Building Bikes in the Motor City

“The bike industry is very competitive. There are some really big companies that are very dominant. They have a lot of control,” says company founder, Zak Pashak.

Pashak had run successful ventures in the Canadian cities of Vancouver, British Columbia and Calgary, Alberta. But then, he was creating music festivals and concert venues. So what would compel him to make a product in a competitive industry, 1,900 miles away from Calgary, in Detroit, a city emerging from bankruptcy?

“Starting a business obviously has a ton of risk. I think the reason entrepreneurs start is that they have a vision they want to see succeed.” He added, “If you’re afraid of losing some money, you’re not going to be an entrepreneur.”

Pashak thought hard about what could be his next winning ticket. His vision was to create Detroit Bikes, a company specializing in bicycles for people in cities.

“Bikes are just a really great way of getting around,” Pashak said. “They’re very efficient. They’re very affordable. They take up very little space. They’re environmentally friendly.” He added that they have been around for 200 years.

Pashak opened his factory in a vacant factory in a rundown Detroit neighborhood.

“It wasn’t so much of what pulled me from Calgary but what pushed me to Detroit. I think Detroit is on a bit of a frontier, trying to reframe urban development,” said Pashak.

He is delighted that he could staff his factory with skilled and willing workers.

The company is called Detroit Bikes, he said, because “the people who live here are the people making this company. People show up, they’re ready to work, they’re excited about what they’re doing and care about it and they care about manufacturing.”

Henry Ford, whose grandfather was named after the industrial icon, has been working at Detroit Bikes since it opened in 2013. Ford has had his bout with unemployment and is grateful to be working again, even when the stability of the company is not assured.

“That’s always a concern with a new business,” he said, but he thinks the company is helping the city by bringing manufacturing back.

The bicycle industry has its own risks. Bikes are really an assembly of parts made all over the world. To stand out, Detroit Bikes has aimed to be the “American Bike” because its main part, the frame, is made in the Detroit factory.

At a price range of $550 to $800, his bikes fall between inexpensive models sold by mass retailers and high-end models with features that may not be important in an urban setting.

“So what we’re trying to do is find that intersection of quality and affordability, so not ever going too far on quality where we lose out on affordability but not going so far on affordability that the quality falls apart,” said Pashak.

Pashak thought the market was desperate for a bike made in the U.S. “I thought this was going to blow up,” he said. That didn’t happen, however.

The company started to question what it was doing. It listened to the market and added more gears to its bikes and more colors. Pashak said the city of Detroit could help new businesses such as his by lowering taxes instead of handing out tax credits or subsidies.

“To me, it’s a little weird that you would tax business, take that money, and then redistribute it to certain businesses.” He added that one option would be “maybe don’t take that money in the first place.”

Meanwhile, Detroit Bikes is on the lookout for all opportunities. Recently, it found one in assembling bikes for the bike-share market that is exploding in many urban communities. There is now a section of the factory devoted to that work, with its own staff.

Pashak has big visions for Detroit Bikes. He sees another factory being built and thinks the Detroit name could be a big draw for customers and even tourists who might be interested in seeing a U.S. bike factory.

Customers and tourists can get a taste of the Detroit Bikes brand at the company’s store in downtown Detroit, which opened in 2015. Decorated with Victorian wallpaper and retro features, is stands out as a different kind of bicycle store.

“Almost everybody I work with, who’s within a few years of my age, bikes to work if they live within a few miles,” said Yelinek.

“It’s kind of bare, with stores and necessities that I need for my day to day life. I have to drive 5 to 6 miles to a big grocery store,” said Yelinek. While he’s not in the market for a new bike, he says he’d be open to purchasing a Detroit Bikes model because it’s local.

“The journey is really the enjoyable thing,” he said. Though starting a business is tiring, “this is what I want to do,” he said, adding, “I enjoy the creativity of this.”

I know that’s supposed to be snark, but northerners do in fact ride bikes, sometimes even in the winter. I don’t know if these guys have a fatbike model, but those are often targeted to winter riding. Are you suggesting that bicycle makers should only have factories in states where there’s no winter?

I think he had the right idea, but didn’t do enough due diligence. Absent the Democrat wealth-distribution crap, Detroit could be a good place to open a business. Property values are bargain-basement, and there’s plenty of industrial space available. This guy saw those two things, and thought he had made a good choice; he just failed to look into the root cause of those two selling points.

the fact that I can get from one side of town to the other in 12 minutes

I don't know where you live, but if you can cross town in 12 minutes in a car, you don't have a problem. But if you live in a city with chronic gridlock, decoupling from cars begins to make a lot of sense.

