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History :: Why shop with us? :: Staff :: Contact/Location :: Team Olympia :: Labour Rates
Yesterday: Lindsay Gauld has always had a profound love of cycling nurtured through 15 years of racing which culminated in his representing Canada in the 200km road race at the 1972 Munich Olympics. That love of cycling was coupled with a desire to encourage people to become more active through cycling and cross country skiing. So Lindsay started a bike 'store' in 1979 as part of another retail chain in the city. Olympia came into being as a stand-alone business in 1983. Passion for the activities of cycling and cross country skiing is still the driving force at Olympia Cycle and Ski today -- the staff at Olympia are avid cyclists and skiers themselves, and love to share the passion with you. Today: In 2006 Lindsay turned ownership of the store over to longtime employee and partner Scot Miller. (Lindsay continues to pursue his cycling desires as Winnipeg's oldest bicycle courier, and he continues to stop by the store and looks forward to seeing many of the "regulars" for years to come). Customers can rest assured that the highest level of quality and service they have come to expect from Olympia is here to stay as Scot shares a similar philosophy and love of cycling and skiing. Scot is keen on further connecting with the active public through organizing bike advocacy group rides, by continuing to support many local bike and ski groups and programs, and more. And Scot is always looking to serve the needs of our customers by bringing in the latest gear - new stuff is always arriving. Olympia Cycle & Ski caters to a broad cross section of the cycling community, offering road racing machines and recreational road bikes, mountain bikes, commuter hybrids, urban trials bikes, tandems, single speeds, kids bikes and tricycles, and on and on. In the winter we offer a wide selection of cross country ski gear for both classic and skate skiers. We're proud of the many elite competitors who are loyal to our shop, and we're just as proud of servicing the average Joe or Jane looking to get a little exercise into their busy lives. Tomorrow: As we continue to enjoy cycling and skiing we'd like to welcome you into the family if we haven't already met you. Sure, we'd love to sell you something (after all we need to make a living so that we can make our own personal bike and ski purchases), but we'd also just love to hang out with you and talk about the activities we enjoy. So come on down to the store soon, whether you're looking for that new purchase or just letting yourself dream, and be sure to tell us about what you'd like to see us help with in the future. We're looking forward to riding into the future with you. back to top of page
Olympia Cycle & Ski has been helping customers find the correct bike and ski gear for almost 3 decades. Our sales staff and expert mechanics take great pride in their work and live the lives of cyclists and skiers 24/7. Put simply, this is our passion. We genuinely want you to experience the same joy thru cycling and skiing that we do.
We could go on about excellent bike and ski selection, free first year tune-ups, test rides, payment flexibility, and so forth, but our hope is that our love of cycling and skiing is self-evident and that that is more than enough to get you into the shop. Once we can visit with you face to face we trust that we'll have the opportunity to make a friend for life and that you'll quickly see all of the added value that makes Olympia Cycle & Ski such a great place to shop.
Maybe we should say one last thing about shopping with us before you decide to come down and visit us in person: Yes, at the end of the day we want to make some money and stay in business, but we're in this for the long haul and the best way to earn your loyalty is to sell you want YOU want, not necessarily the most expensive item or what we think you should have. We'll offer you our advice and opinion if you wish, but this is your purchase and it's your call. We're just as excited to see you roll out of the store on a $400 cruiser as we are to see you purchase an $8000 racing machine. So, please don't be intimated by the wide variety of product and high cost of top end rigs - we're pretty sure there is something here to meet your needs and your budget, and we'll let you make those decisions with advice but without pressure. back to top of page
Lindsay, the founder and former owner of Olympia Cycle & Ski (and former Olympian, Manitoba Sports Hall-of-Famer, and so on), is still going strong as he gets closer to enjoying senior citizen discounts. Having retired to a life that includes running a B&B with his wife (click here for details) and working as a bike courier, Lindsay still finds the time for 'bigger' challenges, such as riding the famed Mount Ventoux 4 times in one day!...click here to read all about the escapade.
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Adrian is currently our most prolific road racer. When he's not helping out in the back of the shop or going to school he can often be found on the road putting in the long miles required to be a competitive road racer and time trialist.
