The clue is the company’s name: Benno Bikes. A2-316 As in Benno Baenziger, who founded Electra in 1993 with business partner Jeano Erforth.
Electra A2-600 made cruiser bikes fun, colorful, comfortable —and profitable. In 2007, Baenziger and Erforth sold Electra to a private equity firm, which later sold it to its current owner, Trek Bicycle. (This is a big year for Electra as well because it is celebrating its 25th anniversary.)
Today, Baenziger has mostly left cruiser bikes behind and has become a convert to the potential of electric drive systems. But while other brands are racing to put electric motors on mountain bikes, road bikes and everything in between, Baenziger believes they can most transform transportation bikes. So his goal is to create a line of compact cargo-ish bikes that, as he describes one model, have “cute lines, cute colors, but [are] a beast of a bike.”
In fact, he says, the adoption of electric motors could lead to the biggest advancement in the history of the bicycle. “The introduction of ‘e’ for me is as big of an opportunity, or as significant of a change, as the invention of the bicycle itself,” he said.
That’s a strong statement, especially from someone who did not much care for them earlier in his career. “I hated e-bikes, especially with the name of a company like Electra,” Baenziger said. “We were always mistaken for an e-bike company. I never liked it all those years.”
Only after he left Electra and started riding a bike around his southern California beach community of Del Mar did he begin thinking about the potential of cargo bikes.
Americans typically ride bikes for recreation, not transportation. When Baenziger tried running errands on his bike he found it limiting. “I realized how much more I could do with a bike that could carry more,” he said. “Later on, when I started carrying more, I realized how much more I needed a motor on it.”
With his Benno Bikes like, Baenziger’s goal is to create useful cargo bikes that are compact enough to look and ride like a more conventional bike.
His line has two variations of cargo bikes, the conventional Carry On and electrified Boost E, in a conventional or step-through frame, and the eJoy, his low-step women’s line (the one that’s “cute” and a “beast.”) He believes the women’s utility e-bike market is “extremely underserved.” It has bright colors and a swoopy, low-step frame, but hauls as much as the other bikes.
At Eurobike, Baenziger will introduce the men’s counterpart to the eJoy, the eScout. It’s got a regular step-over frame — “it’s a guy’s bike” — with 27.5-inch big tires.
All of these bikes come with rear racks that can haul 40kg (88 pounds) and optional front racks that’ll carry another 25kg.
Baenziger is already selling his bikes in some international markets, including Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. But he’s trying to fill some big holes, like Germany, the Benelux countries, France, Spain, and others, for which he is seeking distributors.
The Benno Bike line includes a couple of cruiser styles, but for Eurobike he is focusing almost exclusively on his e-cargo bikes, although he will have some conventional cargo bikes on display as well.
He relishes the challenge of creating a bike that is much more complicated than the cruisers he used to make at Electra, but that also has more potential.
“At Electra I could make it comfortable and I could make it beautiful, but they weren’t very practical and they were so hard to ride,” he said.
Focusing on electric utilitarian bikes could help overcome the resistance that many American cyclists have for e-bikes.
“The key part is to get the bike community not to pooh pooh e-bikes.
“When you talk about e-bikes as a bike replacement, you get a lot of resistance,” he continued. “But when you talk about e-bikes as car replacements, everybody understands. My go-to line is always, ‘I don’t care how much or how little exercise you get on an e-bike, you sure get more than in your car.’”
To help draw traffic, Baenziger is planning to give away 25 original Electra catalogs from his and Erforth’s personal collections, including a 10th anniversary edition. Both men will autograph the catalogs.
He’ll hand out raffle tickets at his booth, and give the catalogs away at 5 p.m. on Monday. He says it let him celebrate Electra’s 25th anniversary with Benno Bike’s first appearance at the show.
Baenziger isn’t sure what kind of reception his bike line will receive at Eurobike, but he’s eager to find out.
“Maybe I’m dreaming all of this up, or maybe I’ve got something,” he said. “I’ll find out.”