Every city is different. I live in DC. Our arterial roads are jammed. The prospect for building significant new road capacity into downtown is approximately zero, and there would be nowhere to park if we did. The city is rapidly gentrifying, largely because those older, close-in neighborhoods start to look attractive to people whose alternative is to spend two to four hours a day in their cars.

The truth is, there are great neighborhoods all over the metro area. It is easy to minimize commutes if you open your eyes. (The schools pose a problem, but leave that for another day. Voucher the schools, and gentrification would become a tidal wave.) It is misleading to look at metro-wide statistics on car use; one really has to drill down to neighborhoods. People in the 'burbs are mostly stuck in their cars, unless they can make it to a convenient metro stop. People in the central city core, however, have much more abundant options.

I continue to be astonished at how many suburbanites cannot connect the dots. The bike lobby does not expect commuters in western Fairfax County to get out of their cars. But it would be nice if the people gridlocked on I-66 twice a day would stop to realize that everyone on Capitol Hill or Takoma Park or Bethesda or West Hyattsville who walks or bikes is one less car jamming the roads, and one more available parking space downtown.

The best way to relive traffic congestion here isn't to build another lane on I-66 or I-270 or I-395 (which isn't going to happen anyhow). The best way is to unclog the congestion at the front end of the pipe by getting people in the close-in neighborhoods to use alternative forms of transit. Twelve percent of the people in DC walk to work, and other four percent bike. Bike commuting has increased 445% since 1990, which reflects investment in bike lanes and, where possible, off-road trails. But that's area-wide. The figures are much higher for the close-in areas.

I live in the 2nd largest city in Michigan, and yes we do have gridlock. You can still drive from one end to the other in less than 12 minutes if you know what you are doing because our highway system here goes through the middle of the city.

And yes our mayor is a nutty lib that is trying to shove bike lanes everywhere, and have been trying to make it as hard as possible for people to drive and park in the center of town so that we all get on buses and get on a two-wheeler. They even had a plan to turn a two lane road into ONE lane where both directions of traffic drove at each other, leaving room on both sides for bike lanes!

And no we aren’t “decoupling from cars”, because we live in Michigan where water freezes and falls from the sky for half of the year, and we have better things to do than take an hour to get to a destination.

If you have little to do with your day, then get on your bike. Some of us have way too many responsibilities to waste on a 10-speed.

"If you have little to do with your day ...."

LOL. You are tied so tightly to your car that you don't see the point. I live in a walkable, bikeable, close-in neighborhood. My job changed several times over the years, but I've had several jobs when I was able to bike to work, with a commute of under two miles. At that range, biking is faster than driving when you figure in parking, and in rush hour it is often faster, period. (And it's free. Parking isn't, at least here.) The average bike commute in the U.S. is under five miles. Some take on longer distances, but the Spandex Ranger on the shoulder of your high-volume commuter sewer is the exception, not the rule.

(For the long distance crowd, the bike commute is their fitness program. I know, I know: suburbanites think you should drive to a gym to work out, but some folks prefer to integrate their exercise into their daily routine. Each to his own.)

We don't all live in walkable, bikeable neighborhoods in close proximity to jobs. Most suburbanites are stuck with their cars. But if walking or biking is a reasonable option, it's a great way to live. We should try to build more neighborhoods where this is possible. The point here isn't to force suburbanites out of their automobiles. The point is to build adequate pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure so that people have that option if it works for their jobs.

There are great neighborhoods all over the metro area. And there are many older, close-in neighborhoods that can become great as gentrification kicks in. Provision for pedestrian and bicycle traffic is great for kids, great for retirees, great for active young adults and families with children, and great for folks whose jobs are nearby. It's an easy, low-cost, high value-added way of anchoring neighborhoods. And done right, it can get a lot of people out of their cars, which simplifies life for the suburbanites who don't have any alternatives and must drive.

I'm retired now, but when I biked to work, a bike was as fast as driving over the ranges involved. Nowadays from time to time, I chat with folks on the trails. I have encountered a number of people biking down the Metropolitan Branch trail from Brookland, Mt. Ranier, Takoma Park, and West Hyattsville who swear that it's faster than driving. Having seen rush hour traffic on Rhode Island, North Capitol, Riggs Road, etc., I can readily believe it. Remember, a majority of bike commuters are going less than five miles, and very few are going more than ten. You are taking the long-distance commuter as the norm, but that's not the case.

