About Us

On a drive through the countryside back in 2002, we began talking about where we saw ourselves in 10 years. As an avid two-wheeler from an entrepreneurial family (John and his mom, June, ran Sanger Bicycles, while his dad, Jim, helped found Fresno Kawasaki), John convinced Vanessa that owning a bike shop and running it together would be a great life. Born and raised in the Sunnyside/Sanger area (we are both Sanger High grads – Vanessa via Lone Star and John via Centerville), we envisioned our shop in southeast Fresno, with a friendly and unintimidating atmosphere where cyclists and non-cyclists would feel welcome.

The very next day, we saw that a bike shop in Madera was for sale. We found the timing quite fateful and leapt at the chance to run a bike shop together as soon as possible. Over the last eight years, we developed a reputation throughout the Valley for our friendly and knowledgeable service. In fact, we had customers who regularly drove from as far away as Visalia, Lemoore and Modesto for our expert repair service. Being away from our family and friends was hard, though, and when it came time to buy our first house in 2008, we made the conscious decision to move home to Sunnyside. We immediately started looking for the perfect spot for our Sunnyside store, and now here we are, less than 10 years after that countryside drive, living out our vision. We are ahead of schedule!

So although Sunnyside Bicycles is new, we are definitely not new to the area or to running a successful bike shop. John has many years experience wrenching in area bike shops, in addition to running the Sanger and Madera shops. Both of us attended Barnett’s Bicycle Institute – John is a certified Elite-level mechanic and Vanessa is a certified technician. We have developed programs that we are very proud to bring to Sunnyside, such as our Kids Trade-Up Program and our Ride Club Rewards Program. We have sold thousands of bikes over the years, and nothing brings us more joy than helping others love cycling as much as we do. John was right all those years ago – this is a great life! We hope you come in to meet us, and say hello!