Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993 TAG: 9311110489
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
``There're a lot of kids in this town,'' said Gambill, owner of Trail's End, a bicycle sale and repair shop at 51 E. Main St. And bikes are ``their all-around get-around tool.''
``We're still pulling stuff together,'' said Gambill, a biking enthusiast himself. ``It was a hobby before I started the bike shop, and now I don't have much time to go.''
Gambill sells mountain bikes including GT, Dyno and Mount Shasta models starting at $200 and including a lifetime limited warranty.
He also does bike repairs. ``That's what I work on the most,'' he said.
Previously, people who needed bike repairs had to haul their bicycles to Radford or Blacksburg.
The New River Trail State Park, which has an entry point in Pulaski, has helped Gambill's business because the trail accommodates mountain bikers, Gambill said.
``There are tons of people using that,'' he said. ``People can take their bikes from here and go right over.''
He expects even more business when the trail is extended a couple more miles to a terminus at the town's Train Station building, donated by Norfolk Southern Corp. The town is renovating the station as a visitor's center and for other uses.
Passage of last November's bond issue for state parks provided the necessary financing to extend the trail into the heart of the town.
Gambill grew up in Richmond and attended Radford University. He graduated last May with a degree in business.
He had a different bike each year he attended Radford. Living five blocks off campus, he said, ``you have to have one to get around.''
Gambill had hoped to set up a bike rental outlet but found the insurance he would have to carry would outweigh any profit he could hope to make.
He has not given up, though. ``I'd like to look into some sort of town sponsorship or something,'' he said. ``I've got a while to work it out, but that's the first place I'm going to go.''
A bike rental shop could add to the tourism potential with people wanting to ride bikes on the New River Trail, he said.
Trail's End opened on one side of Karen Graham's Somethin' Fishy pet store at 53 E. Main about the same time as New River Valley Racing Connection opened on the other side.
Graham was instrumental in locating the shops on opposite sides of her own store. Gambill has more than a business association - he is engaged to marry her daughter, Mary Katherine Graham, in April.
The Pulaski Main Street program has been successful in getting vacant buildings occupied by new businesses in the past year, particularly on the block running from Jefferson Avenue to Washington Avenue. But these latest businesses are in the next block, south of Washington Avenue.
Graham said she envisions a minifamily mall in that area.
She, Gambill and Jim Patton, who manages Racing Connection, have agreed to stay open until 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. That way, she said, when evening shoppers in the upper block of Main Street come to the traffic light on Washington Avenue, they will see the lights of businesses on the next block of Main and perhaps be attracted to them.
``If you give them something positive,'' she said, ``they will come.''
by CNB