About Us
Sharing Our Passion for Cycling
The mission of George’s Cycles is to share our passion for cycling. We are committed to maintaining the most knowledgeable staff, carrying the highest quality products and providing the best possible service. We respect all levels of ability and strive to enhance every customer’s cycling experience. We serve our community by increasing cycling awareness and cycling participation.
Faces of George's
Our History
George’s Cycles—funny enough, it was started by Joyce and Bob, then owned by Mike and Tom, and now by Linda and Nathan. So who the heck is George?
“George is our Guru”
“George is in Kansas”
The real George is George Otis Latham, Jr. (1922-1988), whose motto at his shop Gran Sport was “Outfitter to the Self-Propelled”
The real George has a trail named in his honor in Kansas. He was a guru of sorts to Joyce and Bob, two academics who were outdoor enthusiasts. They spent time at his shop in Lawrence, Kansas, and on the shop club rides as a welcome respite from their studies. Bob and Joyce moved to Boise as Bob got a job as a math professor at BSU. Not finding a pro cycling shop, they decided to open one. Mountain biking had not yet been invented, so at this point it was all about road, and they brought in high-end Italian, French and British brands to sell, and started racing. Joyce went on to become a multiple National Champion in women’s U.S. cycling.
The successive owners, Mike Cooley and Tom Platt, worked for Bob and Joyce Sulanke at the shop and rode in the Boise Cycling Club during college, and were offered the chance to purchase it when they graduated in 1981. At the time, Tom thought, “It sounded like fun.” Little did they know they would be in the business for forty years. Being enthusiastic racers, they grew on what Bob and Joyce had begun, taking over the annual Bogus Basin Hill Climb and creating the Twilight Criterium, which became a wildly popular event that Mike still puts on each summer. They expanded the shop into multiple locations and into every facet of cycling, becoming a full service shop to all types of riders.
In 2015, Linda and Nathan Lloyd picked up their family and moved to Boise to be closer to his side of the family, with her mom and brother following soon after. Nathan has always been a cycling fanatic and was a pro mountain biker when the pair met in San Francisco in 1996. He raced 12 years on the pro circuit and is still a competitive cyclist. When they discovered that George’s was for sale, it seemed like fate as Nathan had always dreamed of owning his own bike shop. Nathan had been working for Audi for a long time and still works at the Audi dealer here in Boise, while Linda took over the reins at George’s. Her background is unusual for someone running a bike shop as she has degrees in art and fashion design, was a sales rep for high end optical lines, plus helped her brother open City Center Wines in downtown Boise. However, the fresh perspective has brought good things to George’s Cycles as she has worked hard to make the shop more female cyclist friendly, using her background to design custom cycling kits, George’s merchandise, remodel and add to the design of the shops, all to ensure that George’s is poised to be the flagship cycling store of Boise and destination for all cyclists.