In addition to having perhaps the best name in cycling, Watts Dixon is also the proprietor of Revolution Cycles in Greensboro, North Carolina. Nestled along an unassuming and quiet street in a somewhat unassuming and quiet town, Revolution Cycles stands out for its quirky, irreverent posture and the community that’s been built around it. In this, the final installment of a three-part shop visit series in his home state of North Carolina, Andy Karr drops in on Watts Dixon at Revolution Cycles in Greensboro. We love bike shops with personality here, and Revolution Cycles most certainly has it in abundance.

Watts. Revolution. Cycles. If you don’t race bicycles in the dirt and don’t live in the southeastern United States, these words probably evoke visions of power meters. But if you’re in the know, Watts and Revolution Cycles might evoke singlespeed podiums, expletive-laden sales promotions, a unique bike shop with beer taps behind the checkout counter, and so much more. The Vanagon. The shrines. The bunny rabbits? What does it all mean?

Sterile, characterless chain bike shops with the interior design style of a CVS are beginning to propagate in the southeast, and I think that’s a real shame. Stepping through the door of a small business that has some character just feels better. A more real and human experience. You might walk in and actually see the owner behind the counter, the person who gives enough of a shit to have actually made all this happen.

You might see the owner onsite that day, but even if you don’t, you see them everywhere you look. A small business is imbued with the personality of those who run it. That’s why I love small bike shops and camera shops so much, and it’s definitely why I always make a point of dropping in on Revolution Cycles when I pass through Greensboro. Revolution Cycles is the way it is because its owner, Watts, is the way he is – and who better to explain that than the man himself?

Origin of the Species

Andy Karr: Watts, did your parents know you’d grow up to do singlespeed endurance bicycle racing when they named you Watts?

Watts Dixon: Ha! That would be something. No one even knew about watts back then. People were still smoking to open up their lungs – and my parents were champion smokers. No, Watts is one of those generational Southern names. A last name that became a first name was shortened to a nickname that became a first name. I was decidedly not into it when I was younger. Even just the phonetics of it. It’s so harsh and abrupt. But of course I’m down with it these days.

I’ve been riding pretty much my whole life. I was fortunate growing up in the 70’s and 80’s to have an older brother who got me into a lot of things. Skateboards. Surfing. Adam and the Ants. Mountain biking. And those last two? I just dug in hard.

I recall you saying you aren’t originally from North Carolina. What brought you here originally? Would you say it’s a good place to ride bikes or to run a bike shop?

Ha! I actually just published part one of probably a million rants about this on the revamped RevCogs blog.

Short version: I grew up in Atlanta and went to college here in Greensboro. Moved away and lived all over for a few years. Then reluctantly moved back when my now ex-wife took a job at the college we’d both attended. I was decidedly not stoked to return, but have tried to make the most of it. It’s… a place.

Is Greensboro a good place to ride bikes? 

There was a time when it kind of was. But if you ask me, and you did, it’s only getting worse. Sure, there are more trails, but still way less than there should be. There’s very little in the way of nearby gravel – ripping hot laps around a crush-and-run walking trail doesn’t count. And the road riding has just gotten sketchier and uglier. All the farms on the outskirts are turning into upper-middle-class developments, and those people are so toxically fucking angry about their lives. Whether it’s their marriages, their commutes, their jobs, their lack of walkable infrastructure. It’s not the rednecks in trucks that I worry about. They might prance and posture and get a little too close, but if you give them a friendly wave, they’ll begrudgingly give you one. No. It’s the white SUV’s with Christian private school stickers that I look out for.

But I will admit that it can have its moments. I truly do love summer in the South. Long destination rides. Oak trees and heat. All the different shades of green, and the way wind changes them. Come visit and I’ll take you on some pretty okay rides in the right places.

Looking for More

I grew up less than thirty minutes down the road from Greensboro in Winston-Salem, NC. Both are, generously speaking, “mid-sized” cities. I really love my hometown, probably because it’s my home town, but also because it has a compact downtown with beautiful, historic buildings, and a vibrant, funky, bohemian art culture. It’s home, but I don’t think I’d describe it as a biking destination. My friends who live in Greensboro, who are objectively cooler than me in every way, will undoubtedly roll their eyes, but be unsurprised in reading that I also don’t think Greensboro is very cool. Greensboro-based readers of The Radavist may drag me over the coals for this, but hear me out. Revolution Cycles seems… too cool for the Triad? What went into setting up the shop the way it is today?

Cool. Us. That’s funny.

You know that trope where the bike shop owners love and take inspiration from the city and region they live in, and strive to be a part of that community?

That’s not us. My energy with this town, and even the overall cycling scene here, is admittedly antagonistic. And if anything, the shop’s whole evolution has been fueled by a consistent frustration with this place and what it has to offer. More a reaction to Greensboro than a reflection of it? Like, I could give a shit if we finally have a Trader Joe’s. Give me a swimmable body of water.

But here’s the thing; There’s community in that. People looking for something more than what’s here. And that’s the niche we fill. Try to, at least.

