Hundreds Turn Out For Evo Cycles Opening Day
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- Evo Cycles opens its 32nd store in Invercargill, expanding its national presence.
- The new store is on the former site of Graham Williamson X-Factor performance cars.
- Local hires aim to cater to Invercargill’s strong and diverse biking community.
One of New Zealand’s biggest cycle retailers officially opened its doors in Invercargill last weekend.
This was Evo Cycles 32nd store after the company purchased the Gala Street corner site from Graham Williamson X-Factor performance cars before Christmas.
Harcourts commercial property broker Carl Johnston said at the time, it was great that a local family-owned dealership site was being passed over to another New Zealand family owned business.
“It’s a really good sign that the larger places are looking at Invercargill in a positive light,” he said.
The building was fit-for-purpose and the only thing that needed to be changed was the signage and colours, he said.
“Everything lined up for them. The busy-ness of the site and the vibe was just right,” Carl said.
Accountant Sam Fletcher founded Evo in 2007 and now has 250 staff throughout the country, with two stores in Christchurch, another in Dunedin and also Queenstown in the South.
Marketing manager Ben Pedley said they had their eye on Invercargill for several years, as there was such a strong biking community in the south.
“It’s been an absolutely wild journey. We want to be everywhere and we’re got so many loyal customers in the south. We get thousands of orders from Southland already so it’s nice to finally have a local presence.”
With such a strong biking community – covering everyone from families to mountainbikers and through to performance cyclists, it was just a matter of waiting for that perfect corner site to become available.
“We’ve hired all local crew who are familiar with people’s biking needs. We are just so pumped to finally be there.”
Mike and Kelly checked out the new store last weekend and Kelly even took one of the new bikes for a spin in the carpark. Check out the video here below.