If it wasn’t for Ty Burns’ salt and pepper-colored hair, you’d think you were sitting across from a kid who can’t wait to tell you about his latest trip to the candy store. Between nibbles on a “Lunchable” snack pack in a corner of his Huntersville bicycle shop, he leans forward in his chair and his face absolutely beams as he describes his passion for cycling and the success — and recent expansion — of his five-year-old enterprise, The Spirited Cyclist.

It was 2006 when the doors of The Spirited Cyclist opened at the Rosedale Shopping Center location near I-77 at Exit 23 in Huntersville. Just two years later, Burns expanded to include a shop in Mooresville, and within the last few weeks, has added a third storefront in Davidson on Main Street. This, while many shops in the Rosedale center go dark, or have been dark for some time.

In the life cycle of a small business, to still be up and running after year one means you must be doing something right. To triple in size in five years, it might be safe to say not only are you doing something right, you’re doing it well.

“I would have to say that we have just been very fortunate,” says Burns, a Davidson resident. “We have some great people who work for us and we have made some great relationships. Early on, we weren’t as concerned at making a lot of money as opposed to building for the long term, and I think that has really helped us as we’ve come five years into it now.”

But Burns’ love for cycling stretches back much further than his five years as a small business owner. The former vice president of operations for Food Lion discovered at a young age both his passion for the sport and the practicality of banking on a future in it.

“When I was 24 years old, I was very serious about cycling,” he says, “and I knew then I wasn’t going to make any money doing it. But I always had (owning a shop) in my mind. I was always going to do this.”

So Burns relied on a decades-long career in business operations to give him the means to make his cycle shop dreams come true, even during a time of economic upheaval.

“I think I was fortunate in the fact that I had a passion for cycling,” he says, “but I also spent 30 years in operations (in the grocery industry). I think sometimes that the two have complemented each other.”

Full cycle

Burns’ success with The Spirited Cyclist goes against the grain of cycling shop trends, in light of the latest statistics. According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association Industry Overview 2010, the number of U.S. specialty retail locations like The Spirited Cyclist has fallen by almost one-third in the last decade, dropping from 6,195 in 2000 to 4,256 in 2010.

But the same report describes 2010 as a “recovery year” in which sales grew nearly 15 percent over 2009. The U.S. bicycle industry overall generated $6 billion in sales last year, including bicycle frames, parts and accessories.

The number of riders has increased slightly as well. The National Sporting Goods Association reports that 39.3 million Americans age 7 and older rode a bicycle at least six times in 2010. That’s up just a fraction from the year before, but it’s an increase that Burns has seen locally as well.

Since the Huntersville location opened five years ago, Burns and his staff have held regular Saturday morning rides, treks that begin with a loop around the town’s business park just south of Gilead Road, then spin north along back roads and a stretch of Shearer Road in Davidson before turning home again.

It’s about a 30-mile loop that has become quite popular over the years, to the point that Burns says they’ve grown from a group that was about one-half dozen strong to one that regularly boasts 60 to 70 riders a week. The Davidson shop will hold its first Saturday ride this weekend, launching at 8 a.m. from the Town Green. He expects the Davidson riding club to become as popular, adding a social nature to retail necessity.

“It truly is a social sport,” Burns says. “It’s like I tell the (Huntersville riding club), ‘Let’s go do the ride, then we can come back and have some bagels and everyone can tell their lies.’”

Burns says the success The Spirited Cyclist has achieved since 2006 is derived largely from just this kind of relationship building to which he so often refers, nurturing not only the shop’s continued involvement in the tight-knit cycling community, but the larger pool of Lake Norman consumers as well.

“The community has really embraced us,” Burns says. “It’s almost like they just want you to make it. They want you to be okay. They like having their own shop.”

He says it’s the climate his staff has created for those who wander into any of the three locations that keep folks coming back, a congenial atmosphere based largely on the fact that his employees live here as well.

“These are their neighbors, these are their friends,” Burns says of his customers. “These are the people they see at church.” For that matter, he says, more than one customer has told him his shops are “almost like a bar without the liquor.”

Burns says his new Davidson location is receiving that same warm community hug, even though other cycle shops exist nearby. He says he’s aware of his competition, but says he also stays focused on the “brand” he has created.

“I think this area easily has enough bike shops, if not too many, I don’t know,” says Burns, his voice trailing off. He says the bike shop owners are all familiar with each other, describing the rapport among them as “cordial.”

“We just need to know who we are and know who we’ve been for the last five years.”

And who will The Spirited Cyclist be in another five years? Burns says the next move would logically be to expand south of northern Mecklenburg, but he’s not quite comfortable with that idea yet.

“That’s always been a question, ‘am I open to that?’ and yeah, I am,” he says. But he quickly adds that before he’d consider it, he would have to become a lot more familiar with Charlotte’s cycling community, and just where the riders are.

For now, he’s quite happy to call the Lake Norman-area his business home. “I love the people, I love the customers, I love the riders,” he says with that same boyish grin and enthusiasm, as his half-eaten Lunchables snack sits neglected at his elbow.

“I’m having fun doing this. It’s a blast.”

The Spirited Cyclist

• 9911-A Rose Commons Drive,
Huntersville, 704-948-9300

• 129 North Main Street, Davidson, 980-613-9284

• 590-C River Highway, Mooresville, 704-696-0411

Hours: M-F 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m.,

Saturday 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m.,

Sunday noon-4 p.m.