You’ve got old hardcore records on the walls, a bar with taps behind the checkout counter, lots of goods from independent makers. What’s your favorite piece of memorabilia in the shop?

There are a few things. We have the shirt off Joe Parkin’s back. A pair of tires that belonged to Robin Williams. Various vintage frames. SSCXWC gear from bygone years. Lots of album covers that were the soundtrack to my life. Repo Man on VHS.

What made you decide to start a bike shop? How did you choose your stock list?

Ha. That’s two very different questions. Both with very long answers that I don’t know how to shorten. I’ll do my best.

The shop first:

Not to bring up another, but you know that trope where the chemistry and timing is right for a bike shop and things just fall into place and blossom from there? That’s not us either.

My intent getting out of college was to eventually go to grad school for Geology and get a PhD in Paleontology. Then we moved back to Greensboro, had a kiddo, and that wasn’t really on the table anymore. So I was pretty much having a full-blown ‘What the fuck am I even going to do in this town?’ crisis. At one point, I was working at the college I’d attended as the Sustainability Coordinator, taking classes at a local University toward a Master’s degree in Ecology, and putting my ducks in a row to open a running store (yes, a running store). An old college friend approached me about going in together to take over the small bike shop we’d both worked at, and I was feeling just reckless enough to drop it all and say, ‘I’m in.’

That partnership dissolved pretty quickly, but I’d gotten my side of the funding and business plan together, so I went in as a partner with the original owner (my former boss) instead. Oof. Those first years were rough. We got booted from our original space when a Jimmy Johns outbid our rent by a few thousand, and had to find a new location asap. Then my boss-turned-partner was diagnosed with lymphoma and I had to suddenly and unexpectedly take on a 100% stake in the shop. He’s okay, bt the way. Any savings or buffer I had was 1000% gone at this point, and it was the onset of an economic recession. Cool.

That piece you did on Charles at Mock Orange – it’s funny, because he’s actually a part of the story.

I called him one morning and told him I was done. Broke. Burned out. He was super sympathetic and told me to just sleep on it and not make any rash decisions.

[It’s true, Charles also recounted this conversation to me during my visit to him and his shop. He remembers it fondly.]

That next morning, I got a call from the owner of one of the big, successful shops here in town. Trek dealer. Two locations. All that. I figured she had talked to Charles or something and was circling for a piece of my wiry carcass. No. She was actually calling to tell me that THEY were done. Closing both stores and filing for bankruptcy.

That was a huge lesson for me. About perspective. Perception. That it wasn’t just me totally sucking at what I do. And that chances are, if I’m hurting, others are too, just on different scales. But it was also a wake-up call about vision and direction: Stop being the shop you think people want and be the shop you want to be, and moreover, can be.

Which ties into our stock list.

Initially, our inventory was just nostalgia and dead weight. And I was a tourist of limited nautical experience trying to steer someone else’s shipwreck. Totally insecure about my own ability to make good business decisions. But once the shop hit that nadir, I said, ‘Fuck it. If I’m going to struggle with this, I’ll do it on my own terms.’ That’s when things started happening. We moved to a new space. Added beer taps. Dropped some brands and brought in others. And really just focused more on what I thought was interesting in cycling than on what seemed popular locally. It’s been a slow burn, but people have come around.

Doing Things the Hard Way

So tell me about that van. Does it run?

Pffft. The van always runs. Just not always optimally. At any given moment, I can hop in and take a road trip to… somewhere. I put a Ford Zetec motor in there. But even with the conversion, it’s still a 40-year-old Volkswagen Vanagon with 40-year-old Vanagon issues. So I just always have to be prepared to break out my trusty starter hammer. Or replace a fuse. Or reattach a throttle cable. Or plug a sudden mysterious fluid leak. Or constantly check fuel lines. Or just whisper the secret Vanagon prayers and incantations into the dashboard. But yeah, it runs. I actually just drove up to Connecticut for Ronnie’s Nutmeg Nor’Easter a few weeks ago, and it did stellar.

I see you have a shrine to yourself inside your bike shop. What’s up with that?

Ha! So, I have this ritual of taking some kind of road trip in mid to late fall every year. A kind of farewell to summer and last hurrah before settling into full-blown seasonal depression. They’re always pretty freeform. I set a vague but ultimate destination, and meander there however I need to, riding somewhere new every day. One year I went to Copper Harbor, MI, and about a week into the trip, I realized that there was no way I was getting back when I told my staff I would. So in my prolonged absence, they set up a little shrine. It’s more of a ‘lost at sea’ memorial, really. And when I finally got back, it seemed like bad juju to get rid of it. So it sticks around. And it works pretty well with the whole ‘not a cult’ thing.

Your personal collection of bikes includes some really unique builds, rarely-seen brands, and not a lot of shifters. What’s your favorite bike and why is it that Salsa Powderkeg mtb tandem?

