Pedego 101 Story

It all started with Linda and John’s vacation to Seattle in May, 2014.

Not wanting to rent a car in a city famed for their public transportation and support of cyclists, we decided to rent bicycles for part of our stay. Given that Seattle is also famed for its hills, electric bikes made lots of sense. A search of the Internet led us to the local Pedego Electric Bikes dealer.

Linda’s first Pedego ride

We immediately picked the pair of Pedego Trail Trackers — one bright fluorescent green and the other matte black. The 28-inch super-knobby tires were four inches wide and the bikes seemed enormous, but even Linda, who’s just five feet tall, was able to manage them.

The local Pedego dealer delivered the bikes (with chargers, helmets and locks) to the hotel the next day. It was a grey, drizzly, typical Seattle spring morning but with those fat knobby tires, the wet pavement was no concern at all. As we set out to see the sites, we had no idea we were about to become a tourist attraction ourselves.

Tourists Taking Photos of John’s Bike

As we rode to museums and parks, on bike trails and bike paths and through the streets, strangers wanted to know about the Trail Trackers. A group of Chinese tourists stopped John at a botanical garden and, using mainly hand gestures, let us know they wanted to take pictures with the bikes. People called out from their cars as we rode through the busy Seattle streets, and everywhere we parked, the electric bicycles drew lots of interest.

“We’ve got to sell these,” Linda said. She’s the impulsive one; John does the research.

He had already been immersing himself in the electric vehicle world online, looking at different bike manufacturers and dealers. So back in their homeland of Los Angeles, they went on a quest to try out as many electric bicycles as they could. They were consistently drawn back to Pedego. They couldn’t shake the uniqueness of the Trail Tracker. And Linda’s short stature made finding a comfortable, manageable bike an even bigger challenge. Luckily Pedego had just come out with a 24-inch version of one of their most popular bikes, the Interceptor.

But best of all, Pedego’s corporate office is also in Southern California and many Pedego stores are located in the region. After visiting several Pedego dealers and hearing only positive things about the brand and the company’s customer service, we arranged a meeting with the honchos at the main office. We were greeted by Pedego employees zipping around the parking lot, quality testing the bikes while a shiny showroom featured different makes, models and color schemes. They liked our enthusiasm and passion for electric bikes, and we liked their commitment to Pedego dealers and their embodiment of the corporate slogan, “Hello, Fun…”