LA GRANDE — If it’s true that adventure is just a pedal away, then entrepreneur Sean Lerner started a good ride when he relocated his mountain bike sales and service shop, Eastern Wheelworks, to the former Sunshine Motors building at 711 Adams Ave.

Lerner, who once worked for Mountain Works in La Grande, branched out and founded his own company in March 2021.

“At first, I started building wheels in my garage, and I realized I could do this on my own for a living, just not from my garage,” Lerner said.

Consequently, he acquired store space on Washington Avenue, next to Side A Brewing and across from the post office.

“My business started as a custom wheel-building business and then I expanded that to doing suspension service,” he said. “Now we’re a full mountain bike service and retail center. We also offer rental bikes too.”

Eastern Wheelworks sells bikes from Banshee out of British Columbia; Pivot Cycles based out of Arizona; bikes from Transition, which are based out of Bellingham, Washington; Esker out of Minnesota; and Woom kids bikes. The store also does some bicycle motocross sales with S&M and Fitbikeco.

“On top of doing custom wheels, we’re the only shop in Eastern Oregon that does mountain bike suspension service,” Lerner said. “So, that’s a big part of our business.”

Lerner operated from the Washington Avenue store location for three years, but it was small, less than 700 square feet, and a little cramped for his purposes. So, when the opportunity arose to buy the Sunshine property, Lerner saw his opportunity to expand his business and took it.

“I needed more space and this almost doubled what I used to have,” he said.

New store property

The property that Lerner purchased at Second Street and Adams Avenue was originally the site of a Veltex Service Station, newly built in the summer of 1926 and operated by W. H. Coffee. In 1931, new management took over and called it The Cities Service Station, selling Shell products. Since then, the property has changed hands many times.

In 1950, Walter “Buzz” Fulton became the new owner of the service station, calling it Fulton’s Texaco Service. Six years later, he razed the original station and hired Bechtel Bros. to completely rebuild and enlarge the station. Its grand opening celebration was held June 16, 1956.

In the 1980s, Lerner said the station was called Sunshine Motors. It has about 1,300 square feet of space, but it needed remodeling. To do this, Lerner applied for and received a $75,000 urban renewal grant through the La Grande Economic Development Division.

“I couldn’t have done it without that,” Lerner said. “It paid for a lot of the work.”

The building was kind of a metal shell with bolts holding it all together. With the help of the grant funding, it was brought up to code and made into a serviceable retail and repair space.

The remodel work included new walls, electrical service and plumbing. The construction work was done by Lance Colburn, who worked from July through the winter to complete it.

A big portion of the city grant money was used to p out the old cracked concrete and asphalt outside. That area was developed into a patio made with pavers and decorated with flower planters.

“I worked with Valley Lawn and Landscaping and they did an amazing job,” Lerner said.

Career background

Lerner has years of experience in the bicycle industry. He’s worked at bike shops elsewhere and helped run a bike co-op for a while, which was a community cycling center where people could learn how to work on their own bikes.

“I focused mostly on commuters, who needed their bikes repaired, and that’s where I learned most of what I know,” Lerner said. “I’ve also been riding bikes and working on my own bikes forever.”

In the winter things slow down, because people are enjoying skiing and winter sports, and the start of spring is the busiest time of year for Lerner, when people dust off their bikes and realize they don’t work.

Lerner and his wife, McKenzie Funk, became familiar with La Grande while visiting her parents, who moved to Union County over a decade ago. The Lerners moved around a bit, living in several places on the West Coast before settling here.

“We loved it here and wanted to move here,” he said. “It’s the perfect place for the things we like to do.”

Of course, Mount Emily’s biking trails caught Lerner’s eye. The mountain biking season on the trails runs from the end of March to mid-October. If the winter is dry like it was this year, people were riding as early as February on trails with some southern exposure, which melted out fast.

Right now, Lerner is entering his busiest time of the year, but during the winter when things slow down at the shop, Lerner focuses on repairing older bikes for kids who want to try them but maybe can’t afford them.

“So, if anyone has a good bike collecting dust and they are not using it, bring it by,” Lerner said. “I’ll try to find them a home so that someone who needs a bike can get riding.”