A bike that can carry four bags of groceries, your toddler and you? That would be a dream come true for many parents of young children. And that’s exactly what the entrepreneurial firm Xtracycle has created.
Ross Evans traces his love of the bicycle back to when his parents took him to school in a bike trailer. Decades later, he’s made that passion his business, as the founder and of Xtracycle, making long-frame bikes and conversion kits for utilitarian cycling. Xtracycles are designed to be comfortable and versatile for everyday use, extending the range of uses for bicycles and offering a viable alternative to other forms of transportation.
According to Evans, “Bike design has been primarily driven by racing. The dual diamond frame is perfected for that. But if you want to do errands and need to carry supplies or other people, you need a different kind of bike. Cars have back seats and trunks. Why not bikes?”
Forty percent of all car trips in the United States are less than two miles. Evans sought to create a bike that could reduce our dependence on cars for short trips and errands that required significant gear capacity.
He created his first long bike in 1995. Stanford engineering and business classes, as well as a grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and the Lemelson Foundation, helped him fine-tune the design and eventually launch his own company.
Author: Dan Larson
Copyright 2009 StartupNation, LLC
Click here to read more from StartupNation