You nailed it. I really do love that bike. I initially got it so that my son and I could go on all kinds of long rides together, but damn if kids don’t grow up fast. So it became the bike that I ride with my partner, Dorothy. And it’s just opened the door for so many tandem adventures with her. She loves it, because while she is fit as shit, she’ll be the first to admit that she’s not a cyclist, and doesn’t really have anything to prove about doing it herself. So it’s perfect, because she just gets to look around and pedal hard and not worry about technical handling or keeping up. Which means I get to take her on rides in places that she wouldn’t have been comfortable otherwise. I get that it’s not for everyone, but it’s a big part of our life.

I seem to run into you out in the world on a fairly regular basis, but it’s almost always at some event the typical person would find grueling. 150 miles of flat, bumpy, windy gravel roads with nothing to look at but pine trees? Oh look, there’s Watts with his singlespeed. Endurance mountain bike racing with no certain course maps, oh look, Watts. The Mountain Cat 100? Watts. Singlespeed. So what’s worse: racing gravel singlespeed or racing mountain bikes singlespeed?

Oh, man. I love (loathe) them both, but I’d have to say that racing gravel singlespeed is way worse. For one real reason: on a mountain bike, technical handling is such a huge part of it all that depending on skill level, even if everyone in the category is running the same gearing, they’re probably all over the place on the trail. But in a gravel race, there comes that point about halfway in where almost every singlespeeder running anything close to the same gearing is suddenly all in a group looking at each other and going, ‘Fuck! I guess we actually have to race now?’

Some of your bikes have gears though, so tell me about your bikes too.

Alright, in no particular order:

Rawland Ravn. For no reason that I can really put my finger on, this is the bike I tend to ride the most. Something about the fit and feel. Who even knows what’s up with Rawland these days. And who even knows about low trail geometry. But if I’m heading out on a long, chunky, mixed surface ride, chances are that’s the bike I grab.

Custom Wilde Earthship. While the Rawland tends to be my late fall to early spring whip, the Wilde is my ‘on-season’ bike. It’s also my fancy bike with fancy parts.

All City Mr. Pink. Pretty much every Sunday from March to October, I’m doing some kind of super long ‘road’ ride on this bike. As far as production road bikes go, it’s at the top of my list next to the Ritchey Logic or Soma Pescadero. RIP All City. That definitely left a void in the shop that I don’t quite know how to fill.

Pegoretti Marcello. Rides like a dream, but these days my road rides tend to be so heavily off-road, that can I admit I worry about damaging it?

Indy Fab Crown Jewel. This one just came back into my life. Recently purchased back from a guy I’d sold it to years ago. Such a great bike, but admittedly from those dark days in the late 90’s where tire clearance was not on the radar.

Vassago Ver Hauen Singlespeed. Purchased from Tom Vassago in the wake of racing 24 HOP. Currently my go-to MTB, though I’m always looking.

Cysco Titanium Singlespeed. My first custom bike. Richie had welded for Lynskey and was trying to do his own thing. He’s since sold the name and I’m not even sure if they’re still around. Rad in its own ways, but dated geometry. It’s been relegated to being my singlespeed gravel bike for hilly events.

Niner RLT Steel. Custom ‘painted’ by yours truly. I really do like Niner geometry. That’s really all there is to say about that.

And the bike I ride the most: A 2011 Raleigh International. This bike could have been the absolute best bike I’ve ever owned. Reynolds 853. Lugged. It rides amazingly. It fits 28’s. But it has one glaring issue: the dropouts. They’re semi-vertical. So even with heavy filing and the world’s best QR skewer, every time I would sprint, or even just accelerate quickly, the rear wheel would eject forward. So it’s been relegated to my trainer. Shit, even ON the trainer I have to be careful doing hard intervals.

Revolution Cycles Must Die

Revolution Cycles NC has the best (unique? colorful? un-family friendly?) Instagram of any bike shop I know. I love it. Good for business? who knows? who cares?

Shucks. We used to, kind of. It all goes back to that antagonism. I’m not really a glass-half-full person, so the idea of generating fake stoke about some banal facet of the industry wasn’t going to happen. My approach is more, ‘Life is pain and we are all literally drowning in our own feces, but by all means, go balance on two wheels and pretend it means anything.’ And at least some people liked it. But Instagram is hard. One: consistency. These days I’m just too busy to try and work it. Two: follow-up. I don’t want to engage. I want to just shit out a post and not reply to messages or comments. And three: inspiration. Burnout is real.

Is it good for business? Probably not. I have an email folder to prove it. But we don’t even have that many followers anyway. And the people that like it get it. And I mean, our Instagram handle is revolutioncyclesmustdie, if that gives you any inkling of my headspace with social media.

But I do kind of miss writing those Tinder profiles for bikes and coming up with dumb movie plots for customers. Maybe I’ll get back to it this winter.

Thank you, Watts! I look forward to seeing you during my next swing through the shop or at the next endless sufferfest I sign myself up for. And remember, folks: SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BIKE SHOP!

Andy Karr @rad_baron
Watts Dixon @revoltingcogs
Revolution Cycles @revolutioncyclesmustdie