Business Spotlight

AAAA Bike Shop: 48 Years of Keeping Ventnor Rolling

From first bikes and boardwalk cruisers to e-bikes and a community ride now in its second decade, the Wiesen family has built something bigger than a bicycle shop at 5300 Ventnor Avenue.

AAAA Bike Shop, 5300 Ventnor Avenue. Photo: Mike Wiesen / WPG Talk Radio.

There’s a moment almost every kid who learns to ride remembers: the instant a bicycle stops feeling like something being balanced for you and starts feeling like freedom. At AAAA Bike Shop, that moment has been repeating for nearly half a century.

The family-owned shop at 5300 Ventnor Avenue has been part of Ventnor since 1978 — a history the business now sums up in four words: “Pushing Pedals Since ’78.” That’s an unusual run for an independent retailer at the Jersey Shore, where businesses navigate huge swings between winter and summer, shifting tourism patterns and generations of customers whose expectations keep changing.

Bicycles themselves have changed dramatically since the late 1970s. The classic beach cruiser is still at home on Absecon Island, but it now shares the shop floor with hybrids, fitness bikes, kids’ bikes, tandems, trikes and electric bikes that would have looked futuristic when AAAA first opened. Through it all, the Wiesen family — Mike, Ann Marie and Jordan Wiesen — has kept the basic idea consistent: know bicycles, help people understand what they’re buying, fix the bikes people already love, and make the shop feel like a neighborhood institution rather than a transaction.

Bicycles, Brands and a Better Fit

Step inside AAAA and there’s little ambiguity about what the place does. Bicycles fill the floor, more hang overhead, and tires, helmets, baskets and parts fill nearly every inch of retail space. The shop’s current inventory spans beach cruisers, fitness bikes, hybrids, kids’ bikes, electric bikes, tandems, trikes and electric trikes, with brands including Electra, Jamis, Sun, Momentum, Biria and Buzz. Shoppers can also order select Giant, Momentum and Electra models online and have them shipped to the shop, where staff assemble and prep the bike for pickup.

Fitting still matters more than a spec sheet. AAAA’s own sizing guidance gives families rough wheel-size starting points for kids but encourages an in-person fit, since two children the same age can differ widely in height, leg length and confidence. The shop also accepts trade-ins as children outgrow earlier bikes — a practical service that doubles as a nice description of what a long-running neighborhood business does: it grows alongside its customers.

A Bike Shop in a Town Built for Cycling

AAAA sits near the corner of Little Rock and Ventnor Avenues, a short ride from the beach and the Ventnor boardwalk, with quick access south toward Margate and Longport. The terrain across Absecon Island is flat and the towns are compact, which is exactly why the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed readers here in a May 2026 feature on exploring the island without leaning on a car. Its instruction was simple: “Pick up a cruiser at AAAA Bike Shop and head south.”

The Inquirer’s suggested route runs about five miles from the Ventnor boardwalk down Atlantic Avenue through Margate to Longport Point, where the bay meets the ocean, with optional stops at the Ventnor Fishing Pier, Lucy the Elephant, the waterfront estates along Bayshore Road and the Spanish-style homes of Marven Gardens. The paper described the island as “long and flat as a boogie board” — ideal for exactly the kind of unhurried ride a beach cruiser was built for.

Sometimes the Best Shore Accessory Is Two Wheels

A family spending a week at the Shore may love cycling without loving the idea of hauling four bikes down the Expressway. AAAA rents beach cruisers, fitness bikes, hybrids, mountain bikes and kids’ bikes, with a helmet and lock included on standard rentals. Current rates and availability should always be confirmed directly with the shop, since pricing can shift by season.

Where the Relationship Often Really Begins

New bikes get the attention, but repairs are where neighborhood shops build trust. AAAA runs a full repair operation with Park Tool–certified technicians and BG Fit–certified bike fitting, covering tune-ups, rebuilds, custom builds, fleet maintenance, cable installs and general repair across cruisers, hybrids, mountain, road and electric bikes — including flat repairs on e-bike tires. The shop also offers pick-up and drop-off repair service for a fee, and asks customers to bring bikes in or call for an estimate rather than quoting repairs sight unseen.