In his very first race this season Adrian posted the best time of the day, and he hasn't looked back since, having already competed in the national championships and at the time of this posting looking ahead to the Western Canada Summer Games.
Adrian owns 6 bikes at the moment, including two favourites: A 2002 Giant Team Once and a C'dale R5000. When he's not speeding around on his road bikes he can often be found ripping up the mountain bike trails as pictured to the left.
Adrian spends some of his down time web surfing or reading magazines, (no books, though one day he may get to the final Harry Potter book). His favourite movie is The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift (but were those movies really ever the same after the departure of hunky Vin Diesel?).
Adrian lives with his two supportive parents, a younger brother, and two cats.
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John is a good guy, but as a sometime amateur boxer we wouldn't recommend getting on his bad side. John is one of our do-almost-everything shop rats. He'll help you buy the right bike and he'll tune it up for you real nice too.. He's just that good.
John currently rides a Norco 416 and an Olmo fixie conversion, and at the time of this posting is breathlessly awaiting the arrival of his Surly 1x1 frame to be built up with some sweet bits.
John enjoys tuning bikes while listening to tunes from Avril Lavigne, Stryper, and Cannibal Corpse. His favourite movies include Crossroads and Pulp Fiction.
John has a keen fashion sense as evidenced by his collection of Roxy jeans and 3/4 length tops, but he's not a fashion snob so you can come to the shop in your every day prêt a porter fashions and he'll still be happy to serve you, so come on down and meet him today.
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On the left we have a model demonstrating how your pants can sometimes slip below the waist line a little, thereby exposing a couple of inches of your boxers. On the right a model demonstrates what Luc's pants look like on any given day. We're not quite sure what that's all about.
Despite his inability to keep his pants all the way up Luc actually is an asset to the shop, where he works as one of our shop rats (he prefers the think of himself as a shop ferret, and again we're not asking questions). Luc enjoys pretty much any type of riding including unicycling. He especially likes bmx'ing at the Forks Plaza. Luc owns a P.O.S. Haro, a fixxie commuter, and a single speed Cannondale that's nice and ugly (we assume the ugly part is due to aftermarket modifications - we can't imagine the good folks at C'dale sent us an ugly bike out of the box).
When he's not cycling Luc is also big into hockey, skate boarding, and crashing his car.
Despite that soft, gentle exterior and boyish grin Luc has a bit of a hard edge evidenced by his love of all things heavy metal and his favourite movie, the feel-good "Brave Heart". Don't let that hard edge frighten you though. Luc promises to be friendly to everyone in the shop and save his heavy metal polluted iPod for the ride home.
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Tom is the shop's token European shop mechanic (every shop needs at least one to validate itself). Despite his close resemblance to the Smurf's Gargamel, Tom is really quite a friendly guy, and in fairness is much better looking than his counterpart.
Tom comes from a BMX background (and a middle distance sprint track background) but has somehow been able to convert those relatively low endurance sports into successful performances in cross country and cyclocross bike racing. In the winter Tom enjoys classic xc skiing.
Tom loves his new Salomon Pilot Classic binding & carbon boot combo, his Giant XTC 2 to 1, his Surley Steamroller, and his custom steel cross frame built by Mike Truelove (visit his site here).
Tom may bring the most eclectic mix of music to the shop; he listens to "anything thoughtful", from punk to jazz to classical to experimental electronic, and sometimes even pop. When not riding, skiing, or wrenching in the back of Olympia Tom enjoys reading, cooking, and spending time with his partner and their son.
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Scott (not to be confused with the one 't' Scot Miller) is our self-proclaimed 'webguy', which technically speaking means that he knows just enough about website layout and just enough about bikes to put them together and make this humble little site for you.
Scott has been shopping at Olympia for over two decades. He bought first high-performance bike (a Cannondale with "criterium geometry" and Suntour 3040 components, back in the day when aluminum was ultra exotic) at the shop 20 years ago with money from his first summer job and has seldom looked back. He's bought many bikes since then and currently owns 3 steel rigs (one of them a custom cyclocross single speed built by Mike Truelove) and a carbon Campy equipped Bianchi road bike with celeste accents of course. As far as bike ownership goes Scott says he's "living my own dream".