“LOL. You are tied so tightly to your car that you don’t see the point. I live in a walkable, bikeable, close-in neighborhood.”

Yeah? So do I. I live where people are paying over the asking price of homes for sale by thousands because of that fact alone.

Guess what? Everyone else does not, and their businesses are not here either.

And unless you want to live on boutique food, craft beer, and coffee, you have to go to a real supermarket, and a bike is not how that is done.

And I used to actually bike to my job. The problem is that I’m on a hill, the job is in a valley, and it only is pleasant on one of those trips. It was not worth coming home exhausted and sweating like a pig.

I live where people are paying over the asking price of homes for sale by thousands because of that fact alone.

Now we're talking the same language. I have lived for nearly 40 years on Capitol Hill and have my share of war stories from Marion Barry days. Since then, the Hill has become a celebrated gentrification success story, and the turnaround is spreading in all directions. Several nearby neighborhoods that for decades have been synonymous with squalor are coming back, and linking up. It has been exciting to watch.

The biggest contributing factor is probably traffic congestion in the suburbs, plus high housing costs in northwest DC. Now Capitol Hill has become expensive as well. If your alternative is to live in Germantown or Woodbridge and spend most of your non-work waking hours in a car, close-in gentrifying neighborhoods start to look attractive.

Bike trails and bike lanes are yuppie bait. Yes, they're nice for recreation for the kids. Yes, they're great for retirees with time for long, rambling rides. Yes, they can get some commuters out of their cars and at least marginally reduce rush hour traffic congestion. But first and foremost in my book, they are value-added amenities that can attract young, still-active adults to neighborhoods with potential, of which we have many.

Every city is different. An important part of the bike action here consists of linking up existing trail systems so that the local trails become integrated into a broader regional network. Suddenly, instead of doing laps around your local park, you can actually get somewhere. Some people will use this to commute to work. But even more will find it as the hook that puts some long-bypassed neighborhoods on the map.

Biking won't be everyone's cup of tea, but more people would ride if we made it easy. This applies to the suburbs as well. There are great neighborhoods all over the metro area, even in the suburbs. But it is crazy how major suburban destinations are essentially unreachable by bike, or reachable only with lengthy and circuitous, thread-the-needle routes.

Those great suburban arterial roads easily become barriers. There are few crossings. Over yonder is Tyson's Corner (the biggest office park, plus much more, in Virginia), or some other major destination. All around are wonderful residential neighborhoods. And none of it connects, except by car. Forget bikes; try to walk somewhere in the suburbs, outside of your little subdivision. (Suburbanites walk? Well, try to imagine.) Even if a road conveniently goes where you want it to, there is no bike lane or sidewalk. That's foolish.

It's neither hard nor expensive in new construction to provide for a wide shoulder or an adequate sidewalk. That should be standard. The problem we so often face here is that the shoulders and sidewalks that used to provide non-motorized accessbililty were long ago sacrificed to create another traffic lane. That's how roads become barriers, and it's an area where the suburbs have some expensive retrofitting to do.

We are just starting to get the main push here in Grand Rapids, Mi. The Yuppies from Chicago, the burbs of Detroit, and from Ohio are flooding into the city.

Things have been calm so far, but now that they are spilling into the “traditional” black majority areas, I can see that it’s about to hit the fan! Will be interesting to see how the hipsters fare! There is also some friction in the old Polish neighborhoods north of me, but people there are far older and seem to be glad to get a big payout for their long paid for homes.

I honestly dont find the bike lanes to be as big a deal as some make them because in my neighborhood they ARE used, but the city is trying to push them into places where riding a bike = your car got repo’d, without really getting input from people that live there that are now finding their on-street parking being swept away.

As you mention about your own neighborhood, a viable biking infrastructure can be a significant boost to the attractiveness of a neighborhood and a boost to housing values. If presented in a cooperative rather than adversarial way, this can be a selling point even for people who never get on a bike. It doesn't take much, especially if accommodations are built in from the beginning.

Simple things like sidewalks, wide shoulders, and regular street grids solve a lot of problems. If you accept the principle that pedestrians should be able to move freely around their own neighborhoods, the same infractructure will generally work for bikes as well. What has to be changed is the assumption that people should be forced to drive virtually everywhere, including across the street.

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