Citybikes will cease business this Friday

After 38 years, the end of the line has come for Citybikes. At least for now. The shop will close this Friday (September 13th) while the remaining owners decide what to do next.

Rumors have swirled about the organization’s demise for years and BikePortland confirmed its fate today with one of its last remaining owners. After a reader shared a sign that recently popped up on the front door of the shop on Southeast Ankeny Street, I emailed Bob Kamzelski (who also owns Bantam Bicycle Works) to find out what was going on.

“Citybikes will be ceasing retail and repair operations on the 13th of this month,” Kamzelski wrote. “After 15 years of declining sales, and taking more than $120k in losses over the last three years, it has become obvious that the business is not sustainable and we have made the decision to stop operating while we figure out what to do next.”

The shop and worker-owned cooperative was an institution during Portland’s heyday as a cycling mecca. There were once two locations on Ankeny (at SE 20th and SE 7th), but the “Annex” on 7th closed in 2016 amid a decline in business. At its peak, Citybikes had 25 worker-owners. Last I heard there were just four (three in addition to Kamzelski).

A messy lawsuit between current and past co-owners that came to light in 2022 was likely one of the final attempts to change the direction of Citybikes.

A former worker-owner, Brian Lacy (who, coincidentally, founded the Community Cycling Center), was spearheading an attempt regain control of the organization from Kamzelski and others. At the time Lacy told BikePortland, “We’re going to rebuild Citybikes. We don’t want it to die.” But reached today via email about the pending closure, Lacy said he knows nothing about it.

And while Kamzelski said he plans to close the doors while they figure out what to do next, his comments to BikePortland in 2022 don’t make it sound like the shop will ever reopen.

“It’s not a viable business anymore,” Kamzelski told us two years ago. “It’s been a very successful run and I’ve been here for a third of it. I just think it’s time to move on. Other shops are closing. It’s a very hard time to run a bike shop.”