Auction At Closed Tampa Bike Shop May Signal Decline In Bicycling

TAMPA, FL — Bicyclists seeking new bikes, gear and accessories at bargain prices might want to check out the liquidation auction for Flying Fish Bikes, 2409 S. MacDill Ave., in Palma Ceia, taking place Sunday at 11 a.m. at the former bike shop.

On behalf of Flying Fish Bikes owner Francis Kane, Tampa Liquidation Center Auction House will auction off the inventory of the bike shop along with all store fixtures.

The shop was a cycling staple in Tampa since opening in 1963 as the Dud Thames Bicycle Shop. The auction is the finale to a saga to keep its doors open in the face of mounting pressure from national retailers.

Hoping to take advantage of Tampa Bay's year-round bicycling weather, construction of miles-long bike trails like the Suncoast and Pinellas trails and bicycling-friendly government programs, at one time Tampa Bay was a beacon for national bike companies like the Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based Performance Bicycle, which had more than 100 locations across the country when it opened a store at 625 N. Dale Mabry Highway in South Tampa in 2013.

The entry of major bike retailers into the Tampa Bay market combined with an expanded focus on bicycle sales by national sporting goods retailers like the Sports Authority, Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart sounded the death knell for independent bike shops.

According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, there were 6,259 independent bike dealers in the U.S. in 2001. That number dropped to 4,055 in 2013, according to the League of American Bicyclists. A report from the NBDA said the number of independent bike shops shrank another 2.6 percent between 2015 and 2016. The association now puts the number of independent bike shops at around 3,400 stores, a 13 percent decline since 2010.

Competition wasn't the only reason for Flying Fish Bikes' downfall. In 2012, one of the country's top bike manufacturers, Giant Bicycle Inc., forged a deal with Flying Fish Bikes in which the independent bike shop agreed to order $120,000 worth of bicycles to sell in the spring of 2013.

Giant Bicycle never disclosed to Kane that, at the time it signed the contract with Flying Fish Bicycles, the company planned to terminate its relationship with Kane and open a Giant concept store two miles from Kane's shop.

In a subsequent lawsuit against Giant Bicycle, Kane said Giant Bicycle agreed to promote Flying Fish Bikes as the dominant Giant dealer in the area.

“Giant was well aware of and participated in the strategy of promoting (Flying Fish) Bikes as a dominant Giant dealer,” Kane said in his lawsuit. He said Giant Bicycle intentionally concealed information about opening a concept store in Tampa so Kane wouldn't pull out of the purchase deal.

In September 2015, after a two-year court battle, a jury awarded Kane $250,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages, according to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

The blame for the decline in independent bike shops doesn't rest solely with competition from big-box stores and national bicycle retailers, said the NBDA.

Not even mega bike retailer, Performance Bicycle, was able to hold on to its customer base.

In November 2018, Performance Bicycle's parent company, Advanced Sports Enterprises, filed for bankruptcy and, in February 2019, the company announced it was closing all of its 104 stores, including its Dale Mabry store, which opened in 2013.

National bicycle associations cite a number of reasons for the failure of bike shops to thrive.

The NBDA says the Internet is the biggest culprit. Ninety-five percent of the 332 dealers who participated in the NBDA’s study reported that Internet competition was their No. 1 challenge. This includes bike sales from brands that offer direct sales to consumers like Canyon, Trek and Giant.

Another reason is a decline in bicycling despite the emphasis on environmentally friendly transportation and health benefits.

According to the most recent American Community Survey, the percentage of people who commute to work by bike fell from a high of 904,463 nationally in 2014 to 872,000 in 2017. In Tampa Bay, the decline was even more dramatic -- a 50 percent decline in commuters -- despite the fact that The League of American Bicyclists declared Tampa a Bike-Friendly Community in 2016 and St. Petersburg followed in 2017.

Those surveyed by the ACS said their top reason for giving up biking to work was too many close calls with cars. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 857 bicyclists were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2018, up 6.3 percent from 2017.

Florida has the highest per capita bicyclist death rate in the nation with 138 in 2016 and 125 in 2017. And within the state, Tampa Bay has a disproportionately high number of bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities in comparison to other areas of the United States, according to the National Center for Transit Research at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at USF.

From January 2009 to June 2018, there were 94 bicycle fatalities in Hillsborough County alone, according to the center's study. In Tampa Bay overall, the fatality rate for bicyclists was seven deaths per 100,000 residents, the highest of any metro area in the nation.