Green Bay Cycles is riding into the sunset

Green Bay Cycles is all about bicycles — but not only bicycles.

The friendly Winnetka shop is also all about community. Since 2010, the store has become a trusted and beloved pillar of the town’s Hubbard Woods neighborhood.

If it weren’t those things, who knows what would have happened a few years ago when a lost boy wandered down Green Bay Road. But because it is those things, the boy entered the bike shop.

“The fact that a child felt safe coming in here was huge,” said Pam Faulkner, who owns Green Bay Cycles with her husband, Larry. “It was not only ‘It’s a bike shop and they’ll be nice to me.’ No. He knew us. He knew this was a place he was going to be safe and we’d be able to help. It makes me a little teary.”

The child is among the thousands Green Bay Cycles has helped — though, rarely so dramatically — in its 15 years at 999 Green Bay Road, a run that will end when February does.

Pam and Larry Faulkner, of Highland Park, are retiring, a decision they announced to customers in November 2025. Pam said the couple had been on the lookout for an appropriate moment to exit, and with the current conditions of the business and the industry, now made sense.

Informing the couple’s timing: Costs to do business have risen, especially with new and unpredictable tariffs, she said, and the building that houses Green Bay Cycles is changing hands and the business’s lease is expiring in February.

The primary guiding force, though, is the Faulkners want a happy and healthy next chapter.

“We wanted to do it before we were too old to do it,” Pam Faulkner said. “We want to be young enough to play with our grandkids, fish, travel, ride our bikes, and do those things often. We’ve worked hard all of our lives.”

Larry Faulkner, a U.S. Navy veteran, was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base when he retired from service and he got a part-time job at Alberto’s Cycles in Winnetka.

Bike riding meant a lot to Larry and Pam, who had a job at JPMorgan Chase. So when the opportunity arose in 2010 to open a bike shop, they took a chance.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to open a bike store,” Pam said. “… When we first opened, there were a number of different bike stores. What are we going to do that’s different? Larry’s response was, ‘We’re going to be nice to people.’

“We were intentional about wanting to be a bike shop that is a service to the community.”

From then on, Green Bay Cycles served the North Shore’s cycling community, from the professionals to the beginners, with everything from new bikes and parts to gear and tuneups.

It did not take long for Pam and Larry’s style to take in Winnetka, and business picked up — so much so that Pam had to leave her full-time job in 2019 to help at the shop.

Green Bay Cycles also regularly connected to the community. It sponsored youth baseball and softball teams and soon became the driver behind the town’s popular “bike rodeos,” an annual event that provides Winnetka grade-schoolers with bicycle safety tips, training and resources.

Green Bay Cycles also played a role in large community rides, like North Shore Century and Rock the Ride North Shore, a three-year-old charity ride that supports gun-violence prevention.

Rock the Ride is a national initiative but the local version is a collab between Pam Faulkner and U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, one of Green Bay Cycles regulars.

“I’m sad that it is closing,” said Schneider, a lifelong cyclist. “(Pam and Larry) are two extraordinary people. … I love what they brought to what they do. You knew if you bought a bike from them it would not only be a piece of mechanical hardware but you’d be part of a bigger family.”

Living just down the street from Green Bay Cycles, Peter Eck felt that way too.

He purchased several children’s bikes from Green Bay Cycles and also has been in time and time again to service his bikes. He said he quickly befriended Larry and Pam and looked forward to stopping in the shop to say hi to and chat up his friends.

Eck said he’s excited for the Faulkners to move on to their next chapter and they “should be super proud of the business they ran.” But he added that Green Bay Cycles will leave a void in Winnetka and not just because of its bicycle service.

“What makes a vibrant downtown and familiar personal experience? It’s not having a bunch more chain stores. It’s the local bike shop, the coffee place, a couple key restaurants,” Eck said. “… How many business owners — if you think about the places you frequent — would you call your personal friends. With Pam and Larry, I would. I think that’s a neat thing.”

Green Bay Cycles’ inventory is on sale through the end of February, in person and online. The shop’s final day is Feb. 28.

The Faulkners already have some plans for a fishing trip to Northern Wisconsin and a boat cruise in Minnesota. They’ll have more time to enjoy their family, including, eight grandchildren, and there will always be cycling.

“A bike represents a lot for us,” Pam Faulkner said. “It represents our past, what we’ve been doing for the last 15 years and what’s coming for us in the future.

“There is an element of freedom with a bike. You can revisit it at the different stages of your life.”

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