Scott is fortunate to have a wife who also has a love of cycling, which means that it's relatively easy to get bike purchase approval, but it also means that bike purchases have a tendency to run wild in their household with no one else around to keep them in check. His wife Deanna is gracious enough to model the occasional piece of merchandise for the site and usually ends up using Scott's hard-earned store credit to keep the merchandise afterward (sounds like a fair deal).
With a relatively successful background in track & field and other sports Scott is slowly testing the waters of bike racing and confirming the long-held assumption that he's not really that good, but he's still managing to have fun.
Scott and his wife cross train by paddling their kayaks, snowshoeing skiing, and strength training (you can check out their training regimen and related thoughts by visiting their website: www.TheTrainingCoop.com). Strength training is often accompanied by music that ranges anywhere from Goldfrapp to obscure U2 remixes (does anyone else have the Lemon, Kiwi, and Mango remix albums?), but more generally they enjoy anything from Gregorian chant to baroque to '80's heavy metal to current trance and pop.
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This part-timer (part of the Sunday crew) comes to us from the mean-streets of Winnipeg's North End. He's not that mean, more goofy stupid than mean (his words, not ours :)). He is third-in-line to the part-timers crown, standing behind Al Dixon and The Good Doctor Andy.
Unfortunately, he has been at the shop since the early 90's, and can even remember when neon cycling gear was cool, along with curly long "Euro" hair along and big gold chains . (Please don't ever tell him that it was NEVER cool).
Brian has polka'ed to many different tunes, from hard-core road racing (see the old pic above taken from a race in Belgium), to track racing on velodromes in North America and Europe, to mountain bike stage races and randonneering.
His latest dance? Winter riding on the beloved RedLine 925, 'mad max' edition.
Brian has a daughter who is ready to start churnin' the miles on a Giant tricycle, along with his spouse Suzanne.
And in answer to the obligatory "favourite music" question: Polka, polka, polka.
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Next to the Good Doctor Andy Lockery (fellow shop sales guy) Al Dixon, Mr. Dixon to you (or at least to all of his former students), is the longest serving Olympia part-timer, having been around since 1991. That's not to say that Al's old. I mean he is, it's just that we're not saying that. Joking aside, this is a part of what makes the shopping experience at Olympia special: Part time employees that have been with us for over 15 years! That means there's a pretty good chance they know what they're talking about when you come to the shop and ask some questions.
Mr. Dixon likes all types of riding (though we suspect his urban trials riding and 50 foot hucks are getting a little rusty); especially long distance touring, randonneering, and century type rides. It might be worth asking Al the age old question: Which is a real century, a metric one or one in miles? (editor's note: I don't know what his answer is, but mine is whichever is shorter).
Mr. Dixon has a diverse fleet of bikes, from a 26 inch wheel Surly set up for off road touring to a Trek 5200 carbon fiber road rocket. His favourite bike is his Cannondale tandem that he enjoys riding with his wife Debbie. Cool. Any time you can get out and ride with your partner is a good time.
Mr. Dixon is a level II cycling coach through the NCCP program. He also keeps himself busy in the winter as an avid backcountry skier. He enjoys talking about and helping with all aspects of the cycling and skiing experience but most enjoys helping customers interested in commuting, touring, or considering trying a tandem.
When asked the obligatory personal profile music question Mr. Dixon confesses he is stuck in the '80's. At least it's not the '70's Al - we don't know if we want to picture you getting on your disco groove.
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Editor's note: This profile was written with a little 'help' from the shop staff:
Yes, Scot spells his name with just one "t". He's so good he doesn't need the second one. Scot is the shop's cheque writer, though his business cards say he's the owner. Scot gradually transitioned from shop rat to owner over the last few years, officially taking the ownership reigns a year or so ago. Since then he pretty much does work for the shop and sleeps, not necessarily in that order.
Scot has countless bike competition wins and podiums throughout North America thru the late 90's, but lately he's been more concentrated on making sure that his costumers are well-equipped for their races.
