About us at Billy Goat Bicycle Co.
We’re a fun, creative, and unique team of bike enthusiasts that love what we do. Our shop was started by two brothers who have made bicycles their life. We’re here to serve anyone and any bike in our community. To us this isn’t a job, it’s a passion.
Dirk Sprogoe
Dirk has been working in the local St. Louis Cycling scene for the past 30+ years. He started racing road bikes at 14, at which point the love affair with bikes began. By the time he was 18, he was working at one of the area's premier bike shops. The experience that he gained over the next 20 plus years has given him a tremendous amount of hands-on experience. From custom bike fitting, bicycle mechanics, merchandise selection, to managing a multi-store shop, Dirk’s done it, and if he doesn’t know the answer, he always seems to have a connection to the source for the answer. His deep love of the culture of cycling has also turned him into a bit of a bike collector. If you like old vintage bikes, ex-professional team bikes, vintage cycling gear, or old cycling magazines, you should come by and see some of the collection. From his first few days of working in the bicycle industry, he remained hooked, and it was always his goal to open his own store. With his brother and business partner, Sven Sprogoe, they are proud to run Billy Goat Bicycle Company. Their integrity, honesty, and commitment to being involved in the local St. Louis cycling scene is the foundation of what the store is built on.
Sven Sprogoe
Sven has been racing his bike since he was 15 years old. Both he and Dirk shared a love for the speed, the independence, and the competition that bicycles gave them. They weren’t just brothers; they were teammates, training partners, and best friends. During many of those long rides, or road trips to races elsewhere, the Sprogoe brothers often imagined their very own store, Billy Goat Bicycle Company is even better than they imagined. Sven spent nearly eight years working bicycle retail while racing and finishing college. He’s been active in the St. Louis cycling community ever since. He’s built a reputation amongst other racers as a strong, smooth, smart, and extremely competitive racer. Bicycles have always been a part of his life, and the dream to one day own a shop, was one that he approached with the same tenacity that he relies on when he races. His interest goes beyond just racing and race bikes, he’s got four girls and a wife that have all taken to riding bikes for fun and fitness.
Kellen Baum
Kellen is one of our “little” protégés, we say little, but he’s nearly 6’3”, which makes him seem older than he really is. Upon first glance, you’d actually expect to see him with a surfboard under his arm, but he assures us that he’s no surfer bum. We are really happy having him here at the shop, and also racing for us as part of the Saint Louis Cycling Club. Kellen has this eagerness to learn everything about bikes, almost like an excited little puppy, that it just can’t help but get you excited too. It doesn’t matter if it’s a road bike, mountain bike, or anything in between, if it’s got two wheels, pedals and some handlebars, you can expect to see him riding it. Kellen rides bikes simply for the pure joy of riding bikes, he loves the thrill, he loves the challenge, but most of all, he just likes the way the world looks from his bicycle.
Ben Lake
Ben comes to us after a hiatus from the bike industry, and we’re really excited to have him back. Ben’s a Boy Scout, literally, and he certainly embodies the Scout slogan “Do a Good Turn Daily”, meaning that he does something to help others each and every day. Some days it is doing something for the shop, but more often than not, he’s doing something amazing for one of our customers. He brings a whole host of handy-man skills to the shop, so we keep giving him projects that utilize those skills. He also challenges us to be a better shop, and we think that we’ll become a better shop with Ben wrenching for us.
William is our “International Man of Mystery” here at the shop. He’s just an enigma, we just can’t seem to completely figure him out. We know he’s got so much up in his brain working overtime, but we don’t have the slightest clue what he might be thinking about at any given moment. More than likely, he’s thinking about fixing your bike when you bring it in for service. He brings to us a mastery of many skills, and your bike will ride better when he is done with it. Besides just working on bikes, he repairs carbon fiber on exotic race cars, is building himself a carbon cargo bike, and routinely adds to the already colorful music that we listen to at the shop. William is quite simply put, our very own 007, and he likes his vodka martini’s shaken, not stirred.
William Nussbaum
Max M.
Cool, fast, handsome, brilliant, and the person who wrote this bio are adjectives that describe Max quite well. Max started racing mountain bikes at the end of the 2021 season, and he hasn’t stopped since. In the spring of 2022, Max cold called bike shops until one of them would take him in, then that shop sold and he ended up here. (Probably for the best)