News

Detroit, MI – May 4, 2016 –Detroit Bikes, North America's only large-scale bicycle manufacturer, and Motivate, the nation’s leading bike-share operator, announced that Motivate’s bikes will now be assembled in the United States.

Detroit Bikes will assemble 3,000 Motivate bikes in its 50,000 square-foot factory in Detroit.

The manufacturer will also build wheels and oversee local partners to paint frames and forks. 

As a result of the increased workload, Detroit Bikes has added ten workers and a built a new assembly line.

“This contract makes a huge statement about what Detroit is capable of” said Zak Pashak, Founder and President of Detroit Bikes. “It is fitting that American bike-share bikes will be assembled here in America and we’re proud to work with Motivate to make it happen,” he said. “Detroit Bikes is looking forward to working with even more cities and systems as we hone our capabilities.”

“It’s terrific that Motivate, a growing national business has selected a Detroit company for this manufacturing work,” said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, “It’s another good sign of the strength of Detroit business. This initiative will create jobs in a Detroit neighborhood and help power an innovative new form of transportation.”

Motivate operates the largest bike share systems in the country and nearly 70% of the entire bike-share fleet in the U.S. Moving the assembly of its bikes to the U.S. allows Motivate to ensure quality control and fulfill orders for new bikes more quickly.

“I can’t think of a better place to have our bike assembly operations than Detroit,” said Jay Walder, President & CEO of Motivate. “With Detroit Bikes’ help, Motivate will be able to meet the growing demand for bike-share operations in cities all across the country, getting more bikes to more people more quickly.”

Carrying forward with this success in bike-share partnerships, Detroit Bikes is thrilled to announce a subsequent partnership with CycleHop, the nation’s fastest growing bike-share provider, to bid on the recently announced City of Detroit bike-share RFP, operated by the City of Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) and the Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP).

“If we’re going to making thousands of bikes for some of the biggest bike share programs in the country, it only makes sense that the city of Detroit would also look to a local manufacturer when sourcing bikes for their new program” said Zak Pashak. “We would love to be able to contribute to the city’s program and have partnered with some of the most well respected names in bike-share to put together a rock solid proposal”. The City of Detroit bike-share RFP was announced in November of 2015.

About Motivate:
Motivate is a global leader in bike share. A full-service bike share operator and technology innovator, Motivate works to re-envision how people experience and move around cities.  Motivate currently manages all of the largest bike share systems in the United States and many of the largest systems in the world, including Bay Area Bike Share (California Bay Area), Citi Bike (New York and Jersey City), Divvy (Chicago), CoGo Bike Share (Columbus, Ohio), Capital Bike Share (Washington, D.C.; Arlington and Alexandria, Va.; and Montgomery County, Md.), Hubway (Boston, Somerville, Cambridge and Brookline, Mass.), Pronto (Seattle), Bike Chattanooga (Tenn.), Bike Share Toronto, and Melbourne Bike Share in Australia. Motivate will add thousands of bikes to its current systems and launch the new BIKETOWN bike share system in Portland, Oregon in July 2016.