| | Published October 30th, 2019
| Beyond Aero bike shop opens in Orinda
| | | By Sora O'Doherty |  | | Photo Sora O'Doherty |
A new bicycle shop has opened in Orinda at 85 Orinda Way, formerly the home of Tally Home, which closed. Andres Douzoglou had been operating his shop, Beyond Aero, in Berkeley for a little over five years. The shop, located off San Pablo Avenue near Gilman, had a loyal clientele who came not only from Berkeley but from all over the Bay Area, particularly from Oakland. Douzoglou, who lives in Orinda with his wife and 6-month-old daughter, decided that his business would easily transfer to Orinda, eliminating his commute. When he was bicycling past and noticed the closing sign on Tally Home, he knew he'd found his spot.
He's been open a little under a month and, while the shop may not be quite as fully set up as he would like, his business is running smoothly. Douzoglou sells quite a different type of bicycle from the two existing bicycle shops in Lamorinda, Hank & Frank and Sharp Bicycles in Lafayette. While those shops cater to a more general type of audience, Douzoglou sells bicycles with a very narrow focus, intended largely for triathletes. He also sells road bikes for racing and gravel bikes for on- and off-road experiences. The bike brands he sells are: Pinarello, OPEN, 3T, Factor, Scott, and Parlee. Although he sells bikes for racing, he notes that you don't have to race to have fun on a road bike.
Douzoglou grew up in Venezuela, attended high school in Washington DC, and moved to the Bay Area after graduating from Arizona State with double degrees in communication and political science. "Two degrees for the price of one," he jokes, but claims he doesn't use either. In Arizona he approached a local bike store owner and asked if he could manage the store, to learn the business. It turned out that a bike store was just what he wanted.
A cyclist and a triathlete, Douzoglou believes that in the Bay Area no other bike shop can cater to triathletes as well as his shop. But the sport has declined a little, so he is building more gravel bikes. "I like building nice bikes," he says, and he's big into bike fitting. At Beyond Aero, they want to find the right bike for each customer, taking into account what the person wants the bike for, as well as their size and body morphology. All that knowledge is what Beyond Aero excels at. "I'm a bad salesperson," Douzoglou admits. If he believes that a customer will be happier with the bike they have than the one they are looking at, he'll tell them so. "I don't want to put people on bikes that are clearly the wrong bikes for them," he says. "I care about people getting the right bikes and I care about my image, my reputation. The last thing I want is for people to look at a bike and say, `Whoa, where'd you get that thing,'" he says. Instead, he wants them to say, "Wow, where'd you get that great bike?" His reputation is on the line with each bike he sells.
Beyond Aero is a destination bike shop, and Douzoglou has set his hours at Monday through Friday, from 2 to 7 p.m. However, he intends to start opening on Saturday for a few hours in response to customer demand.
Douzoglou is delighted with the new location. He likes the quiet tree-lined street, with parking both in front and behind. "At some point," he muses, "I'll probably have some group rides that will probably leave from here." He is also happy about being next to Geppetto's Café. "Coffee and cycling go hand in hand," he believes. "This place seemed like a natural fit that checked all the boxes for us."
Beyond Aero can be reached at (925) 257-7035 (voice or text) and (415)545-8445 (voice only). |
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA