Bike-Sharing Program Gains Popularity Thanks To Detroit

Car sharing programs, like Uber and Lyft, continue gaining in popularity. Meanwhile, bike sharing programs are flying under the radar, and one company in Detroit is looking to change that.

Zak Pashak, a 36-year-old in Detroit, is overseeing a bicycle manufacturing facility he opened in 2013. At that time, the bicycle manufacturing business was nearly non-existent. However, citing Detroit as being "a good spot for urban revitalization to take hold," Pashak now operates a 50,000-square-foot facility where workers test bikes that are destined for New York's Citi Bike bike-sharing program.

"It's a highly efficient machine, yet people have this complicated relationship with it," he told Bloomberg Businessweek. "A lot of people think bikes are for hippies or people who got a DUI, or for people who are poor and can't afford a car. Or they're for kids."

Related Link: One Man, Two Cities: The Revitalization Of Detroit And Cleveland

Pashak's company is now on pace to churn out 10,000 bikes and employ 50 people in a city where new job creation is scarce to come by. His company is also expected to break even this year after investments from friends and family totaled around $4 million.

Pashak has a big vision for the future. He wants to expand and create a retail business after attracting several large corporate clients.

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