As you'd expect, Scot pretty much has one of everything in terms of bike and ski gear. His favourite bike of all was his Trek Y bike ("man can that thing climb like a cat"). His favourite bike movie of all time is...well actually he has a number of favourites, but most of them are the ones he stole from shop mechanic Tomek so he isn't forthcoming with specific titles.
When Scot's not working or sleeping he's enjoying time with his beautiful wife Manon and Kiwi, their thundercat (to the left is an artist's rendition of Kiwi - no actual photo's were available).
Scot enjoys popular alternative music and Solitudes CD's to help him sleep. Needless to say he's not allowed to touch the shop stereo.
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Andy is one of our sales and repair guys. Although he's likely the oldest employee here his youthful vigor easily matches the rest of us. When asked if he wanted to say anything about himself for this posting this was Andy's response: "Life is fun". Truthfully you get that sense whenever you talk to Andy.
He'll happily talk to you about the latest bikes, and enjoys all types of riding (and has excelled at it too, as evidenced by awards such as a silver medal at Canadian Road Nationals and 1st place in the Provincial Road / TT Championships), but Andy would just as soon talk to you about cross country skiing. He has "lots" of skis, including pairs designed for skating, classic racing, and touring. His bike collection is nothing to sneeze at either: It includes a track bike, a TT bike, road racer, cyclocross rig, mountain bike, and possibly our favourite, a Surely Pugsley (perfect for Winnipeg winters - if you haven't seen this you need to ask Andy to let you take a look - it's a functional work of art). Check out the size of the front tire in this picture:
When not enjoying the occasional obscure movie (his favourite is Bread and Tulips - we had to look it up - you can read reviews from the Rotten Tomatoes website by clicking here), Andy also enjoys kayaking and wildlife watching, and gardening. Presumably some of these activities are enjoyed with his wife Val.
Feel free to stop by the shop anytime to tap into Andy's wisdom and vast experience in the sports of both cycling and cross country skiing.
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Liam is one of the shop mechanics , and the resident Top Gun trials rider.
As should be the case with any good trials rider Liam insists that lycra will never touch his body, but that coy pose with the Ray Bans suggests that there's a repressed lycra fetish in there somewhere just waiting to come out.
Liam organized the first local trials competition, and just returned from Crankworx (click here) in Whistler this summer, so there's no doubt that trials is his first love, especially riding natural trials and big rock sections. Liam loves riding anywhere along the Vancouver Island coast, sometimes not moving more than 50 feet in a few hours, but never getting bored of the awesome terrain out there.
Liam currently has a full arsenal of trials bikes (a 20", 24", and 26") and a Redline Monocog, but his favourite of all time was his first custom dual disc Desalvo (click here) with a sweet maple leaf paint job.
When Liam's not riding...well, he's usually riding, but the odd time he's not he's tearing around in his car rally style or crashing late night raves. He listens to everything from Nirvana to Mos Def, but mostly a lot of House and Trance stuff (fav DJ's are RJD2, Dave Seaman, and Danny Tenaglia).
Liam lives with his imaginary friend Ralph and Juan the cockroach. Unfortunately as far as we're aware he leaves both of them at home when he comes to work, but you can stop by the shop and visit Liam anytime.
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He says he likes riding, but this poor quality blow-up suggests either he's lying, or he was just having a really bad day.
Paddy is the Store Manager at Olympia, which means that he does, well, pretty much some of everything, whether that means helping customers fit the right bike or pair of skis, working on repairs, or keeping the other misbehaving staff in line (Paddy can turn a used inner tube into a deadly authoritarian weapon).
Paddy can help with all of your bike and ski needs, but he personally focuses on xc riding and classical xc skiing. For a little cross training Paddy also mixes it up with some downhill skiing, trail running, and running with his two dogs.
Paddy likes a little pain in his life - he's a Trans-Iowa finisher, 24 Hour Solo World Championships participant, and usually opts to ride the races he enters on a rigid singlespeed.
