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Independent spirit and entrepreneur Fran Badgett, owner of Transit Bikes located in Lower-Greenville, shares his enthusiasm for bikes and his preference to pave his own road!
“ That I own and operate my own business is the result of many happy coincidences. After I moved from Dallas and lived in Austin and Chicago for several years I was impressed with how bike-friendly they were. Especially in Chicago, despite the extreme winters and incredible density, biking was a breeze. When I moved back to Dallas in 2007, there were few proudly independent businesses around, and I had a difficult time finding a bike shop that spoke to the sort of cyclist I had become. After about a year working for not much money at a now-defunct big box bookstore, a business partner and I bought a small beach cruiser shop in West Village. That was the trail that lead me to opening this current location which continues to be shaped by meeting the needs of my clients — into the kind of shop I always wanted to shop in and now own.”
Hey Fran, how do you see the future of sustainable transportation in Dallas (bike lanes, bike riders, dart rail, ect) compared to other cities in USA?
“The best thing I can say about sustainable transportation in Dallas is that we have nowhere to go but up! In 2007 when I returned to Dallas was consistently ranked by whoever does the rankings as among the least cycling-friendly cities in America. No bike lanes, no map, and only one bike rack in Downtown Dallas. I’m not an activist by any stretch, and I don’t have statistics or surveys to back it up, but it seems to me that things are getting better quickly.
There are sparrows painted through Downtown, a cycle track to get across the Trinity River without fearing for your life, and a slowly connecting series of trails through some downright pretty urban landscapes. There also seems to be a trend toward moving back in from the suburban sprawl that has made D/FW the less densely populated metropolis on Earth. People are warming up the idea that if you live kinda close to where you work, you get back that ten hours a week you used to spend in traffic getting fat and angry.”
What I like about Transit Bikes is that everyone that I have encountered there has a passion for what they do, knowledge they excitingly share and buying a bike is an experience NOT a transaction. Tell us about events we can participate in at Transit Bikes.
“Transit hosts a couple of informal bike rides, namely Taco Tuesday and Sunday Muddy Sunday. We also host bike classes every Thursday.
- Taco Tuesday is a night ride from the shop to a taqueria, wherein we eat tacos. I noticed that there are approximately 15,000,000 taco places in town, and I’d like to check them out. So far, we’ve been to four.
- Sunday Muddy Sunday got started when we started noticing that people were buying mountain and cyclocross bikes and not really riding them off road, as they were intended to be ridden. So, on Sundays, we take whoever shows up out to play in the dirt. I’m not a talented or really even capable off-road cyclist by any stretch of the imagination, so I wanted to share in my learning experience with other folks who were maybe too timid to go Mountain Biking Like A Pro. Turns out, it’s even fun if you suck at it.”
Come and visit Transit Bikes located at 1915 Greenville Ave Dallas, TX 75206
(214) 219-2453 transitbikes.com
Follow them on Facebook
This article was written by Andrea Gonzaba. Andrea is a writer for CLAY STAPP+CO. Follow her on Twitter andFacebook.
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