In Carbondale’s Revel Bikes, it’s easy to meet someone banging out a ride up Red Hill and planning to be back later, before it gets hot.

The shop is full of staff asembling bikes or lounging on couches while on working computers with dogs running around. Revel has a definite vibe. So do its biannual warehouse parties, bikers in five-panel hats, drinking local micro beer, and looking at Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association’s latest trail maps.

Revel means to enjoy oneself, to take great pleasure in something, and it’s great to see that in a bike town that feels like the Amsterdam of America with bikes of all kinds. Like Patagonia workers who can swim and surf near the Ventura, California, headquarters, Revel’s Carbondale landscape provides plenty of thrills for outdoor enthusiasts in its workforce. Revel Bikes has Carbondale as its hub for its global operations.

Self-proclaimed bike nerd Adam Miller, founder, and CEO of Revel Bikes, originally from Alaska, started working in a bike shop and eBay business at 12. He was obsessed with it and started his first bike company while attending Colorado College, making high-end carbon fat bikes, and selling it in 2015.

“I had learned a whole lot and knew that I love bikes, how to design and make them and sell them. I got this amazing kind of, I call it, a grad degree and bike business,” he said, “And so after I sold my first company, I want to do this. I want to make the bikes that I want to ride, which luckily is a wide array of bikes, and luckily, a lot of other people want to ride those bikes, so we can make a business out of it.”

In 2017, he participated in the Gran Tranverse ski race and had never been to the Roaring Fork Valley. While driving back from Aspen to Crested Butte, he drove through Carbondale and thought it seemed a good place to be. Six months later, he moved himself and his business from Utah and lived up on Prince Creek in his van for a couple of months with three employees.

During this time, the team was developing their carbon mountain bikes, and in 2019, Revel Bikes was born. It now has 11 bike models in its lineup, with the heart and soul being carbon, full-suspension mountain bikes, to gravel bikes, fat bikes, and adventure bikes.

Revel’s received many awesome reviews. Out of the hundreds of mountain bikes to choose from nowadays, Outside Magazine’s “Best Trail Bikes” of 2023 ranked Revel in its top seven.

Local Colorado retailer and Revel enthusiast Chris Anderson, owner of At Kind Bikes and Skis, praises the brand. 

“Revel has hit the sweet spot with their suspension design,” he noted. “Their rider-centric model ensures both rider and retailer satisfaction, and it’s clear they’ve built their brand on this ethos.”

If you think about the cost of real estate and shipping, it doesn’t make sense to be in Carbondale, but there’s a lot of great mountain biking, and if you want to make great bikes having people you know loving and riding pays off. Revel Bikes engineering team can head up to the Snowmass Bike Park and test out prototypes.

Revel has over 10 employees who ride mountain bikes assembling bikes in the warehouse before being shipped off to other states and countries. There are also the sales, customer service, and marketing team along with a small showroom where you can demo their bikes for a donation to the Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association.

Despite the turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic on manufacturers, Revel Bikes continued to thrive, extending its reach to 34 countries. They recently added a new facility in Taichung, Taiwan, a city well-regarded global hub for bike manufacturers. 

“Establishing a facility in Taiwan is a significant step forward for us,” said Miller, adding that Carbondale remains the brand’s heart and soul.

“I’m lucky to have an amazing group of people here, and I have to say so much of that is because of where we are,” he said. “Being in the Roaring Fork Valley is where a lot of people come to vacation, not to live and run a product company with trucks coming in and out of a warehouse.” 

Then the founder and CEO, clad in black t-shirt and shorts, apologized and left to catch an important call.