Like most guys in the shop Paddy has too many bikes and skis to mention, but his favourite at the moment is his Surly 1x1, or maybe it's his Steamroller set up for 'cross. Why is it that the rest of us lust after the $8000 carbon/titanium machines while the shop guys love the $1000-and-less steel frames? Maybe they know something we don't.
Come say hi to Paddy today, and make sure to ask him to point out all of the titanium bolts on his bikes; you'll be his new best friend.
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Phone: 204.888.4586
Email:
Olympia Cycle & Ski 1813 Portage Ave Winnipeg MB R3J 0G2 Mapquest link
T E A M O L Y M P I A , O L Y M P I A C Y C L E & S K I P O R T A G E A V E N U E - W I N N I P E G , M A N I T O B A
Team Olympia Portage Ave. is comprised of a group of male and female mountain, road, and cyclocross riders of varying skill level and athletic ability who enjoy racing throughout the competitive season. Many of the riders work at the shop, while others have a close connection as friends and longtime customers.
Membership includes access to discounted team merchandise, the occasional group ride, trail building and maintenance responsibilities, and that special feeling that you belong to a group of like-minded individuals (okay, so you can't put that in the bank, but it's nice to feel like one of the crowd).
Membership to Team Olympia is sort of on an invitation basis, but if you feel strongly connected to our store and are interested in the team let us know the next time you're in and we can talk further.
Team Olympia members compete in all disciplines of bike racing from April right thru to November. Much of the racing is done locally, in and around Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba. The Manitoba Cycling Association has a full race calendar (click here) that keeps riders occupied. Some Team Olympia riders do a little traveling to get in some extra races and to try something new. As the season progresses we'll try to post notable racing experiences on this site.
Bur Oak Trail
Did you know that Team Olympia has built and maintains the Bur Oak Mountain Bike Trails in Bird's Hill Park? If you haven't been out to Bur Oak lately come out and visit it for yourself, or better yet give us a shout to find out when our next work day is scheduled and plan to help us maintain the trail. You can view a detailed, interactive map of the Bur Oak Trails by clicking here.
Everyone is welcome to enjoy the great trail riding whenever the Bird's Hill Provincial Park is open (you do require an inexpensive day or seasonal park pass available at Canadian Tire and other similar retailers).
Click here to view a map of Bird's Hill Park (To find the Bur Oak Trails turn right (south) off of South Drive near #7 as marked on the map)
Team Olympia also hosts a summer mountain bike race series on Wednesday nights on the Bur Oak trails (click here to check the race calendar for dates). The course is challenging but not highly technical, with a lot of roots, many tight turns and twists, and a little bit of undulation, so cyclists with average mountain handling skills should be able to handle the course (please know your own limits and abilities because we can't be liable for riders who get in over their head's - we have enough trouble keeping our own heads intact). back to top of page
At Olympia Cycle and Ski we have at least 2 full time mechanics on the job most weekdays, and a number of part-timers who help with repairs as time permits. Our full and part time mechanics have years of experience doing what they enjoy doing most - building and repairing bikes and setting up and waxing skis. Our mechanics, who do plenty of riding and skiing themselves, are trusted by the best road cyclists, mountain bikers, triathletes, and cross country skiers in the province. Most of our sales staff also have many years of cycling and skiing experience and can often take care of minor repairs as well. Please be aware that due to the high demand of our skilled mechanics we strongly recommend that you call ahead to make an appointment for a bike tune-up. At peak season (early spring) we're often taking appointments a month or so in advance, though we try to keep our wait time to a minimum and can usually fit you in more quickly at other times of the year. We really do hate making you wait to bring your prized bike in, but if there's anything positive to say about waiting we suppose you could say that's the 'price' you pay for being serviced by such popular mechanics. Once you bring your bike in for a scheduled appointment we try to turn your repair around in 24 hours. If you have purchased your bike from us in the past year you usually get to skip to the front of the line (or at least we'll do our best to fit you in quickly) to get that quick tune-up, and most first-year tune-ups are free of charge as well! For most other labour rates please check out the chart below: Olympia Cycle & Ski Labour Rates (scroll further down the chart for ski labour rates) Bike Labour
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