Music City Cycles

Music City Cycles

Written by Tiffany Young Monday, 24 March 2008

It was love at first bike. David Hartley, owner of Music City Cycles, met his wife Sara through cycling, got married in La Grange at the halfway point of the MS 150 bike race and designed a wedding band reminiscent of a bicycle chain. Luckily, his wife Sara shares his passion for cycling.

While Hartley’s first love may have been bikes, it wasn’t until June 2006 that he finally opened his own bike shop at the Parmer McNeil Plaza. Originally from Dallas, he moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas as a theater student, but when he decided he did not want to sacrifice everything in the attempt to make a living as an actor, he changed his major.

 

His theater advisor and instructor told him he was selling his soul to a capitalistic society and his engineering advisor told him he would never make it in engineering with a theater background. Nonetheless, Hartley graduated from UT-Austin with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1983.

After working at two large companies and a small business, Hartley was ready to start his own business. His first business did consulting for UPS utility systems, but friends regularly asked Hartley to help fix their bikes when no one else in town could. At one point he had eight bikes in his garage waiting to be fixed. His wife urged him to open a shop so there would be space in their garage.

In 2005, the couple began seriously considering opening a bike shop and realized that many cyclists rode along Parmer Lane.

“Parmer Lane is just such a huge thoroughfare for cyclists,” Hartley said. “My wife and I just sat in an intersection at Parmer and Anderson Mill and just saw hundreds of cyclists go through in a day.”

Hartley keeps busy at the shop without any employees to help out. While he’s considered taking in help, he said there is not enough work for him and someone else to stay busy, and he wants to make sure each customer is given high quality service.

“We came in to try to fill a void,” said Hartley. “We think taking care of the customer is the most important thing.”

One of Hartley’s favorite parts of the job, though, is a benefit he had never even considered: meeting other cyclists who are just as passionate as he is.

“Everyone who enters the shop I have something in common with,” Hartley said. “Every week I have cyclists come in, not to buy anything but to just talk about cycling. For me, that was something that was missing in the past [in other jobs].”

In addition to selling a variety of bikes and bike accessories, Music City Cycles fits cyclists for comfortable cycling and makes repairs on bicycles and human-powered vehicles.

“We take everything about your dimensions and put it into a computer, and it tells us what kind of bike is right for you,” Hartley said. “For the 20 percent who can’t find a bike that fits comfortably, we’ll work with customers to put together a custom-made bike.”

Upcoming bicycle Rides

March 29

• Rosedale Ride, 8:30 a.m., Applied Materials, www.rosedaleride.org, Rosedale School, 2117 W. 49th
• Smokin’ Spokes, 9 a.m., Salado, www.smokinspokes.homestead.com Pace Park, 18 N. Main, Salado

April 12, 13

• MS150: Houston to Austin, 7 a.m., Omni Houston West, www.ms150.org/ms150, Tully Stadium, 1050 Dairy Ashford St.

April 26

• Hill Country Ride for AIDS, 7 a.m., Spicewood, www.hillcountryride.org, Krause Springs

Music City Cycles, 6301 W. Parmer Lane, Ste. 504, 336-BIKE (2453), www.musiccitycycles.com