Behind the wheels: Iconic downtown Augusta bicycle shop rolls up to its 50th anniversary
In 1974, professional drummer Andy Jordan told his fellow studio musicians that he and his wife, Susan, were starting a bicycle shop in Augusta.
“Everybody in the studio just laughed at him,” recalled his son Drew in a family story told many times. “‘Yeah, right – we'll give you a month.’”
Not too long ago, Drew Jordan saw one of those bandmates, who said, “‘Here we are 50 years later, and it looks like he knew what he was doing.’”
Though Andy Jordan died in 2015, Andy Jordan’s Bicycle Warehouse is still on 13th Street in downtown Augusta, with Drew keeping the shop rolling. Before the shop existed, getting a bicycle professionally serviced usually meant driving out of town.
“Back then if you were looking for a bike or needed a bike serviced, they probably sold lawn equipment too or some other things,” Jordan said. “There wasn’t a true bicycle store in Augusta at the time.”
Jordan got his first bicycle – “a little red Raleigh with a banana seat on it” – at age 3. By age 4, the training wheels were off and so was he. Before he reached high school Jordan also was becoming a nationally competitive BMX racer.
Finding out in high school that students could leave campus early to pursue on-the-job training, Jordan worked more at the shop. Richmond Academy faculty needed convincing that his father wasn’t covering for him so he could skip class.
“’You don’t understand,’” Jordan explained to his teachers. “'My dad works me harder than anybody else in the store.’”
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The cycling hobby has had many peaks and valleys, literally and figuratively, but Jordan said he thinks it still could be riding the crest of a wave of popularity that began during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“So many people got on bikes during the pandemic. That was the craziest thing I'd ever seen,” he said. “So many people got into the outdoors – biking, camping, boating. You couldn't go to the gym, you couldn’t play team sports, so they kind of flocked to the outdoor stores. A lot of people are still riding them.”
People buy bicycles to get where they’re going. Sometimes it’s a physical location. Other times it’s a state of mind.
“Whether they’re wanting to ride a bike with their family or if they want to race at a high level, you'll get two totally different uses of a bicycle, but they’ll get the same treatment, the same honesty, solid advice from years of riding bikes,” Jordan said.
“At the end of the day, all we want is for you to get a bike from us and it be the best thing in your life. You’re having fun. You’re getting fitter. A bike is a tool for this other thing they’re looking for.”
Jordan also tries to keep cyclists connected to the hobby through sponsored local trail rides that has raised thousands of dollars to help fund the trails’ upkeep.
Fifty years of memories still fill the shop, though during a 1998 fire many sentimental items such as trophies and photographs were lost. It helps make the remaining mementoes feel more special.
“We had a big celebration a couple of weeks ago now, and Mom gave me a big bin of old photos to go through," Jordan said. One photo shows a young Jordan on that little red Raleigh with the banana seat.
"I’ve been immersed in all things bikes all my life,” he said. “I knew bikes were a big part of my life, but when you start looking at photos over the decades – it’s been very impactful for me.”
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Andy Jordan's Bicycle Warehouse hits golden anniversary in Augusta
