Madison CycleWorks Cooperative is a new service in town that provides both on-site mobile bicycle repairs and two-wheeled cargo deliveries. Tom Wilson, one of five founding members of the worker cooperative, says the group is proving just how versatile bicycle deliveries can be.
The startup’s launch in April was accelerated somewhat by the pandemic, when bike ridership spiked and more recently, gas prices soared.
Now with eight members, their collective goal is to provide safer and healthier transportation methods in an environmentally friendly way. In the Madison area, they believe people tend to have a growing desire to eat, shop, and recreate locally with less of an environmental impact.
“Many people are willing to pay a little more to do that for their food, or to just do things differently,” Wilson states.
The group secured some limited grants and a $7,500 Kiva loan through the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp. (WWBIC) to launch its mobile bike repair service, which represents about 80% of business currently, but delivery service “inside the Beltline” is gaining steam.
While Madison CycleWorks Cooperative is not the first bike delivery service in Madison, “I don’t know that the others are moving as much stuff,” Wilson comments.
On Mondays for example, he delivers meal kits in Pyrex glass containers for Pasture and Plenty, a client that sources and prepares fresh food from local farms. “They prepare the food and I load a trailer with 25 or 30 meal kits for delivery.” At the same time, he’ll pick up and return used dishes from the previous week.
One custom trailer can haul up to 300 pounds of cargo, and a second one has a 600-pound capacity. Efforts to expand have been slowed by the supply chain.
“I ordered two trailers in January but now I may not get them until December,” Wilson laments, but he has moved 14 bags of wood chips, lumber, and even a new dishwasher across town, shattering perceptions of what can be done on a bicycle.
Time is money when delivering food, and the trailers can get heavy, requiring electronic assist. “E-bikes changed the delivery game,” he says. “That’s why deliveries that require multiple stops are ideal for this type of business.”
For safety and efficiency, he’ll ride on city streets rather than use bike paths due to the extra length of the trailers and the speed at which he travels. There’s another benefit too, he muses. “When I ride down the street, parents are waving at me rather than screaming at their kids to get out of the street.”
Wilson, 36, is a La Crosse native who has lived car-free in Madison for nearly 10 years. He left his job at an engineering consulting firm to commit to the co-op’s success.
“It’s hard to quit a good job and a paycheck for a startup,” he relates, “but this is a passion project for me, really, and we have to get the kinks worked out before we hire and grow. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing, but our clients know we’re working on it.”
Wilson is no stranger to four-season biking, and he’s preparing now for the co-op’s first winter, when bike and trailer wheels will be retrofitted with tires designed to keep riders safe.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he says. “There’s an old saying that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing,” he laughs. “I biked during the polar vortex just to do it. I like to push the limits; that’s why I’m well suited for this.”
Here’s hoping the rest of the group feels the same.
Madison CycleWorks Cooperative
(608) 515-5533
