The Pony Shop has been serving the cycling needs of Chicago's North Shore since 1969. Our staff provides Chicagoland’s cyclists – from mountain bikers and racers to casual riders, families and kids – professional yet friendly service. The Pony Shop’s philosophy is simple: provide the best service by hiring and keeping the best staff around, allowing them to bring in innovative products for our customers to try and purchase. We believe in, ride and use the same products we sell to you.

Our Staff

Lou Kuhn, Owner

Lou grew up in Naperville Illinois. He moved to Evanston from Chicago to manage The Pony Shop in 1995. Lou started hanging around in bicycles stores when he was twelve, and thanks to a couple of very patient young bicycle store owners, learned to work on his own bike and build wheels when he was thirteen. From then on he's always had a job in the bicycle industry, part time during school, and full time since then.

Lou loves the mechanics of cycling. He's always had a knack for working with his hands, and combined with his love of riding, being a bicycle mechanic came very easily to him. He also enjoys continuing his education with cycling.

"Things are always changing and I feel it is very important to continue to learn and improve as a mechanic. I was the first person ever to pass the BSE, bicycle standard of excellence test, which is a way to standardize the level of mechanic a person is. The auto and ski industry have had similar tests for years, and I feel the bike industry will soon follow suit."

As much as Lou loves working with bikes, he has chosen to stay with the retail side of the business, as opposed to taking opportunities to work out on the road with teams, or within larger corporations. Lou loves retail, loves working with customers and really being able to help them enjoy the sport he loves. This enjoyment has kept him at The Pony Shop, and he purchased the store from the origional owner in 2004.

Lou's riding experience includes years of racing mountain bikes, cyclocross, and on the track. He hasn't quite been tempted to the road racing scene yet, but that might change. He truly loves to race cyclocross and since it takes place in the fall and winter, he has more time to race and not take time away from his customers.

Update: Lou is now the 2007 Illinois State Cyclocross Champion in the Masters 30+ category!

John Michael Schultz (aka the Local Trailboss and Service Magician)

John's been in the bike biz since 1995 and at The Pony Shop since 1997 (with a few brief moments in 'retirement').

Favorite bikes: Yeti cycles, foes fab, Cannondale, Colnago, Santa Cruz Bicycles, Ventanas, Anything vintage.

Least favorite bikes: Huffy, Magna, tandems, internal gear hub bikes, hipster fix gear bikes as well.

Favorite products: Bailey works messenger bags, SRAM (xo, rockshox forks, avid brakes, rival road groupo) clip on fenders, viking titanium chains, full srp rebuild kits.

Favorite rides: Palos of course, Kettle Moraine, Ashville North Carolina. Any ride in Durango (animas mtn, raiders ridge, colorado trail, test tracks, hermosa creek trail, log chutes, horse gulch). All time favorite being molas cake to engineer mountain. 5 hour epic starting at 9500 feet wraps around a mtn range with huge exposure and unpredictable weather. I almost died on this ride a couple of years ago.

Favorite people to ride with: Nick Martin, Jeremy Peters, Jesse Nehaus, The GENERAL and Mosk (when they let me catch up at the trail heads), Ryder Okumura, the Brothers Van Dine, Tom Neb, Super Dave, Jude Monica, and all the others I forgot, that can keep up.

Other interests: shopping for new clothes, dive bars, tubing down the Animas River, playing horse shoes in my backyard, going to Vegas with the boys, swimming at oak Street Beach at 1:00 am, the MCA, Millinium Park in the summer, Bears tailgating, long walks along Damen Ave., hanging out on porches, fish tacos, sandwitches from Bari food, Italian food from bella notte, Mexican from Salpicon, Nuevo Leon, La Amistad, and Chavez tacos, bloody marys from twisted spoke, breakfast @ Perez, silver cloud, Flo, Hollywood Grill, of course Loraines.

Favorite Fantasy Wives: Norah Jones, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, April Lawyer, Niki Guddex.

Dislikes: Snobby people, bent derail hangers, pants that don't fit, hangovers, the color purple, French threading on old bicycles, people who drive in bike lanes, potholes, cold water, the CTA, War for no reason, Sushi, Bad servers.