Sun City Cycle & Sports: Moses Lake shop offers repair, new and used bikes

MOSES LAKE — The Columbia Basin has a new place to buy, sell or repair bicycles.  

“It was a service we wanted to offer the city of Moses Lake that it didn’t previously have,” said Andrew Spark, co-owner of Sun City Cycle & Sports. “I've had a lot of people walk in, not really to buy anything, just to say ‘We're so happy you're here now. We don't have to take our bikes to Wenatchee, Tri-Cities or Spokane.’” 

Sun City Cycle opened in June at 312 S. Division St., in the former Sears building, and held its grand opening Wednesday, with refreshments and a Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting. Spark’s partner Jeremy O’Neil described the shop’s approach as a four-legged stool: bicycle repairs, new bike sales, assorted sports and cycling equipment and consignment sales of good-quality used bikes. 

“We feel like in Moses Lake and surrounding communities … there's stuff in people's garages that could be turned around, others could use them, give them a second life,” O’Neil said. 

Spark is a lifelong cycling enthusiast, he said, and has been a certified bicycle mechanic since 2017. He gained that certification at the United Bicycle Institute in Oregon with an initial two-week course, followed by one-week courses in shocks, wheel building and disc brakes. O’Neil isn’t a repairman, but he’s been cycling all his life as well, he said, and he saw a need for a bike shop in the area. 

“The opportunity to partner up with Andrew came up and I couldn't pass it by,” he said. “There was a great need … We just wanted a place where people could come in and maintain their investments. During the pandemic, there were a lot of bikes being bought, and in Grant County now they have a place to bring those that are probably in need of a refresh on their derailleurs or brakes or tires or chains.” 

A large part of Sun City Cycle’s work is with electric bicycles, a technology that’s been growing for several years. Those bikes are pedal-propelled but have electric motors to assist the rider when pedaling gets difficult. E-bikes, as they’re called, don’t come cheap but the prices are improving, Spark said. 

“The technology is going up and the prices are coming down,” Spark said. “… Everybody's almost perfected the e-bike now and the prices are coming down, so you get a better quality bike at a cheaper price these days, compared to five years ago when the first ones came out.” 

Sun City Cycle stocks e-bikes by Aventin and Giant, mostly in the lower price ranges, Spark said.   

“They're very affordable,” he said. “They're right around $2,000, which is a good price point to start for people who are interested in e-bikes recreationally.” 

For the folks who take their biking seriously, the bikes in the $5,000-and-up range are available by special order, Spark said. 

“Cycling on a normal bicycle is fun, but cycling on an e-bike is even better,” he said. “When cycling gets hard and when you’ve got your workout in, you can start using the assist to get back home or get back to your vehicle if you're parked … When I go mountain biking up at Beezely (Hills) on the trails over there, I can cover three times the ground that I could (on a traditional bike).” 

“E-bikes are really extending the enjoyment that riders are having,” O’Neil said. “I can speak for my mom, who loves to ride, and there was a time where that was difficult. But the e-bike has magnified how much time she's been on the road and on her bike. She rides more than I've ever seen her ride before.” 

The consignment bike stock is small right now, Spark said, but he and O’Neil expect it to grow as word gets out.  

“As long as they're bike shop-quality bikes, we'll take them in on consignment,” Spark said. “Usually people are upgrading (or) their kids are growing out of bikes, and so we'll take their bikes in on consignment and get them a bigger bike. And sometimes they want to go from a regular mountain bike to an e-bike and that's a way to do it too, to cut some of the cost down a little bit.” 

Sun City Cycle & Sports
312B S. Division St.
Moses Lake, WA 98837
509-298-1220
Tues-Thurs: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sat: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
https://bit.ly/SUNCITYFB  

    Sun City Cycle & Sports owners Andrew Spark, left, and Jeremy O’Neil cut the ribbon on their new bike shop, surrounded by friends, family and Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce members.
  

    A row of electric bicycles, or e-bikes, at Sun City Cycle in Moses Lake.
  

    Sun City Cycle & Sports also sells good-quality used bikes on consignment.
  

    Sun City Cycle & Sports is located in the former Sears building in downtown Moses Lake.