OUR PASSION
Our passion is helping every rider discover his or her own cycling adventure. Sports Garage is Boulder’s only full-service, high end bike retailer dedicated to alternative surface cycling. We love chasing premium singletrack, mixing it up in a dirt road group rides, tackling long distance gravel jams, bikepacking, and sharing these experiences with our clients in a meaningful way. We believe in building the legacy of the local bike shop, knowing your name when you walk in the door, and providing unparalleled service. Where the pavement ends, our passion begins.
Jorge Espinoza
Owner
Fred Nolting
Buyer and Inventory Manager
Ali O'Donnell
Online Sales and Marketing
Colin Williams
Lead Mechanic
Ross Cronin
Sales
August Fackler
Mechanic
Sean Bragstad
Service Writer
Blossom
Emotional support to encourage bike purchase
Our Process
1:1 Consult
Talk riding style, goals, and experience to pinpoint your "best-fit" bike options.
Demo
Go ride and find what you love. Our demo rebate is the best in the Front Range!
Customize
Make your bike your own from day one with custom options built just for you.
Deliver
Dial in fit, set up and explain suspension & tire pressure. Review bike performance.
Follow-Up
Recommended service, group rides, hang out, cold beer... What more is there?
1994
Sports Garage is Founded
In 1994 entrepreneurs Thom Beckett and Frank Vogel founded Sports Garage in a rusty Quonset hut – “Q1” – located at 27th and Spruce Street. The two young men defied popular opinion by converting the building into a service center for outdoor recreation and backcountry thrill seekers like themselves. Initially, the “Garage” offered mountain bike service instruction, ski tuning, and was home to a small machine shop.
1997
Expanding Sports Garage
In only three years’ time, the business outgrew Q1 and expanded into the larger hut immediately adjacent on the north side of the property. Significant remodeling included connecting the two huts through an elevated passage and installing a loft for office space. Today our clients, visitors, and employees still work in the space created by Beckett and Vogel in 1997.
1999
Retail Pioneers
In addition to mountain bike service, Sports Garage joined Boulder’s ranks of bicycle retailers, representing such pioneering brands as Maverick and Rocky Mountain, an innovative company building and testing bikes on the wild north shore of British Columbia. We also introduced Boulder to the iconic mountain bike line Santa Cruz by becoming a dealer in 1999.
1994 - 2004
Neon Icon
A Datsun pick-up spray painted neon yellow was an iconic fixture in the Sports Garage neighborhood between 1994 and 2004.
2000s
Bikepacking and the Tour Divide
Sports Garage mechanic Sam Johnson had been using zip ties and Velcro to attach his camping equipment to his bike for several years before the marketplace officially recognized the art – and sport – of bikepacking. In the early 2000s, the penultimate adventure in bikepacking was the Grand Tour of MTB from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Sam joined the field of “challengers” to attempt this 2,745-mile self-supported bikepacking race known as the Tour Divide. Since inception, bikepacking has been an adventure that appealed to the DIY-er’s of the mountain biking world; an echo of Beckett and Vogel’s founding vision.
2004
The Second Generation
The Summit County mountains were calling Beckett and Vogel. They sold Sports Garage to Denver-area bike industry contemporaries Chris Jacobson and Nick Howe. Jacobson – with a passion for bike fitting – and Howe diversified SG to include a robust road cycling program. “J&H Ventures” also picked up a little backyard mountain bike brand called “Yeti”.
2009
The Modern Road
By 2009 Boulder and the University of Colorado had long established itself as the epicenter of road cycling in America. Under Jacobson and Howe’s direction, Sports Garage had diversified to include a robust road cycling business beginning back in 2005.
We introduced Boulder to the fourth and final long term mountain bike manufacturing partner in the business, Tempe, Arizona based Pivot Cycles, in 2009. Formerly the creator of such iconic bikes as the Titus Racer X, SG already had a close relationship with the Pivot founder and lead engineer. Also during 2009 Sports Garage underwent the only rebrand to date, adding “Cycling” to the name and giving the shop the equally recognized nickname “SG”.
2012
A Local Lifestyle
Mountain biking had been steadily gaining in popularity and by 2012 Boulder cyclists were spending more and more time on the trail for short and long distances. During the first year of publication, local culture magazine Boulder Lifestyle featured Sports Garage employees riding at the Betasso Preserve on the cover of their inaugural outdoor issue.
2016
Back to our Roots
Sports Garage Cycling was acquired by the current and third generation owners Elorie Slater and Brad James. With personal passions for mountain biking, and off-road adventures of all kinds, Slater and James took SG back to its roots in 2016 by becoming Boulder’s only “dirt only” bike shop. With the addition of a suspension service center and a gravel bike demo fleet, we re-committed fully to supporting the thrill of seeking the trail.
2019
25th Anniversary
The third season of Sports Garage’s grassroots “Gravelanche” off-road group rides drew hundreds of local riders to a tribal-less celebration of finding community on the dirt. In celebration of the shop’s 25th anniversary, the SG mountain bike demo fleet reaches the milestone number of fifty full-suspension trail bikes.
