Sales keep rolling along for maker of Bike-Rack-for-Buses

That was almost a decade ago, and now his Bike-Rack-for-Buses invention can be spotted on Metro's entire 1,300-bus fleet. The racks are also on buses in about 400 other cities.

Reeves, who has a degree in oceanography and a knack for engineering, said the Metro order transformed his company, Sportworks, from a contract manufacturer into a business with a product of its own.

"That really got us going," Reeves said. "It gave us a lot of credibility."


	Qui Lam works on a bus bicycle rack at Sportworks in Woodinville. The order from Metro transformed the company from a contract manufacturer into a business with its own product. Phil H. Webber / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Linda Thielke, a spokeswoman for Metro, said the county first began experimenting with bus racks in the 1980s.

"We had racks that we made ourselves on buses that crossed (state Route) 520 because bikes weren't allowed on the bridge," she said.

"The problem was that every time we washed a bus, we had to take the homemade racks off because they got tangled in the bus washer."

The Sportworks bike racks, Thielke said, don't need to be removed to clean the buses.

The Woodinville company's biggest customer is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has purchased 2,000 bike racks for its buses, according to Lisa Robinson, product manager for Sportworks.

The bike racks cost about $570 per bus, Robinson said, declining to say how many racks the company sells in a year or to disclose annual sales figures.

As the bus-mounted bike racks became more visible, Reeves said, car and recreational vehicle owners began calling and stopping by company headquarters.

In 1996, Sportworks introduced a rack for private vehicles. That rack starts at $220 for a two-bike model. A top-of-the-line, four-bike model retails for $550.

Sportworks, which started out as a contract manufacturer making handlebars for bicycles, has grown to 65 employees. When Reeves started the company in 1990 with his wife, Sandi, the pair were its only workers.

In September, the company hired Dave Bartholomew, former president and chief executive of Mountain Safety Research, to be president.

Under his leadership, Reeves said, Sportworks will continue to expand and improve its product lines.

Robinson said the company's forte is bike racks, for both cars and buses, though it still does some contract work.

She declined to say what portion of the company's annual sales stem from its racks.

Inside Sportworks' factory around lunchtime yesterday, boxes of bike racks were stacked, waiting to be shipped to transit authorities and bus makers across the country.

Robinson estimates that 500,000 bikes are transported on racks made in the local factory each month.

Rich Olken, executive director of the Bikes Belong Coalition, a Brookline, Mass.-based trade organization, said bus racks encourage commuters to ride.

"The moral of the story is people who bike to work are secure about being able to get home," he said.

"If the weather doesn't cooperate, the interface between transit and personal transportation allows someone to take the bus home and ride to work the next day."

To that end, Olken said, Sportworks -- which is active in Bikes Belong -- meets an important need.

"We're just tremendously tickled that someone invented that," he said. "Automobiles and trucks for years have had bike racks. To create something that is heavy-duty enough (for buses) and so easy to use is just tremendous."

P-I reporter Marni Leff can be reached at 206-448-8142 or marnileff@seattlepi.com

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