INTERVIEW


ACT director Jonathan Harrison presenting the LBSW Award to David Beeley.


Local Bike Shop Week Award Winner: Big Bear Bikes


The ACT launched its inaugural Bike Shop Awards Week this year, in recognition of independent cycle retailers “that go above and beyond for their local communities.” Local bike shops were nominated, and eventually a winner was chosen via public vote. This year, it was Big Bear Bikes in Pickering, North Yorkshire, that received 42% of the public vote. BikeBiz went to meet Managing Director, David Beeley and the rest of the Big Bear Bikes team in the bustling village of Pickering, to see why they are the nation’s favourite.


Let’s start with a bit of background about yourself and how you got into the cycling industry. Where did the Big Bear Bikes story begin? Big Bear Bikes was started with a partner and me back in 2009. Before then, I worked for Ford Motor Company as a regional area rep, and my job was to go to Ford dealers into the sales teams and coach them in terms of sales and finance sales. I did that for 14 years, and there are quite a lot of similarities between how a car dealer works and how a bike shop could work.


26 | July 2026


I’ve been a keen cyclist since I was a lad and got back into it in about 2000. A landmark for me is that when I got back into it I bought a Marin Rift Zone full-suspension bike from Bike Scene in Guisborough, and it was £1500. And this year, we’ve taken on the Marin brand for our


part of the world. We’ve had a fabulous start with it. Since February, we’ve sold 50 bikes already, and we currently sell a Marin Rift Zone full suspension bike for £1500, 27 years later.


www.bikebiz.com


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