Bay Area Innovators Series: Zack Rosen of Mission Bicycles

Continuing with our Bay Area Innovators series, where PSFK chat with Bay Area-based entrepreneurs about their innovative new businesses, we bring you Zack Rosen. We met Zack last month while we were out in San Francisco; he is the co-founder of Mission Bicycles, an online retailer that builds custom fixed gear bikes. We asked Zack to tell us a little bit about his company and what makes fixed gear bikes so special.

What is Mission Bikes?

We build custom fixed gear city bikes. Our customers choose the components and colors they want and we build them their dream bicycle. We conceived the company in November, staffed up in March, and have fulfilled over a hundred orders since April. Our website has pictures of our bikes and a blog with a lot of the back story

Why did you start the company?

Last summer I was sitting in a park in San Francisco admiring really beautiful bicycles people were riding in on and started wondering aloud with friends why bike stores in the city were not selling bikes nearly as nice as the ones we were seeing on the streets. There wasn’t a good answer, bike companies simply didn’t manufacture them. Idle talk about starting a company that could build custom bikes turned in to soggy napkin planning and before long we were taking our first orders from friends.

What makes bikes from San Francisco unique?

Custom fixed gear city bikes are not a San Francisco only thing, they are becoming popular in cities all over the US and increasingly over seas. Aesthetically they are very ‘clean’ looking, eschewing big branding and having a minimum set of components; one or no sets of brakes and no derailleur. There are website galleries of tens of thousands of hand assembled fixed gear bikes:

www.fixedgeargallery.com
www.velospace.org

What is it about fixed gear bikes that cause owners to develop such close relationships with them?

The best way to understand is to try riding one. It’s a very different experience from riding a ‘hybrid’ bike typically recommended for city biking. The geometry of the bicycle frame and the direct drive connection you have with the road makes it a much more involved experience. I personally went riding just to get around San Francisco and not particularly enjoying it to falling in love with cycling after starting to ride a fixed gear bicycle.

Thanks Zack!

Mission Bicycles

Check out what other SF entrepreneurs are doing:

Ramit Sethi of “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”
Gustaf Alströmer of heysan!
Joe Gebbia of AirBed & Breakfast
Ben Finkel of Fluther.com

San Francisco & Entrepeneurialism