SUMMIT, NJ (BRAIN) Feb 29—Co-owners Sam Cooper and Tom Dunn bring nearly 20 years of bike retail experience to Hilltop Bicycles, their new shop in Summit, New Jersey, that will have its soft opening Saturday. A grand opening supported by primary bike brand Giant is planned for April.
Hilltop is a full-service family dealer on a busy avenue in a newly renovated strip center that formerly was a car dealership. The shop is the five-unit center’s first tenant and will be its largest business.
Left to right: Hilltop Bicycles co-owner Sam Cooper, mechanic Marc Ivory and co-owner Tom Dunn
Dunn says he and Cooper designed the interior—2,000 square feet of floor space and another 2,000 of storage—with a modern aesthetic. “There’s an open bench space with a granite bar for customers to hang out at. There’s a fit room that’s custom-built with glass walls and a sliding glass barn door. It’s a very high-design shop,” Dunn noted.
“What we’ve found in previous shops is that everyone wants to hang out and talk, but they want to be in the shop and it’s a little bit in the way. So we designed it so that they can sit at the bar and still talk to the mechanics and still be part of everything but be out of the way,” he added.
In addition to Giant, Hilltop carries bikes from Scott and Guru. Dunn says the shop will focus more on triathlon than other dealers in town, featuring high-end TT bikes, speedsuits and wetsuits from Louis Garneau, and other tri accessories. High-end mountain and road bikes will also be part of the mix.
But Dunn says Hilltop’s bread and butter will be hybrids and family bikes, and the shop will have around 30 kids’ bikes, including BMX, on the sales floor at any given time.
