This Moncton Boy Grew Up To Own One Of North America’s Best Bike Shops
“I’ve been in the bike business for 40 years, it’s all I’ve ever done. So, I learned over the years what is successful, what’s not successful. You learn a lot about how you want to be treated when you’re in a store. I take notes of that when I’m in a store,” Snyder said.
Mike’s Bike Shop has been the only Canadian shop in the ranking of 165 stores for three years since 2016. It was most recently recognized again in August based on a questionnaire submission and a “secret shopper” report. The stores are rated on everything from cleanliness to how quickly and how well they respond to Facebook messages.
Snyder says being recognized has been “extremely humbling.”
Snyder and his wife bought Mike’s Bike Shop 15 years ago with a 3,500-square-foot store, but they soon outgrew the building. Five years ago, they built the 16,000-square-foot shop on Englehart St. in Dieppe.
I’m sure [I was] a pain in the butt. But eventually, they let me empty the garbage, run next door for coffee, and eventually, they taught me how to put bikes together and one thing led to another,” he said.
[Bikes] is all I ever knew. I didn’t finish high school. I have no post-secondary education. It’s what I knew. The opportunity arose, and my wife and I jumped on it.”
If you’re wondering, Mike is the person who started the bike shop 35 years ago in his garage in Shediac. The shop had changed ownership before the Snyders bought it. But they kept the name. “I get called Mike at least as many times a day as I get called Rick,” Snyder said. “I always tease everybody and say, back when I bought it I couldn’t afford to change the name. Now that I can afford it, it would be easier to just change my name.”