Update, 12/9/19: The space occupied by The Bike Rack has been taken over by another bike store. Conte’s, a Virginia-based regional chain of bike stores, opened at The Bike Rack’s 14th and Q Streets location on Saturday. Conte’s has regional locations in Alexandria, Falls Church, and Arlington, as well as two in D.C.: Cathedral Heights and Navy Yard. (It also has stores in and around Virginia Beach, and in Florida.) The Bike Rack’s staff is now working for Conte’s at the Q Street store. — Martin Austermuhle

Original:

The Bike Rack, the Logan Circle bicycle shop that has been servicing the D.C. cycling community for over a decade, is joining the slew of other bike shops that have bit the dust recently. The shop on 14th and Q streets NW announced its closure on Facebook today, less than a year after it shut the doors on its Brookland location.

“After 13 amazing years Bike Rack is shutting its doors today,” said the message. “Thank you everyone that has stepped foot in our store. Thank you everyone that has come on any of our rides. Thank you every single customer we have ever had. And thank you to all of our employees past and present for making the Bike Rack what it is.”

The closure is part of a downward trend among local bike shops in the District. On Sunday, District Hardware and Bikes, a store that opened in 1971 in Foggy Bottom and moved to The Wharf in 2017, had its last day in business. BicycleSpace, which was named as Washington City Paper’s Best Place to Get Your Bike Fixed from 2012-2018, closed two of its three locations over the past year, leaving only its Ivy City store still standing. And in 2018, Freshbikes closed both its Ballston and Bethesda locations.

The Bike Rack opened its Q Street store in 2007, and in 2015 the business acquired a second location at Brookland’s Monroe Street Market, hoping to capitalize on the foot traffic from the new residential development. But when a promised grocery store never came, The Bike Rack struggled. Bisnow reported that less than a year after opening in Brookland, the store was failing to meet sales targets and was falling behind on rent.

When the store announced this past August that it would be closing its Brookland location, owner Chuck Harney said, “Four years at Monroe Street Market did some major damage to my business, we will be rebuilding for a while.”

Harney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DCist.

The closures stand in contrast to the rising popularity of cycling in the city. According to data from the D.C. Department of Transportation, in 2017 five percent of commutes happened by bike—three times the number in 2006.

But locally owned bike shops are facing stiff headwinds from national retailers and the internet. Loren Copsey, owner of The Daily Rider on H Street NE, responded to The Bike Rack’s closure in a Twitter thread, citing a lack of support in local businesses and a turn towards online retailers as a major problem for smaller bike stores.

“The hard fact is, we’re doing this for a living. And that living occurs in DC, one of the highest cost of living areas of the country. So when we fit a helmet and see someone snap a quick pic for online reference later we lose a sale and staff time,” Copsey wrote.

There’s also a growing menu of ways to get around, from ride-hailing to shared bikes and scooters. Established in 2010, Capital Bikeshare has grown into a network of more than 4,300 bikes at 500 stations across the region.

In an interview with DCist, Copsey says that it’s hard to tell the direct impact of bikeshare or other new forms of mobility. Still, he says that at The Daily Rider he often saw customers who wanted to purchase their own bike after using a bike-sharing service.

But he also says that even though D.C. is slowly pushing to increase safety measures for cyclists in the city, the overwhelming sentiment among non-cyclists is that it’s still too dangerous to start biking in the city.

“The first thing someone says to me when I say I own a bike store is. ‘It’s so dangerous.’ When that’s the biggest thing people who are non riders notice, its pretty obvious that’s a barrier to entry into cycling,” Copsey says. “If it’s not a safe environment we’re going to have difficulty getting people out there.”

No matter what the reason for The Bike Rack’s closure, Copsey says that a loss of one local bike store is a loss for all.

“No single shop can have every tool in their supply, no single shop has the entire knowledge of every bike,” he says. “There’s a loss in the community, a loss of knowledge.”