55Bloomberg Businessweek November 2, 2020
A Seattle startup is
leading the e-bike boom.
Can it hold on?By Ira Boudway
Photographs by
David Jaewon OhI
n March, as U.S. states began
issuing stay-at-home orders, Mike
Radenbaugh, co-founder and chief
executive officer of Rad Power Bikes
LLC,madea planforleantimes.The
temporaryshutdownoftheU.S.econ-
omy,hefigured,wouldbebadforhis
business,a Seattle-basedstartupthat
sellselectricbicyclesonline.“Wereally
startedtobattendownthehatches,”he
says.“Itwasa lotaroundcashplanning
andpreservingthebusinessincaseof
it cratering.”
Butbymid-April,Radenbaughreal-
izedhe’dmiscalculated.Notonlywas
Radnothurting,it couldn’treplenish
bikestocksfastenough.Salestripled
that month over the same period
in2019,hesays.Theyhaven’tcooled
since. By mid-May, Rad had sold
throughitsinventory.It’srestocked
sincethen,butmanymodelsarestill
onbackorder.
Bikeretailersacross thecountry
areinthesamehappypredicament.
Withthepandemicdisruptingvaca-
tion plans, exerciseroutines, and
commutes,Americansareturningto
bicyclesinrecordnumbers.Electric
bikes,thougha tinysliceofthemar-
ket,havebeenespeciallyhot,with
salesmorethandoublinginthefirst
eightmonthsofthisyearoverthesame
periodlastyear, accordingto NPD
GroupInc.,whichtracksbikeshops
andbig-boxstoresbutnotdirect-to-
consumerbrandssuchasRad.Last year the U.S. imported about
270,000 e-bikes, mostly from China,
says Ed Benjamin, founder and chair-
man of the Light Electric Vehicle
Association. This year, Benjamin
expects the total will end up some-
where between 500,000 and 600,000.
Even that won’t fully meet demand, he
says, because the virus forced many
Chinese factories to shut down in the
spring: “There’s howls of frustration
about getting more bikes.”
No other company, Benjamin says,
sells more e-bikes than Rad. The pri-
vately held business, founded in 2015,
hadsalesofabout$100millionlastyear.
Rad’scustomerstendtobemiddle-
age suburbanites and rural retirees, says
Ty Collins, co-founder and chief market-
ing officer. They don’t especially care
that motorized bicycles are considered
“mechanical doping” in the bike racing
world. They just want a little help to get
over a hill on the way to work, to drop
off their kids at school without sweat-
ing, or simply to ride a bike for the first
time in years.
Within the cycling industry, there’s
hope that the pandemic will help con-
vert this demographic into permanent
e-bikers, which has already happened
in Europe and Asia. (About 270 million
e-bikes are used daily in China alone.)
There is some precedent: During the
oil crisis of 1973, U.S. bike sales spiked,
leading to a long-term change in bike
culture. “Before that bicycle boom, bicy-
cles were toys for kids,” says Benjamin,
who worked at a Schwinn dealership at
the time. “An adult on a bicycle, or even
a teenager on a bicycle, was regarded as
messed up.” A similar trend is emerging
for the e-bike now. “It’s been a little bit
exotic,” he says. “In another year it’ll be
regarded as an entirely valid, entirely
acceptable transportation choice.”
If Benjamin is right, Rad has a consid-
▲ RADENBAUGH RIDING A RAD erable head start in the market. There