You Bet! in Nevada City: Six Years Later –

Six years ago, John documented the Nevada City, California-based You Bet! bike shop. Recently, he returned to catch up with Jay and Kurt. Read on for a well-documented transformation and a look at some of Jay’s sweet bikes!

“How’s the shop looking these days? Full of product?” I asked Jay after I woke up from a much-needed solid night’s sleep from the Lost and Found weekend. Jay and his wife Carrie always open their doors to Cari and me when we’re in the area. Staying with friends beats a hotel or Airbnb any day of the week.

“Oh, yeah, it’s loaded. Not many bikes for sale, but the shelves are full.”

The bicycle dealer paradigm shifted with the post-pandemic bubble brought on by greedy corporate bike companies. It now makes very little sense for an IBD to carry complete bikes when the very brands they stock are having massive online sales. In fact, it harms shops like You Bet!. Why pay for shipping, assembly, and floor space when Brand X is going to liquidate its inventory at below-wholesale margins to the public online?

Jay and shops like You Bet! instead focus their time on service and building up their local presence through community-driven initiatives.

Paul Component Engineering‘s California Travis and Jay often host bicycle camping trips that attract around eighty campers. This crew ranges from people trying out bicycle camping for the first time, to accomplished bikepacking racers testing out their new ultralight setups, to fully-loaded bicycle camping chilleurs hauling cast-iron skillets and full-size camp chairs. Hell yeah.

I love how much the Heartleaf Philodendron has grown on the wall!

Infill Over Time

Walking into You Bet! in 2025, my mind rewound to when I first visited the shop in 2019. Jay had just opened, and Kurt had come on board to help out. Now, almost six years later, the shop is full of cycling ephemera, plants, and every nook and cranny displays a broad selection of accessories and components you’d usually only see on the interwebz.

Inside the jewel case are everything from “Be Nice, Say Hi” patches to Radavist decals, a Hunter slingshot, and on top, bags of You Bet! coffee, custom-roasted by Angry Catfish’s Northern Coffeeworks. While complete bike sales may have dwindled in the post-pandemic bike market, Jay values connecting with people, both locals and travelers alike.

Jay noted to me, “Mondays are the busiest, usually. People break their shit on the weekends and need it fixed ASAP to get back out on the trails!” Even during my couple of hours hanging out at the shop, several people came in with mountain bikes, covered in Lost Sierra moon dust, in need of repair. Kurt started wrenching immediately.

Bespoke Builds and Branded Merch

Jay, like other shop-owning friends of mine, enjoys working with smaller brands like Sklar and Wilde, building one-of-a-kind bikes for customers regardless of their budget. With local framebuilders like Meriwether Cycles or Quincy-based Falconer being so close to the shop, Jay and Kurt are often tasked with building their fair share of balleur bespoke builds each year. The crew at You Bet! can dial in a bike for any of the multitude of use cases in the Lost Sierra and beyond.

Merchandise is another way a shop can build a local and nationwide footing. The shop’s logos were designed by two Radavist peeps: Cari Carmean, my partner and our beloved graphic designer and merch mogul, created the classic sign-painter-inspired logo, and Nicholas, our copy editor and contributing editor, designed the iconic You Bet! bubble logo.

Both designs have found their way onto Great Basin Pottery mugs (made by Casey Clark of Campandgoslow fame), bottles, jerseys, shirts, and more. These days, it’s of the utmost importance for any specialty shop to purvey branded merchandise that aligns with its inventory and intention.

For proof of Jay’s eye for detail, let’s check out a teaser of two of his recent bike builds.

Mid-Life Crisis Bikes

When I first arrived at Carrie and Jay’s beautiful home in Nevada City, I began to unload our bikes from our car rack into their garage, noting two stunning rides I’d yet to see in person: Jay’s La Marche singlespeed 29er and his newly completed Falconer mountain touring bike.

The latter I’d seen last year, after the MADE Bike Show, when I shot his Meriwether with Whit, but it was recently completed with Cameron Falconer-built racks. We’ll take a more in-depth look at the Falconer next week, and we posted the La Marche earlier this morning. Jay jokingly commented, “Yeah, these are my mid-life crisis bikes.”

Support Local, Fuck Yeah!

Shops like You Bet! are the darlings of the bike industry. Well-curated specialty bike retail and repair shops are what The Radavist began documenting back in 2006 when we first launched, and it’s a joy for us to continue documenting their evolution in an ever-changing market. Jay and Kurt bring decades of mechanical expertise, and a positive vibe abounds within the shop. Even if you don’t need to buy anything, roll through the next time you’re on Highway 49 going to Downieville.

Their fridge is stocked with sparkling waters, too!