Skip to content

Nakusp bike shop owner opens hostel

Catering to the cycling crowd coming to the area for world-class biking
10944704_web1_180315-NAL-T-shon-hostel3
Neufeld’s new cyclists’ hostel opens this spring.

For an avid cyclist, Shon Neufeld doesn’t really like to go anywhere.

“Everything I love, I don’t want to have to walk for,” he says. “I like everything centralized, under one roof.”

That may explain Shon’s Bicycle Shop’s layout - a combination retail store, repair shop, coffee shop and the apartment he lives in on the second floor.

Now there’s another activity for Neufeld under that one roof - running a hostel, catering especially to the cycling crowd.

“I like everything centralized, and a lot of road cyclists and mountain bikers are the same,” he explains. “They all have a love of bikes, they enjoy the social aspect of it, which I have here in the shop, as well as snacks, coffee, and an affordable place to stay.

“And it’s convenient. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Workers have spent the winter building the “Hostel at Shon’s”. Almost complete now, it can sleep up to 17 people, in single beds in a dorm setting that will go for $35 a night, to a private family room with a king and bunk-beds for upwards of $140. There’s also a laundry facility, kitchen, and social area that can substitute as a meeting room space for conferences or yoga lessons.

While anyone can rent a room for the night, or a week, Neufeld says they plan to focus on the outdoor enthusiast.

“They’ll find others with a common interest here — for cycling, for good coffee, for the atmosphere. That’s the first thing that they’re going to find here. Rarely will you find a mountain biker walking into a B&B, because they can spend the extra money they save on beer,” he laughs.

“They’re usually not convenient either - typically B&Bs are on the outskirts of town.”

Neufeld says he’s incorporated some of the most interesting ideas he encountered over years of travelling and biking. He says he’s only seen one complex like this in that time, and then it was four separate businesses under one roof - not one business.

But it’s been nine years’ development from concept to reality.

“It takes time to grow a business, every time we added something to the business it’s like starting a new one, and they say that takes five years.”

Having run restaurants and other service industries in the past, he’s confident he’ll be able to expand in the hotelier enterprise.

“It’s not so far-fetched,” he says. “Customer service, that’s all it is.”

The project’s not quite complete — the siding has to be completed on the historic Broadway Ave. building, and final touches put on a wrapround deck. But he expects to be advertising online for guests in a few weeks, through AirBnB and other websites catering to adventure travellers.

But locals have already jumped on the novelty of the new place to stay. He’s booked most of the summer up already.

“It’s been really positive so far, as people have found out about it,” he says.

With his four-in-one business concept on the verge of reality, the public may never see Neufeld outside his building again.

10944704_web1_180315-NAL-shon-hostel1
Neufeld says it’s taken nine years to make his all-in-one business catering to cyclists a reality
10944704_web1_180315-NAL-shon-hostel2
The conversion of the historic building on Broadway is near completion.