Like many students on St. Patrick’s Day, senior Brendan Blume was up all night splitting time between Brown Street and the student neighborhoods. But unlike anyone else, instead of walking it, he was flagging pedestrians down asking if they wanted to ride on the back of his bike.

As a co-owner of Blume Brothers Pedicab, based in Chicago and less than a year old, Blume brought the pedicab to campus in March. He works Thursdays to Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m., when he’s not on duty as an RA in Stuart. It’s just him and a 21-gear bicycle with a carriage-like seat attached.

“When (passengers) get on it they think they’re kings of the world,” Blume said. Entire parties turn and cheer when they see his bike and passengers go by. “It’s like chariots of fire.”Blume, 21, started the business with his 24-year-old brother last summer because neither had a job. Instead of continuing their job search, they looked into buying a pedicab bicycle, of which there are only about 50 in Chicago.

“It was a turning point in my life,” Blume said. “We said, ‘Let’s do something new, something clean’.”

They were attracted to the idea because it could fill transportation needs in an environmentally friendly way. They also liked the idea of being their own boss.

“We started a snow shoveling business when we were young, we’ve always been entrepreneurs,” Blume said. “We were both home schooled so we have the drive inside of us. We don’t need to have a teacher telling us what to do.”

On the suggestion of their father, also an entrepreneur, the brothers signed a notarized agreement about the business. They bought insurance and a bike with operating break lights and turn signals in the dark.

Their goal was to make the 81 home games for the Chicago Cubs and hit as many Chicago White Sox games as they could. Both being water polo players and feeling fit, the Blumes weren’t ready for what pulling around the weight of two or three people does to a person’s body.

“The first week it was so hard because it is a strain on your body, no matter how in shape you are,” Blume said. They decided not to stick to their original plan of riding every day.

The brothers did work enough to increase their business by three bikes and hired more riders in Chicago. Their goal for this summer is to double their business. Though they do not have set ride prices, it’s usually never more than $10 for all riders combined.

They work when most students would be out with friends, like New Year’s Eve, but Blume said as he pedals he forgets he’s working.

“You won’t look at it as a job. You’re riding and you’re having a conversation with the passengers.”

While the partners do face some problems with the economy, like having difficulty obtaining loans, Blume said he brought the business to Dayton hoping to help students’ economic troubles improve.

“With the state the economy is in, we want to create jobs,” Blume said. “We can give students rides while creating jobs for them.”

Blume will be riding around campus until next December, when he plans to graduate with an accounting degree. He’s looking for employees for the business so it can continue when he moves back to Chicago.

“I’m going to ride full-time until I stop having fun, which won’t happen.”

Jennie Szink

News Editor

Among the experiences that make one go “Eek!,” tooling around Manhattan in a rickshaw ranks high, falling somewhere between a cab ride during rush hour and walking through Times Square after the theaters let out. Some of the bike-drawn buggies come equipped with seat belts; others don’t. You decide your threshold of thrill.

“There’s a real rush going through traffic,” said Jacob Press, a tour guide with the Manhattan Rickshaw Co., the longest continuously operating pedicab outfit in New York City. “We can always find a way through.”

I have explored the City That Never Stops by foot, bus and bike. But on a recent trip, I wanted to sightsee in a vehicle that was intimate with the urban landscape but didn’t require any energy expenditure. So I called Manhattan Rickshaw a few days before my visit and booked Press and his quads.

Rickshaws are pervasive in Asia, where the economical bicycles with big back seats jostle for space among mopeds, cars, beasts of burden and swarms of pedestrians. In the United States, they’re more of a novelty than a necessity but are a rousing ride nonetheless. Though passengers are not as vulnerable as the biker, they’re still thrust into the chaotic street scene.

“It’s a combination of entertainment and transportation,” said Manhattan Rickshaw owner Peter Meitzler, who was instrumental in bringing pedicabs to New York. “It’s fun and environmental and fills a niche.”

In 1994, he and a group of entrepreneurs brought a dozen pedicabs to Manhattan, a nervy experiment in a city so dependent on taxis. To drum up interest, the rides were free. Today, a number of companies send nearly 500 pedicabs onto the streets. The taxi alternatives, which can be hailed on nearly every busy corner, charge $15 to $40 for a 10- to 30-minute ride.

In Central Park, where I met my driver, pedicabs congregate alongside horse-drawn carriages, vying for passengers with a romantic streak. Some operators also employ licensed guides capable of pedaling, pointing and narrating without crashing.

“We cover a lot of ground,” Press told me as I climbed into the 150-pound contraption, stashing my bags in a small compartment. “In the pedicab, you can see the landscape change and are close enough to see New Yorkers in their daily life.” (Press and I vaguely discussed price and route beforehand. My only request for the 90-minute tour was to cruise through Times Square during rush hour; he balked, then conceded.)

Currently a full-time law school student, the 29-year-old New Yorker also has a master’s degree in urban planning and was keen to share his advanced-degree education. “You see layers of the city,” he said while pedaling away, his steady voice cutting through the street noise. “It’s looking forward and backward.”

