A bike shop in a funky Atlanta neighborhood has blossomed with the growth of Georgia’s film & TV industry, with its Hapeville warehouse supplying cast, crew and productions with equipment and service.
Outback Bikes opened in 1986 as a general outdoors store. A few years later, Kate Rockett and her husband, Peter Wicker, bought it and made it all about bicycles.
The store is family owned and operated, with three of their five children as employees.
In recent years, the business expanded to the more industrial location near Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport, Delta Airlines, and Porsche. Its 6,000 square feet can hold up to 1,000 bikes at a time. And the store regularly transfers equipment to the Little Five Points store, which has a traditional retail feel amid the historically colorful neighborhood.
That expansion happened as the film and TV productions became more common in Georgia. Now Outback rents bikes to actors and crew members on their days off and provides bikes to be used as props in productions like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Cobra Kai,” among others.
Rockett and Wicker also have worked discreetly with some big names, providing bikes and a high level of customer service to actors looking for a little fun on their time off.
“The film industry work is stressful and demanding for them,” Rockett said. “It’s nice to be a part of it, the stress relief.”
She hopes to deepen relationships in the industry so more people use Outback, for off-camera fun or on-camera visuals.
“We’re established, and we’ve been around for nearly four decades,” she said. “We have a good following to work with in the industry. Seeing our bikes in different things has been fun, just to know that we’re part of the team.”