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History  ::  Why shop with us?  ::  Staff  ::  Contact/Location/Hours   ::  Labour Rates

History

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.  

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Why shop with us?


Thinking of buying a new bicycle, some new skis, or some accessories? One of your first choices, and not necessarily an easy one, will be where to shop. It can be a challenge because there are a myriad of stores that sell bikes and skis.  Where you buy has everything to do with what you get. Bikes are shipped in boxes and must be assembled and tuned; skis need to be fit to the buyer according to height, weight, and use.  Many customers appreciate some advice to help them decide which of the many types of bikes and skis are best suited to their needs.

 

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.   

 

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Staff

 

 Adrian     Al     Andy     Brian     John    Liam    Lindsey     Luc    Scot    Scott

 

Lindsey Gauld

 

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 (Rat) Huemmer

 

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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(Little) John Mcleod

 

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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Luc Antaya

 

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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Scott Wiebe

 

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 as far as bike ownership goes Scott says he's "living my own dream".

 

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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Brian (Elvis) Szklarczuk

 

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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Mr. Al Dixon

 

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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Scot Owen Miller

 

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 Lockery

 

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 (Lamard) Mohan

 

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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Contact / Location

 

Phone:  204.888.4586 

Email:  info@olympiacycle.com 

Olympia Cycle & Ski

1813 Portage Ave

Mapquest link

 

Hours of operation: 

Mon to Fri: 10:00 am to 9:00 pm   Sat: 10:00 am to 6:00 pm  

Sundays: 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm in winter, closed in summer

 

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Labour Rates

 

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

   Tune up $60.00  
 - General inspection    
 - Minor cleaning as required for maintenance work    
 - Gear and drivetrain adjustment and lubrication    
 - Full brake system adjustment and lubrication    
 - Minor wheel truing    
 - Bearing adjustments (headset, bottom bracket, cones)    
     
    Overhaul $110.00  
 - Tune up    
 - Bottom bracket overhaul    
 - Headset overhaul (new roller bearings)    
 - Hub overhaul (new roller bearings)    
     
    Other mechanical services    
 - Bottom bracket overhaul $20.00  
 - Headset overhaul $20.00  
 - Rear hub overhaul $20.00  
 - Suspension fork overhaul $35.00 - $60.00  
 - Tap/thread/facing $20.00 - $40.00  
 - Wheel build $40.00 - $50.00  
 - Cleaning $20.00  
 - Boxing a bike, including box $20.00  
 - Bike assembly $50.00 - $90.00  
 - Flush freewheel $20.00  
     
    Adjustments    
 - Derailleurs (front and rear) $12.00  
 - Brakes (front and rear) $12.00  
 - Headset $8.00  
 - Cones (one wheel) $8.00  
 - Bottom bracket $15.00  
 - Wheel truing $12-$25.00  
     
    Parts Installations    
 - Bar taping $10.00  
 - Computer $12.00  
 - Tire and tube (doesn't include parts) $6.00  
 - Full fenders $15.00  
 - Chain $8.00  
 - Cassette or freewheel $6.00  
 - Brake pads (per wheel) $6.00  
 - Brakes per wheels, V-Type $8.00  
 - Brakes per wheel, disc $14.00  
 - Handlebar, mountain $10.00  
 - Handlebar, road $18.00  
 - Stem $5.00  
 - Fork (cutting and crown setting) $20-$30.00  
 - Brake bleed / hose length adjustment $20-$30.00  
 - Headset removal $20.00-$25.00  
 - Bottom bracket removal $10-$20.00  
 - Pedals removal $10-$20.00  
 - Freewheel or cassette removal $6.00  
 - Rim brake wheel - front / rear $7.00/$10.00  
 - Disc wheel - front / rear $12.00/$16.00  
 - Pedals $5.00  
 - Toe clips $5.00  
 - Seat or seat post $6.00  
 - Bottom bracket $16.00  
 - Crank set incl. pedal swap $10.00  
     
    Ski Labour    
     
 - Clean and hot wax (subject to condition of skis) $12.00  
 - Pine tar (for wooden skis) $35.00  
 - Binding installation (free install if equipment is purchased at same time) $10.00  
 - Base repair $5 and up  
 - Epoxy / general repair $10 and up  

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