Scooters spins the pedals
Local bike shop spotlighted at Souderton Borough Council meeting.
“It’s no longer cool for a lot of kids to ride bikes. They need an electronic device to play, and they’re not allowed to go outside on their own.” – Scott Landes, owner and founder, Scooter’s Bike Shop
SOUDERTON >> Scott Landes can easily list lots of good things about bikes.
“They’re relatively inexpensive.” “They’re healthy.” “They’re green. They don’t hurt the planet.”
“It’s low-impact aerobic activity.”
Plus, “They’re fun” and “They’re cool.”
At the April 3 Souderton Borough Council meeting where Landes’ Scooter’s Bike Shop was the business spotlight, some of the council members were reminded of their own wheelie-popping days.
Landes, who remembers walking through the neighboring park to go to classes at Summit Street Elementary School before the school was closed and the building became Souderton’s borough hall, didn’t always plan to own a bicycle shop.
After seeing that Landes often biked to slow-pitch softball games, though, Joe Marlin, another of the softball players, suggested the two take a cross country bike trip after Landes’ 1975 college graduation, Landes said.
“I thought about it for about five seconds and said, ‘Yeah, sounds great,’” Landes said.
Starting from the Pacific Ocean, the two covered 900 miles in 12 days and had just
crossed from Arizona into New Mexico when Marlin had to leave for health reasons, but Landes, who was sending back weekly reports to the Souderton Independent, continued on.
“It was a real adventure because you really didn’t know where you were going to sleep that night. It was very exciting that way. I loved that aspect of it,” Landes said.
A lot of times, bicycle shop owners would give him a meal or a place to stay overnight, he said.
“They’d ride maybe five or 10 miles with me in the morning, to get me on the right track and go back and open their stores,” Landes said.
Souderton already had a long-time bike shop owned by H. Lloyd Mininger, Landes said, but soon after he returned home, he opened
his own bike shop and there were two in the borough from 1975 to 1982.
Landes said he rented a store on West Broad Street in the strip including the Broad Theater, “bought about 30 or 40 bikes,” continued working at his previous job framing houses Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and had the store open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
After a year, he quit the other job and went full-time in the business.
In 1978, he bought the former Mitzi’s Dress Shop on Main Street and moved the bike shop there.
In 1989, he moved again, this time to the current location at 130 N. Main St., right next door to his former store.
With the move to the larger neighboring store, including a spacious basement, he no longer had to store bikes at home in his garage, Landes said.
The current store is the former home of Frederick’s Shoe Store, which was there for 79 of the 150 years it was in business, Landes said.
Jake Frederick was 93 when he took “early retirement” in 1989, Landes said.
New bike sales account for about 65 percent of his business, with bicycle service the other about 35 percent, Landes said. The store carries the Cannondale and Specialized brands. It is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays. The website is at scootersbikeshop.com.
Landes, who calls himself “a Souderton boy through and through,” said he never even thought of opening his business in any other town.
With many people now purchasing items online, it’s become tougher for brick and mortar stores, but the relationships developed over the years with customers help, he said.
The number of independent bike dealers in the country continues decreasing, as has been happening the entire time he’s been in business, he said. When he started, there were about 10,000, he said, but now there are less than 3,500.
When he was growing up, learning to ride a bike was a rite of passage, Landes said.
“It was our ticket to mobility,” he said.
“It’s no longer cool for a lot of kids to ride bikes,” Landes said.
“They need an electronic device to play,” he said, “and they’re not allowed to go outside on their own.”
People have to be careful of where and when they ride, but there are a lot of areas that are good for bike riding, he said.
One of the bicycles demonstrated at the borough council meeting was an electric-powered one.
That’s an example of how bicycles have become more complicated, said Rich D’Amico, owner of Consign for Design, who presents the business spotlights.
“The technology is just incredible with bikes,” D’Amico said.
He encouraged those who buy online or from chain stores to also give local retailers a try.
“You’re going to get service,” D’Amico said.