Grand Rapids entrepreneur Daniel Koert has lived in cities that are drastically different from each other -- Brooklyn, Nashville, Chicago and West Palm Beach to name a few – but he found they had one thing in common: thousands of bike commuters.
His desire to support the trend in urban Grand Rapids and his love for bikes led him to establish
Commute GR, a bike sales and service shop at 120 S. Division, just a couple of gear shifts from the city's center.
"I felt there was a large need for a real bike shop in the downtown because there are a lot of people around here who commute by bike," Koert says. "One of the first things I noticed when I moved back to Grand Rapids about a year ago is you'd have to drive a car to get to a bike shop."
Koert, 25, still rides BMX and he races road and mountain bikes. He says he hasn't "owned a car in, like, forever."
To get people riding their bikes more and driving their cars less, Koert started The Wednesday Evening Bike Rides. Anywhere from 80 to 120 riders gather at Commute GR at 9 p.m. every Wednesday and tour the city together.
Rebuilding used bikes is Koert's specialty. He learned bike repair as a child working alongside his dad, and tore apart his first BMX when he was six.
"Every time I get a bike finished it gets sold, so it's challenging to build up inventory," Koert says. "I strip them down to the frame, repack the bearings, replace the tubes, tires, chain, housing and cables. Then I do a full tune-up. Every bike I sell I know personally and I know it's going to be a great bike that will last."
Source: Daniel Koert, Commute GR
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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