In my case, I was hoping Press would spend more time glancing forward, at the oncoming traffic, than back, at me. We started with a breezy spin through Central Park, where he singled out the “Ghostbusters” building and Sheep Meadow, named for the lawnmowers of yore. As we exited the park and joined the stream of traffic, staying to the far left, Press described the passing structures, his eyes ping-ponging between me, the sites under discussion (e.g., the Plaza, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trump Tower) and the surrounding bedlam. “We’re faster than traffic,” he said, swooshing around a double-parked minivan, then seamlessly returning to the bike lane.

Seated on a padded bench protected by elbow-high sides and a convertible canopy, I felt as if I was nestled in a cocoon and was at ease enough to give Press 90 percent of my attention. (The remaining 10 percent was busy being a back-seat driver: “Parked car on left!” “Pothole ahead!” “New Jersey plates coming at you!”)

“We’ve had fender benders, but no fatalities,” he said. Well, that was comforting.

From the Central Park area, Press cruised through Midtown and cut through the heart of Times Square. At 45th Street, he removed the top, and with clear skies over my head, I watched the giant faces of billboard models float by like clouds. At a red light, I eavesdropped on sidewalk life, listening to a couple discuss their theater options. I wanted to grab their newspaper and circle “Xanadu,” but the light turned green.

Onward we coasted, through a living documentary of landmark structures (the Chrysler Building, the New York Public Library, the Flatiron Building), complete with narrative. Press never gasped for breath or faltered for topics. He explained such architectural designs as art deco detailing and cornices. (“They make you feel so cozy and warm.”) Then he riffed on ill-behaved drivers. “I’ve given up on out-of-town cars,” he said, referring to a sedan from Maryland that cut us off. After a Jersey driver gave us the middle-finger salute, I asked him about vehicular abuse. “I’ve had coffee thrown on me,” he said, “and almost got doored.”

When we reached Greenwich Village, about 50 blocks from Central Park, Press steered us onto narrow streets girdled by centuries-old buildings. We stopped briefly to peer through the nondescript door of a former speakeasy, then hopped back into our respective seats for a spin through SoHo and Little Italy, where Press’s description of the clam pies at Lombardi’s (America’s first pizzeria) made me wonder if he was carb deficient.

Evening was now approaching, and Press started heading uptown. As we crawled through Chinatown, the smells of dinner scenting the air, Press pointed out one final attraction: the spot where he almost got smacked by a car door.

The service would link key downtown areas, like Pine Avenue, the Pike at Rainbow Harbor, the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and the East Village Arts District. Rides would cost $1 for every 1/10 of a mile as measured by an odometer on each pedicab.

Proponents of the cabs believe they can help alleviate parking and traffic congestion problems while enhancing the downtown atmosphere for pedestrians.

“It adds to the ambiance and environment of our growing downtown and provides a unique service for visitors to gain a different perspective,” said Kraig Kojian, president and CEO of the Downtown Long Beach Associates, which began courting pedicab operators several years ago.

The application was filed by Long Beach Pedicabs LLC, a subsidiary of Colorado-based Main Street Pedicabs. The company will lease the cabs to the drivers, who will act as independent businesses. The company also will sell advertising space on the cabs, the main source of revenue for the operation.

Main Street Pedicabs manages fleets in New York, Chicago, Orlando and Denver, said Steve Meyer, the company’s president. The company also manufactures and sells the cabs to more than 50 international cities including Montreal, London, Milan and Sydney. Meyer said downtown Long Beach is a good place for the cabs.

“With the Pike and the new developments along Pine Avenue, there is a lot of drawing power for the downtown area and those people need to get around,” he said.

Pedicabs have proliferated in a number of cities in the last decade, Meyer said, but not without some opposition.

Once viewed solely as a novelty, the pedicabs have come to fill a transportation niche, covering distances too short for traditional taxi rides but too long for some people to walk, Meyer said. There are now more than 200 pedicabs pedaling around midtown Manhattan in New York, up from a handful a decade ago.

“They offer something that really is not filled by all other transit modes,” Meyer said. “They wouldn’t exist if not for the fact they are needed.”

But concerns about traffic safety and uninsured operators have limited pedicabs elsewhere, including in Las Vegas. Last year, the city outlawed the vehicles along the Las Vegas Strip, citing accidents and complaints from taxi drivers.

Meyer said problems arise from a lack of regulation concerning the pedicab drivers, as well as their equipment.
Long Beach pedicab drivers will be required to obtain a driver’s permit from the police department and have an individual business license. Long Beach Pedicabs has a tentative agreement for insurance with McKay Insurance Agency, an Iowa-based company that insures more than 30 pedicab companies.

Meyer said the 21-speed, two- and three-passenger pedicabs his company produces are specifically designed for safe street use.

“It’s a single-piece frame with hydraulic brakes,” he said. “It’s not a bicycle hauling a trailer.”

Meyer said the pedicabs could be operating in downtown Long Beach as early as March 1. Initially, there will be four cabs with the number gradually increased to 20 by the end of the first year. Any further increase would require City Council approval.

The service will operate from 7 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. daily. Most of the pedicab trips are likely to originate and terminate along Pine Avenue, Meyer said. Pickup and drop off will be limited to designated passenger-loading zones. Pedicabs cannot operate on sidewalks.

Content provided courtesy gazettes.com.