Dealers

- ONLINE RETAILERS who service the tri-specfic community.
- F.I.S.T.-CERTIFIED tri bike fitters.
- CONTACT INFORMATION for the dealers below.
- GUIDELINES for these pages.
- INDEX of all retailer profiles.

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Bonzai Bike Shop is the solid, almost unanimously heralded, triathlon fixture in the Washington D.C. area. This shop sells, and fairly deeply stocks, QR, Felt, Cervelo, Guru, Softride, Litespeed, and Kestrel. It sells more than 500 wetsuits a year, which is a very large number when you consider that this shop doesn't sell mail order. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Bonzai and its staff is present at every event. It's probably got the largest tri wetsuit rental program in the U.S., with a "rental fleet" of around 60 suits. It's a great grass roots marketer.

Cons: This shop's big competitor in town is the 4-store megalopolis called Spokes, Etc., and Bonzai is not the "full service" shop that "Spokes" is. Whenever you need something ubiquitous, like a helmet or a floor pump, then Bonzai has a fight on its hands. Whenever its tri specific, though, there's no contest.

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Three Sports, in Richmond, VA, is new as of 2001, and has hit the ground running. They have made friends—so much so that we found out about them from another Virginia-based dealer, who said, "Have you heard of Three Sports? You ought to know about them." Ben and Jennifer Johnson have built, with this shop, another of the full-service tri shops that seem to be springing up around the country. It used to be that Inside Out Sports was just about the only shop that sold running, cycling and apparel all with equal vigor, but this shop does as well. They're also a wetsuit retailer (XTerra and Ironman).

Pros: This shop boasts impressive brands such as Kestrel, Cervelo, Seven, Softride, and Look. Inasmuch as Seven and Look are much better regarded by the road community, it's impressive that a tri shop would be able to serve that broader base as well. These people are the newly-named official nationwide retailer at the XTerra events (that is really grabbing the tiger by the tail—we'll ask them how they like retailing around the country when the season's over). They have also gotten themselves strongly rooted in the local tri community, both as sponsor of the Richmond Tri Club and of local events. They're also rooting around looking for ways to stage more events—a sure sign that they've gotten the disease bad—in a good way.

Cons: They're too new to have cons. Give them a couple of years to work on it.

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Final Kick Sports (Dec, 03) is in Virginia Beach, VA, and started as a running, apparel and accessories store. But Jerry's shop got more and more popular and he branched out into tri bikes. It wasn't until then that he showed up on the radar of this area's most powerful cycling shop, Conte's, and since then triathletes have had the benefit of two shops making each other better by virtue of their competition. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: An owner who is definitely commited to the sport as a retailer, a coach, and all-round booster of multisport. Carries Cervelo, also Orca and XTerra wetsuits. Very well liked by his customers. Not one but FOUR F.I.S.T.-certified fitters on staff.

Cons: Not quite the all-around cycling juggernaut that Conte's is.

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Conte's Bicycle and Fitness has four locations in Virginia, but only two are really tri-specific—one in Richmond, and the flagship in Virginia Beach. In each case the brothers Conte (David and Charles) have a fly in their tail: Three Sports in Richmond and Final Kick in VA Beach. Conte's is the antithesis of these shops. When you're a smaller and newer shop you can afford to go to the tri club meetings, expo at every race, and really take you retail store retail, in the sense of going out and pressing the flesh, often outside your store's four walls. Conte's can't afford to do that, because they're so damn busy inside their four walls being a full-service bike shop. (Contact information for the above dealer).

Pros: Conte's has been in business since the late 1950s, and they're really good at what they do. They've perfected the business part of the bike business. They are not, however, overly high on themselves. They know what they don't know, and when they find a soft spot in their organization they work double-time to shore it up. They sell wetsuits, wheels, accessories, as well as QR, C'dale, Kestrel, and Litespeed.

Cons: They aren't the type to go out and press the flesh, which is just a function of their success, and the time constraints that brings. This means they're not the ones who are out leading the track workout on Tuesday afternoons in Virginia Beach, or lobbying the Richmond City Council to open up a new lake for triathlons, as their competitors are doing in their respective locales. That doesn't mean Conte's isn't a good citizen of multisport. They're the title sponsor of their local triathlon 13 years running.

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