{"id":26223,"date":"2024-08-08T16:49:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T16:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kokopelli-bike-board-marks-30-years-in-business\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:35:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:35:50","slug":"kokopelli-bike-board-marks-30-years-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/kokopelli-bike-board-marks-30-years-in-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Kokopelli Bike & Board marks 30 years in business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kokopelli
Kokopelli Bike & Board store, at 130 W. Main St. in Cortez, is celebrating 30 years in business. (Courtesy Kokopelli Bike & Board)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Kokopelli Bike & Board is celebrating its 30th birthday Saturday, Aug. 10 at WildEdge Brewing Collective, which has crafted a beer for the celebration.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s from 5 to 8 p.m., but if you\u2019re itching to pedal, meet behind the Cortez shop at West Main and North Elm streets for a casual ride at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be fun and mellow, just kind of a gathering of everybody who wants to come. We\u2019ll see who shows up,\u201d said Pete Eschallier, a co-owner of the shop for 22 years, with a laugh.<\/p>\n

To celebrate, WildEdge created a beer called Pedal Wrench.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a play on their beer Monkeywrench, but with a lower alcohol percentage and added orange peel. The idea was to make a \u201cpost-ride beer,\u201d said Tucker Robinson, an owner and brewer at WildEdge.<\/p>\n

A portion of the party\u2019s proceeds will benefit the High Desert DEVO youth cycling program, a nonprofit that mentors kids to foster confidence within them on and off a bike.<\/p>\n

Kokopelli Bike & Board opened in 1994.<\/p>\n

\"Kokopelli
Kokopelli Bike and Board in its early stages. (Courtesy of Jimbo Farley)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Kokopelli
Kokopelli Bike and Board in its early stages. (Courtesy of Jimbo Farley)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Jimbo Farley and Morgan Bell, the founders of the shop, were working at a bike shop in Alabama in the early \u201890s. They had thought about opening one in Colorado \u2013 one day, they agreed to make it happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just decided it was time to move west,\u201d Farley said.<\/p>\n

Their initial trip to Telluride proved fruitless- the friend they were supposed to see was out of town.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called us and said, \u2018Sorry we missed you in Telluride. But, hey, you guys want to open a bike shop? There\u2019s a little town called Cortez, it needs one\u2019,\u201d Farley said.<\/p>\n

So they came back out a few weeks later and started what\u2019s now Kokopelli Bike & Board.<\/p>\n

Cortez felt like a good location for a bike shop, Farley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were between Durango and Moab so, you know, things could grow here. There was just good opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The duo had little money when they opened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lived in the back of the shop for a year and just put all the money we made back into inventory to try and to grow it. It was an adventure for sure,\u201d Farley said.<\/p>\n

When Farley and Bell first got here, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of biking in the area.<\/p>\n

Some folks were going out to Sand Canyon to bike. Boggy Draw wasn\u2019t anything more than a few old cow trails strung together, Phil from Phil\u2019s World was just starting to get some trails, Farley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhil\u2019s World wouldn\u2019t be called Phil\u2019s World if it wasn\u2019t for the bike shop. \u2026 He used to come in and tell us about these trails that he just kind of pieced together with deer trails out across from the fairgrounds,\u201d said Scott Darling, a co-owner who got his start as a kid working at the shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just started kind of saying, \u2018Well, you got your own little world out there Phil,\u2019 so we started calling it Phil\u2019s World.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kokopelli
Kokopelli Bike and Board in its early stages. (Courtesy of Jimbo Farley)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

To be sure, Phil never really dug any of the trails out there \u2013 a lot of other folks did. But Phil would stack up bones, trees and rocks so people could find the trail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trail we used to ride back in the day \u2026 used to be a 5-mile loop, and it used to go right behind the shooting range. Bullets were whizzing by you if someone was out there on the weekend,\u201d said Darling. \u201cIt was totally unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays, groups maintain and advocate for the bike trails.<\/p>\n

What was once a social riding club called the Kokopelli Bike Club has grown into the Southwest Colorado Cycling Association, a nonprofit that does trail work on Tuesday nights and advocates for trail expansion and protection, Eschallier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just super-lucky to have a strong cycling community, a strong bike club here that does a lot of trail work. We owe all our success probably to those guys and how much trail they\u2019ve built, especially in the past 10 years,\u201d Eschallier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just a strong group of people who love working on trails and riding bikes. We\u2019re super-lucky to have them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Southwest Colorado Cycling Association does a lot of work in and around Montezuma County. There\u2019s also a group in Mancos, called the Mancos Trails Group. and in Rico, the Rico Trails Alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some core people who have built 90% of the trail around here,\u201d Eschallier said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The flyer for the Kokopelli Bike & Board celebration. (Courtesy Kokopelli Bike & Board)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

They all agreed that the shop \u2013 and the sport \u2013 has grown a lot in the past 30 years. The second location of Kokopelli Board and Bike that opened in Dolores three years ago just celebrated its anniversary last weekend, which coincided with the Boggy Draw Beat Down race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a business owner, you want it to expand and keep going \u2026 but living here you want to keep it small,\u201d said Darling. \u201cI think that\u2019s the problem we\u2019re going to have now, is keeping that small-town feel in Cortez, even in Dolores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darling, Farley and Eschallier emphasized their gratitude for the community, and their help and support that has made the shop\u2019s success possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome that Cortez has a shop like that. You know, and really, it\u2019s the people, the town that made it grow to what it is today,\u201d said Farley. \u201cJust people being interested in the stuff we sold and being able to offer that \u2013 it\u2019s pretty cool that it\u2019s made it 30 years in a small town, and just to watch the whole community grow around as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the community for making biking what it is. It\u2019s been a fun 30 years,\u201d Darling said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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