Backcountry buys Velofix

E-commerce retailer Backcountry has bought the Canada-based mobile bike service franchiser Velofix. 

Backcountry — which also owns specialty bike e-commerce sites Competitive Cyclist and Bike Tires Direct — plans to leverage Velofix's fleet of service vans to offer “white glove” bicycle delivery to customers. 

Backcountry and Competitive Cyclist sell about 5,000 bikes a year, with brands including Scott, Yeti, Santa Cruz, 3T, Cervélo, Pinarello, Ibis, Enve, and Pivot, among others. It is the exclusive U.S. retailer of Belgium’s Ridley bikes. 

Currently about two-thirds of Velofix’s mobile operations are company owned, with the rest franchised to independent operators. Backcountry will retain the approximately 60 bike technicians that operate the company-owned Velofix vans and plans to maintain Velofix’s headquarters in Vancouver and Velofix CEO and co-founder Davide Xausa will continue as a consultant. Lenau said future Velofix hires could be in Utah, Vancouver, or remote. 

Velofix currently covers about 50% of the country’s biggest bike-buying customers and Backcountry plans to grow the fleet to cover about 75% of the bike market, he said. He said it would expand the fleet with a combination of company-owned and franchised operations. 

Initially, Velofix will offer assembly of bikes shipped to customers’ homes by Backcountry or Competitive Cyclist. Eventually the retailer will offer customers the option of having new bikes shipped to Velofix and  then delivered fully assembled and sized, Lenau said. Backcountry and Competitive Cyclist are already selling Velofix service packages with discounts offered to members of the retailer’s Summit Club Plus program. 

Backcountry has grown through acquisitions in recent and not-so-recent years. It acquired CompetitiveCyclist.com in 2011. In 2017, it bought TriSports. In early 2025, it acquired Level Nine Sports, a Utah retailer of outdoor, ski and bike products; later that year it bought Velotech, the parent of BikeTiresDirect.