2025
Jorge Takes the Helm
Jorge Espinoza is a well‑respected figure in the Boulder cycling scene. As the owner of Sports Garage, Boulder’s premier off‑road and gravel bike shop, he’s dedicated to helping riders of all levels find their paths. A former member of the U.S. National Cycling Team—where he raced alongside top talent in the mid-1990s—Jorge has also claimed notable victories like winning a stage at the Breck Epic MTB in 2009 and the Masters cross-country national championship in 2010. Beyond racing, Jorge is committed to the community, volunteering with the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance and fostering the next generation of cyclists through expert bike fitting and group rides from the shop.
1994
Sports Garage is Founded
In 1994 entrepreneurs Thom Beckett and Frank Vogel founded Sports Garage in a rusty Quonset hut – “Q1” – located at 27th and Spruce Street. The two young men defied popular opinion by converting the building into a service center for outdoor recreation and backcountry thrill seekers like themselves. Initially, the “Garage” offered mountain bike service instruction, ski tuning, and was home to a small machine shop.
1997
Expanding Sports Garage
In only three years’ time, the business outgrew Q1 and expanded into the larger hut immediately adjacent on the north side of the property. Significant remodeling included connecting the two huts through an elevated passage and installing a loft for office space. Today our clients, visitors, and employees still work in the space created by Beckett and Vogel in 1997.
1999
Retail Pioneers
In addition to mountain bike service, Sports Garage joined Boulder’s ranks of bicycle retailers, representing such pioneering brands as Maverick and Rocky Mountain, an innovative company building and testing bikes on the wild north shore of British Columbia. We also introduced Boulder to the iconic mountain bike line Santa Cruz by becoming a dealer in 1999.
1994 - 2004
Neon Icon
A Datsun pick-up spray painted neon yellow was an iconic fixture in the Sports Garage neighborhood between 1994 and 2004.
2000s
Bikepacking and the Tour Divide
Sports Garage mechanic Sam Johnson had been using zip ties and Velcro to attach his camping equipment to his bike for several years before the marketplace officially recognized the art – and sport – of bikepacking. In the early 2000s, the penultimate adventure in bikepacking was the Grand Tour of MTB from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Sam joined the field of “challengers” to attempt this 2,745-mile self-supported bikepacking race known as the Tour Divide. Since inception, bikepacking has been an adventure that appealed to the DIY-er’s of the mountain biking world; an echo of Beckett and Vogel’s founding vision.
2004
The Second Generation
The Summit County mountains were calling Beckett and Vogel. They sold Sports Garage to Denver-area bike industry contemporaries Chris Jacobson and Nick Howe. Jacobson – with a passion for bike fitting – and Howe diversified SG to include a robust road cycling program. “J&H Ventures” also picked up a little backyard mountain bike brand called “Yeti”.
2009
The Modern Road
By 2009 Boulder and the University of Colorado had long established itself as the epicenter of road cycling in America. Under Jacobson and Howe’s direction, Sports Garage had diversified to include a robust road cycling business beginning back in 2005.
We introduced Boulder to the fourth and final long term mountain bike manufacturing partner in the business, Tempe, Arizona based Pivot Cycles, in 2009. Formerly the creator of such iconic bikes as the Titus Racer X, SG already had a close relationship with the Pivot founder and lead engineer. Also during 2009 Sports Garage underwent the only rebrand to date, adding “Cycling” to the name and giving the shop the equally recognized nickname “SG”.
2012
A Local Lifestyle
Mountain biking had been steadily gaining in popularity and by 2012 Boulder cyclists were spending more and more time on the trail for short and long distances. During the first year of publication, local culture magazine Boulder Lifestyle featured Sports Garage employees riding at the Betasso Preserve on the cover of their inaugural outdoor issue.
2016
Back to our Roots
Sports Garage Cycling was acquired by the current and third generation owners Elorie Slater and Brad James. With personal passions for mountain biking, and off-road adventures of all kinds, Slater and James took SG back to its roots in 2016 by becoming Boulder’s only “dirt only” bike shop. With the addition of a suspension service center and a gravel bike demo fleet, we re-committed fully to supporting the thrill of seeking the trail.
2019
25th Anniversary
The third season of Sports Garage’s grassroots “Gravelanche” off-road group rides drew hundreds of local riders to a tribal-less celebration of finding community on the dirt. In celebration of the shop’s 25th anniversary, the SG mountain bike demo fleet reaches the milestone number of fifty full-suspension trail bikes.
2025
Jorge Takes the Helm
Jorge Espinoza is a well‑respected figure in the Boulder cycling scene. As the owner of Sports Garage, Boulder’s premier off‑road and gravel bike shop, he’s dedicated to helping riders of all levels find their paths. A former member of the U.S. National Cycling Team—where he raced alongside top talent in the mid-1990s—Jorge has also claimed notable victories like winning a stage at the Breck Epic MTB in 2009 and the Masters cross-country national championship in 2010. Beyond racing, Jorge is committed to the community, volunteering with the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance and fostering the next generation of cyclists through expert bike fitting and group rides from the shop.
CORE VALUES
Rich Experience
Technological Expertise
Long Term Relationship
Actively Supporting
