Business Spotlight: Yawp Cyclery

Entering a high end bike store makes me feel awkward. I don’t wear spandex and I bought my bike for under $100 on Craiglist. I feel out of place in a store with real bikers.

Edgewater’s newest business, Yawp Cyclery, is designed to make every level of bike rider feel comfortable. Owner Levi Teal has worked in the bike industry for five years and opened his own shop so he could treat customers the way he would want to be treated. He chose Edgewater because as he googled bike shops in Denver, the Edgewater area did not have its own bike shop. He also noticed many bike riders along 26th and 32nd as well as around Sloan’s Lake. With Joyride opening next door, it was the perfect spot to open a new bike shop.

Yawp Cyclery is located at 2509 Sheridan Blvd. just north of Joyride Brewing Company.

According to their website:

The word Yawp comes from a poem by Walt Whitman called “Song of Myself.” Here’s the relevant stanza:

I too am not a bit tamed–I too am untranslatable;

I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

It’s not that Yawp is for barbarianism. Yawp is happy to live in a time when indoor plumbing and underpants are in fashion, and when one can caravan from Denver to Crested Butte without having to worry too much about bandit assassins or cholera. Yawping barbarically is important, though, because at times our culture can keep us insulated from ourselves, our environment, and our enthusiasm. Cycling happens to be the activity that, for Yawp, reconnects us to these things. Cycling makes us Yawp. If you know what we’re talking about or are curious to learn, please stop by.

Yawp will carry mountain and road bikes as well as accessories. They also will handle repairs regardless if a bike was purchased from a pawn shop or a high end cyclery shop.

For Levi and Yawp their mission statement really is, “No matter what kind of bike you ride, and no matter how old it is or who made it, we are happy you’re riding your bike, and we want you to keep riding.”

Yawp will be open at 10 am this Thursday, April 17th. There will be a “Grand Opening” event to follow on Saturday, May 3, from 5-8pm. For more on the Grand Opening event, click here.

Joel Newton

Joel has been a resident of Edgewater, Colorado with his family since 2012. He is the Executive Director of local education nonprofit Edgewater Collective and Editor of the Edgewater Echo.