Headquarters: Bloomington
Revenues: Undisclosed
Founded: 1977
Employees: 180
Ticker: Private
Web Sites: www.eriksbikeshop.com
What It Does: Sells bicycles and snowboards in 12 retail locations


Erik Saltvold has held only two jobs his entire life: paperboy and owner of Erik’s Bike Shop. The former funded the latter, paying for the tools he’d use to fix bicycles in his parents’ backyard “barn” in Richfield starting at age 13. What began as a hobby repairing bikes and reconditioning used ones has evolved into 12 retail bicycle shops throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

Saltvold, now 42, opened his first retail location in Richfield in 1982, the year he graduated from high school. He had outgrown the barn, offering new bikes as well as used ones, plus accessories such as helmets and shoes.

“When I started, I did everything: cleaned bathrooms, ordered bikes, sold bikes, repaired bikes,” he says. “If I was going to grow the business, I needed to have people with the same kind of knowledge, interest, and stake, people who cared about providing quality services as much as I did.”

At first, Saltvold trained new employees himself; now, he has a staff of trainers who teach courses at his company’s Bloomington warehouse about selling and servicing bicycles. “More than anybody else in the industry, we invest time and money in our sales and service staff,” Saltvold says. Not having friendly, knowledgeable employees, he adds, is “always your obstacle to growth.”

Indeed, Saltvold credits his employees with helping his operation add a second location in Burnsville in 1989. That expansion marked the first time he had to take out a loan; he had reinvested profits in inventory, advertising, and equipment up till then. “That was a critical juncture, whether you stay with one store and do a good job with that, but lose a lot of employees because they won’t be challenged,” Saltvold recalls. “It was a mind shift, in that if you add a little risk, a little leverage, you could grow this thing a little faster than just waiting.”

Eight years ago, Erik’s Bike Shop began to sell snowboards. “The customer that was coming in for a bike in the summer also thought of us for the winter,” he says. Saltvold also raised his company’s profile when he became “Erik the Bikeman” in radio and TV advertisements.

But even more than the ads, Saltvold believes the quality of his products and services, and staff members who themselves are enthusiastic cyclists, will continue to differentiate his stores from big-box competition.

“In the bicycle business, 80 percent of bikes are sold through big-box retailers, but they account for only 20 percent of the dollar volume,” he says. “It’s a night-and-day difference in terms of quality of product. We have dozens of different styles of bikes for particular kinds of riding. We have our own fitting system, because if you’re not fit properly, you’re riding on the wrong size bike. The bottom line is that you’ll enjoy it more.”