Huntsville native Tommy Reagh (pronounced “Ray”) wants you to know that he’s a bicycle person, not a businessman. During the course of the discussion, he described himself as “just an honest guy who likes bikes,” noting that while he has no formal training in business, he is fortunate in that his business partner is both a good businessman and a source of great guidance.

Despite his lack of business training, Reagh is enjoying success as the CEO, founder, and co-owner of Trailhead Inc., a popular bicycle shop founded in Five Points and now located on the Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment campus at 2211 Seminole Drive SW, Studio 1000. He graciously took time out of his busy day to sit down for a discussion about his experience as a local bicycling enthusiast-turned-entrepreneur.

Q: Tell me a little about the history of your business. What inspired you to start it and where was it originally located?

A: I was a cycling enthusiast like a lot of folks and in the early 90s I started racing mountain bikes, and training for mountain bike racing led to road bike riding and the dominos started to fall. Out of necessity I started to work on my own bike so I would not have to wait in the middle of the season like we’re in right now. And then my friends didn’t want to wait either…that row of dominos started to fall, and then I started getting fairly proficient at working on bikes. It was something that I really enjoyed doing–I just loved everything about cycling.

I worked at NASA, and then offsite later for another company, Advanced Optical Systems, as a graphic designer and eventually art director. That’s my vocation. But as things were kind of winding down with Advanced Optical Systems I was kind of seeing the writing on the wall and thought ‘this might be a good time.’ And I had some friends dreaming around the campfire, playing the ‘what if’ game. That ‘what if’ game became more of ‘I think I might could do this,’ you know?

And long story a little bit longer, we opened up in 2005 in Five Points there, and the rest is history.

Q: What brought about the move to Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment?

A: Well, no offense to our previous landlord, but the rent kept going up and nothing was really improving. That old building was really hard to heat and cool and it was expensive on top of the high rent. And my business partner Jimmy Hudson, his family owned the mill, he now owns it outright so we had a chance to move in here, which we thought was a great place. It has lots of character and we’ve always been patrons of the Lowe Mill community and stuff like that.

So we were really excited to come over here and do this.

Q: What was this building originally?

A: It was the front office of the mill. The old safe in the corner there is our changing room…so the way the mill used to work, Ninth Avenue came and dead ended at the mill. There was no Seminole…so the whole mill village that was out there, everybody came to work through here. And so mail, payroll, all the administrative type stuff was done in this, and it was just from this wall forward. We built this [workshop area] on the back before we moved in.

It’s affectionately called the “guard shack” around here, but it was never truly a guard shack.

Q: Outside of pandemic-related issues, what would you say are the greatest challenges you’ve faced as a business owner and how did you overcome them?

A: I think a lot of our job that was a big surprise to me, and I want to be careful with my words because we’re in a town full of engineers and we love them–[was] tactfully managing people’s expectations in so many ways. Engineers in this town, and by their vocation and training, this is the way that they work…there’s a lot of paralysis by overanalysis. They overthink things a lot. That’s been a big challenge.

Really, the main thing is just inventory and being able to get it. It’s still very much a problem and I know everybody’s sick and tired of hearing about it–everywhere you go it’s the same thing.

Q: I see on your website that you carry some unique specialty brands of bikes. What made you gravitate toward them and not the standard big name bike companies?

A: We used to carry Specialized, which is a big name brand…our philosophy of business and their philosophy of business started to diverge. And they wanted a lot more say-so in how we ran our business and what we carried. Eventually we parted ways, which was a good thing because now they’re dealing direct-to-consumer so that would have been catastrophic ultimately anyways.

The brands that we carry now, [like] Kona, Norco, Scott…they’re big brands in their own right. Companies like Kona that are a little bit smaller, they made a decision and we like their philosophy too, they’re great to do business with and we love their products, love the way that they ride.

Where those originated, where they ride, has a lot of similar characteristics to here, so it’s reflected literally in the terrain what they’re designed to do. So it’s a wonderful hand-in-glove situation. But they decided to focus really hard on a few things instead of carrying everything from tricycles to whatever, you know. And they tend to be more offroad and gravel and some things like that, just off the beaten path. And we’re a little off the beaten path, so we like that–it speaks to us.

When you’re passionate about something, when you feel strongly about something, it’s easier to sell it instead of just trying to sell for selling’s sake. It helps us fit someone to a style of bike, and it doesn’t have to be a Kona, but it’s just easier when you can speak from experience and you

can hear what it is they say they’re after–it makes it easier to pair them up with something that’ll suit them best.

Q: What is your favorite part of owning your own business?

A: I work with some really cool people and we get to bring our dogs to work. Generally speaking, people are coming in here, they want to buy a bike, they want to buy some parts, or they want to get their bike fixed and they’re happy and excited about it. Well, they’re not excited that their bike’s broken but they’re happy that it gets fixed.

It’s a pleasant experience to deal with some people that are looking for…you know, maybe they’re a bit of an escapist and they really want to do some big adventure stuff and it’s exciting to help them tool up and equipment up to achieve that so we can live vicariously through what it is that they’re trying to do.

It doesn’t matter if it’s somebody that just wants to ride through the neighborhood. We like to ride through the neighborhood too–it’s not always about jumping off rocks and going into some grandiose places in the country. While all of that is fantastic, riding in the neighborhood can be a great experience too and that’s what we do a lot of when we’re not doing those things. We just want to help people have the best experience–whatever it is, we want to do it right and be true to our customer and truly help them out.