Thus began Green Gear Cycling, in a small garage with two visionary employees.
The company is now colloquially known as Bike Friday, after its most visible product. The Bike Friday name, inspired by Man Friday of Robinson Crusoe fame, was suggested by early collaborator Paul Moore, a bicycle luminary in his own right.
"Running a small business is never plain pedaling, even if a product that is loved and admired the world over," said Alan, as Bike Friday spent the next few years convincing a skeptical public and bicycle industry of the value of their vision. He attributes Bike Friday's resilience (still going strong after more than 15 years) to the personal nature of the way it does business - forming a one-on-one relationship with each customer; the custom nature of the bikes; and intrepid nature of cycle tourists in general.
"We believe so strongly in matching a person to their very personal machine - their bike - that our whole organization runs backward from most manufacturing. Our design process starts at the customer instead of ending with the customer simply buying the results".
Alan and Hanz are very passionate about "being personal".
"The mass production orientation in our culture tends to make us see anything outside the 20th and 80th morphological percentiles as non-normal. [Morphology: the study of form and structure of plants, animals - Ed]. We are convinced that everyone interested in cycling and doing it well is "normal" to us. As an engineer, I know the materials don't care what size and shape they are made into. Size and shape of the user are not restrictions when approached correctly."
"We have a unique product. But we're a very small, yet paradoxically international custom builder and cannot afford a big glossy ad budget or conventional placement in stores. We can only succeed if our customers love their Bike Fridays, and tell anyone willing to listen. We have grown by referral."
There's also the hurdle of making a product that is "different".
"Conventional marketing tells us that if we wanted to make a bicycle that goes in a suitcase and also make money, we should use bigger wheels, for no other reason than to stay squarely in the comfort zone of the mass-market mindset. It is always risky to go against the flow, but there is putting your financial safety first, and there's doing it right."
The relentless pursuit of "doing it right" has resulted in Bike Friday turning out models never before seen in the cycling industry. Witness the Traveler Q, the tandem that converts to a single bike.
