Shop Visit – Commuter Cycles

With touring, commuting and adventure cycling at its heart (they’re as close to a one stop bikepacking shop as you’re likely to find in Australia) you’ll find an incredible selection of adventure ready bikes and gear both in store and online.

Where Commuter excel though, is community building. Hosting regular slide nights, overnighters and info evenings as well as nurturing an active online community, Commuter are proving that a successful bike shop is much more than just a great range of bike bits.

While focus of Commuter is on the adventure or stuff carrying cyclist, it’s very important to them to provide an inclusive space so no matter what you’re riding or your level of experience you’ll find Commuter a welcoming and worthwhile place to visit.

It’s no secret that cycling is very white man centric, and so many bike shops are elitist and unwelcoming to people that are just starting their cycling journey or those that don’t look like the ‘traditional cyclist’. As someone with many hostile bike shop experiences under my belt, it’s awesome to see a bike shop putting their diversity and inclusivity objectives into practice: Commuter have signed the RAR Cycling Industry Pledge, they have lots of women on the team and in 2022 updated all their imagery to reflect the diversity of their shop, community, and team.

We spent a lovely afternoon hanging out with Huw and the team, chatting all things bikes, bags and so much in between. We were treated to a great sandwich (Melbs has really upped their sandwich game since we were there last) an A+ coffee (no surprises here) and an icy pole (ice lolly/popsicle for our international friends) before we were turned back out into the Aussie heat.

It had been 5 years since our last visit, we were delighted to see the shop jam packed with so much cool stuff with an extra floor added to fit it all in. And of course, it was very humbling to see our bags on display at the shop that was there for us when we were little baby cycle tourist wannabes. A proper full circle moment.

Of all our dealers, Commuter Cycles carries the most extensive range of Wizard Works bags. They have a banging online store, but if you’re lucky enough to be local (or have a Melbourne visit on the horizon) don’t pass up the opportunity to visit Huw and the team in person – See lots of shiny things, stock up on merch, get some trail/sandwich recs and maybe even catch a slide night.

Thanks for having us, we can’t wait to come back. We won’t leave it five years this time!