Salt air, sand and bikes that sit untouched all winter create predictable problems — corroded chains, stretched cables, brakes out of adjustment — and a shop that has seen the same patterns for decades tends to fix them faster. That repetition is a large part of why AAAA shows up repeatedly in customer reviews for quick turnaround and knowledgeable staff.

Five Bikes, Five Police Departments

On August 30, 2022, the Wiesen family donated electric bicycles to police departments in Atlantic City, Ventnor, Margate, Longport and Pleasantville. Police chiefs from all five departments — including Longport’s Frank Culmone, Margate’s Chief Hankinson, Atlantic City’s Chief Sarkos, Ventnor’s Chief Fusner and Pleasantville’s Chief Williams — gathered at the Ventnor Avenue store to receive them.

E-bikes give officers a way to maneuver through crowded Shore streets and boardwalks with more speed and range than a standard patrol bike while staying more nimble than a cruiser. Supporting five neighboring departments at once, rather than just Ventnor’s own, said something about how the Wiesen family defines “community.”

The Morning a Vehicle Came Through the Shop

On the morning of Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at about 9:06 a.m., a 2019 Toyota Highlander driven by a 35-year-old Atlantic City woman crashed through the plate-glass window of AAAA Bike Shop while the store was open for business. The driver, who had a passenger in the vehicle, received a traffic summons for careless driving. Despite the dramatic damage, no injuries were reported to the driver, the passenger or anyone inside the shop.

The damage was serious enough that city code officials and an engineer deemed the building unsafe, and a portion of the unit block of South Little Rock Avenue was closed while repairs were completed. Ventnor City Police and Fire, the Office of Emergency Management, Atlantic City Electric and South Jersey Gas all responded. The shop went on to reopen, consistent with a business that has already absorbed four and a half decades of Shore-town disruption — recessions, shifting tourism, a global pandemic and, in this case, a vehicle through the storefront.

Le Tour de Downbeach

The clearest evidence that AAAA is woven into local cycling culture shows up once a year in a river of bicycles crossing Absecon Island. What’s now called Le Tour de Downbeach began in 2009 as Le Tour de Ventnor, founded by Mike Wiesen, and has grown into a multi-community ride connecting Ventnor, Atlantic City, Margate and Longport. It isn’t a race — families, casual riders and longtime cyclists all share the same route, with typical years covering roughly 10–12 miles from Ventnor into Atlantic City along the boardwalk and back through Margate and Longport to a finish at Tomatoe’s restaurant in Margate.

Mike and Ann Marie Wiesen were both closely tied to the ride’s development, with Ann Marie remembered as one of its original organizers. Following her death, the event began carrying a deeper purpose: its 2024 running was dedicated to her memory, and Le Tour now includes an annual donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in her honor. AAAA Bike Shop continues to serve as a sponsor and in-person registration point for the ride each year.

Noticed Beyond Ventnor

AAAA’s reputation extends past word of mouth. NJMom.com named it among the best bike shops in New Jersey in April 2024, and the shop appears in Bosch’s official e-bike service dealer locator, reflecting its growing electric-bike repair and fitting work. Combined with the Inquirer’s 2026 recommendation and years of steady customer reviews praising fast, knowledgeable repair service, the shop’s reputation now travels well beyond Ventnor’s borders.

A Timeline Measured in Miles

Why It Matters to Ventnor

Independent retail longevity is not the absence of disruption; it’s the ability to keep going after disruption arrives. AAAA has sold bicycles through recessions, a boom in online shopping, the rise of electric bikes and, most recently, a car through its own front window — and it’s still the shop the Ventnor Business Association points to and the shop a major regional newspaper still sends visitors to first. That kind of relevance isn’t manufactured. It gets earned one repair, one first bike and one Le Tour registration at a time.

Reporting drawn from AAAA Bike Shop’s published business information (aaaabikeshop.com), The Philadelphia Inquirer, WPG Talk Radio, DownBeach, Press of Atlantic City, WFPG, Margate Has More, Shore Local Newsmagazine, DownBeach BUZZ and the Bosch e-bike dealer locator. Current inventory, rental pricing, hours and boardwalk rules can change and should be confirmed directly with the shop or the City of Ventnor.