It may be bittersweet for Lee and Barbara Oldak of Amagansett Beach and Bicycle, which for three decades has met the outdoor recreation needs of South Fork residents and seasonal visitors, but this summer will be their last at the sales, rental, and repair shop at 1 Cross Highway.
The couple, who live in Sag Harbor, have announced their retirement, which coincides with a storewide sale starting on July 14. Discounts on bicycles and e-bikes, kayaks, paddleboards, and accessories will increase every two weeks through the end of September. Even shop fixtures will be available for purchase.
Amagansett Beach and Bicycle has been a destination for bike, kayak, and paddleboard sales and rentals, and bicycle repairs, since 1996, but Mr. and Ms. Oldak were providing these goods and services even before that, owning and operating Olympic Surf and Sport in the same location for a few years as well as a similar shop in Port Washington.
“We started as a windsurf shop,” Mr. Oldak said last week. “When my friends started to want mountain bikes, we got into the bike business. And the rest is history.” The shop is “a little different than the other bike shops that are around,” he said. “We are less high-tech, more family oriented.”
“We try to be your friendly neighborhood bike shop,” Ms. Oldak said. “You don’t have to buy a $10,000 bike to get attention. You can buy a used bike and we’ll treat you the same. We don’t have a corporate mentality. We really try to treat each customer well.”
The shop offers traditional bicycles and e-bikes, kayaks, paddleboards, wetsuits, and activewear, but bike rentals and repair are a big part of the business, and “because there’s such a need for it,” Ms. Oldak said, these will continue until the store’s Sept. 30 closing.
If it closes, that is. “We’re hoping someone’s going to step in and take it over,” Mr. Oldak said. “But if that doesn’t happen, it’s Sept. 30.” He emphasized the importance of being a hands-on proprietor. “We’re hoping someone local will step up,” he said. “It’s not that hard to learn the business.”
Unless and until that happens, “we’re going forward as if it’s a liquidation and retirement sale,” Ms. Oldak said.
“We were big windsurfing people,” she said. “And roller blades — that’s gone, thank God — but we kayak a lot, and we paddle. So we keep that watersports thing that’s now up to the new owner. But the bike rentals are a huge part for us. We do deliveries and pickups, and take reservations for rentals.”
The customer base includes multiple generations, she said. “We have some original customers that are even older than us. We just love doing this and being part of the community.”
The couple is “half-retired” already, Mr. Oldak said, as they winter in the Florida Keys. They are not, however, retiring from Sag Harbor Community Rowing, which Mr. Oldak co-founded in 2008 and directs. “We have a high-performance clinic for kids who want to race at a high level,” he said. “We do a learn-to-row, and we have an autistic rowing program with a group out of Southampton called Luv Michael.” It is an “under-discovered program,” Mr. Oldak said of Sag Harbor Community Rowing.
But with retirement from the shop looming, “we plan to do some more biking,” Ms. Oldak said.
“More bike trips and more traveling,” Mr. Oldak said, “because we’ve never traveled in the summer. We rarely even see the ocean.”
“I don’t even get to the beach in the summer,” Ms. Oldak agreed. “It’s an intense six or seven months of work.”
