Deborah Neff on her pink Pedego e-bike, with traveling companion Gigi in the basket.
On a recent Saturday morning at a bike store near The Villages retirement community in Florida, Deborah Neff watched appreciatively as Don DiCostanzo, founder and president of Pedego Electric Bikes, lifted her bike off her car rack for her.
“How many CEOs will take your bike off your car for you?” Neff said. “Don is awesome.”
That small gesture is symbolic of the unique relationship that DiCostanzo and his leadership team at Pedego Electric Bikes have built with their growing e-bike customer base. It is this commitment to creating a unique customer experience that distinguishes Pedego from other e-bike brands. The formula seems to be working. Pedego Electric Bikes is now the largest e-bike retailer in the U.S., with more than 210 stores nationwide and in Canada.
Delighting Their Customers
Don DiCostanzo, CEO of Pedego Electric Bikes, (on right) posing with me at the Pedego Palooza.
“Our vision is different from anyone else in this business,” DiCostanzo said. “We want to make sure we delight our customers. We don’t satisfy them, but we delight them. That’s a much higher bar. You have to make sure that no one disappoints in the pipeline.”
When you buy a Pedego electric bike, you aren’t just buying a bike. You are joining a family of e-bike enthusiasts who love the Pedego brand. Owners can join the Pedego Owners Group (POG) which has “tens of thousands” of members and is adding about 1,000 new members per month, according to DiCostanzo. POG helps build a sense of community among owners.
Many local Pedego stores sponsor group rides and other events for their customers, adding to the special affinity Pedego owners feel toward the company.
“It’s like they (customers) are part of a membership, they’re part of a club or a group,” DiCostanzo said. “I say we’re not a gang; we’re a club. There’s a big difference.”
The Pedego Palooza
Pedego bike owners participated in a group ride during the Pedego Palooza through The Villages.
On that recent Saturday morning in Florida when DiCostanzo, the CEO, helped remove Neff’s pink Pedego Interceptor e-bike from her car, both were in town for one of the signature annual events for Pedego customers. It is called the Pedego Palooza. The company shows its appreciation to customers by bringing its traveling tour van to their town and hosting a fun day of bike riding, sharing lunch together, and socializing. While DiCostanzo doesn’t attend every Palooza event around the country, he or other top officials from Pedego’s California corporate office attend most of them.
About 75 devoted Pedego customers showed up outside the local store, the Pedego Trailwinds Village store in Wildwood, Florida. Store owners Jeff and Sharon Farnham served as the hosts. They just opened the store in January 2022 and already have a devoted and growing following of Pedego customers. They are offering group rides, daily, weekly and monthly e-bike rentals, and hope to start guided e-bike group tours through The Villages soon.
From left, Sharon and Jeff Farnham, owners of the Trailwinds Village Pedego Store; Cynthia Newcomb, Vice President of Business Development; and Don DiCostanzo, CEO of Pedego Electric Bikes.
“We fell in love with the Pedego bikes before we partnered with the Pedego company,” Sharon said. They both come from corporate backgrounds. Jeff and Sharon bought e-bikes from the Pedego store in Greenville, S.C., but only after researching other brands and test riding other bikes.
“For us, it came down to the dealer experience, five-year warranty, and the quality of the product,” Sharon said. “We enjoy riding around and exploring The Villages and regularly do 20 to 30 miles on our Pedego’s which we could never do on a regular bike.”
“Many of our customers have become our good friends,” Sharon said. “We have a lot in common, with our renewed love for biking as well as being outdoors and exploring trails beyond our neighborhoods.”
Pedego offers 19 e-bike models to choose from. Sharon said one rewarding part of their job is matching each customer with the right bike for them.
“We enjoy working with each customer and fitting them on the bike that best fits their riding style and needs. It’s fun to see the smile on their face when they come back from their first ride.”
Her Fourth Palooza This Year
Deborah Neff, from West Palm Beach, poses with her pink Pedego Interceptor.
Neff, who lives in West Palm Beach, typifies the Pedego customer spirit. This was her fourth Palooza to attend this year. While most customers only attend the Palooza event sponsored by their local store, she attends as many as she can.
“It’s all like a family,” Neff said. “You can go to any store and connect instantly because we all love the company and we all love the bikes. They’ve been wonderful.”
Neff is a cheerleader and evangelist for Pedego. Like many other Pedego e-bike owners, she is eager to share why she loves her bike and the company. Along with two Pedego friends, Neff created a private Facebook group for Pedego owners in Florida called Pedego Riders of Florida. The group already has 400+ members. Owners share shop talk about their bikes, photos from recent rides, and talk about their mutual love of e-bikes and Pedego.
Benefits of Pedego’s Store Network
While many other e-bike brands are sold only online, Pedego believes in the value of buying through a local store. Customers benefit by getting advice from the local store staff and being able to test ride bikes before they buy. They like the large inventory of bikes available at each store and how easy the bikes can be customized, including the color. After the sale, customers know they can get warranty work, servicing, and parts from their local Pedego store.
“You can get an e-bike anywhere,” Neff said, “but what I wanted to know is if I get my Pedego, what happens afterwards? I don’t know a thing about (repairing) e-bikes. What if I get in trouble? Who am I going to call? Costco? They aren’t going to be able to help me. The support and service I get from any of the Pedego stores is absolutely overwhelming.”
Tom Hipp, president of the local Pedego E Bike Club in The Villages.
Tom Hipp and his wife Kelly live in The Villages and both ride Pedego Boomerang e-bikes, a model known from its convenient step-through frame design. Tom, 76, said he’s been a serious cyclist for many years and at first resisted the idea of buying an e-bike.
“I said I don’t want anything to do with e-bikes I’m not at that stage of life yet. So I go out one day on a ride. I’m like 15 miles out and the wind starts blowing like a bear.”
DiCostanzo often says the two words that keep people from riding a bike, or enjoying the experience, especially as they age, are the words “hill” and “wind.” Electric bikes overcome these obstacles. They make riding a bike fun again.
Sure enough, after struggling against that strong wind on his bike ride, Hipp decided it was time to start researching e-bikes. He first bought an e-bike from a well-known online seller, but out of curiosity he also visited a local Pedego store. Hipp said he was so impressed that he and Kelly both bought Pedego bikes. What happened to his new online bike from that other company? He shipped it back for a refund.
Hipp is now the chapter president for the POG group at the Trailwinds Village store. Along with the store owners, he also helped establish an official new club in The Villages called the Pedego E Bike Club. It sponsors group rides for members.
E-bikes have expanded travel opportunities for Tom and Kelly. He said they love to ride bike trails and are planning a trip later this year to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail, a popular trail in the mountains of Virginia.
E-Bikes Changed Her Life
Charlene Westman, who now lives in Orlando.
Charlene Westman, a Pedego owner from Orlando, was also at the Palooza event that day. She said buying her first Pedego e-bike, an Interceptor, in 2018 at the Naples store has changed her life for the better. As a single person, the social aspect of being part of a group and being able to participate in group bike rides made a real difference.
Westman said she now loves biking so much that she moved from her long-time home in Naples to Orlando because Central Florida has so many more bike trails to ride. Along with Neff, she is one of the co-founders of the Pedego Riders of Florida Facebook group.
She’s become so addicted to riding her Pedego e-bike that at one point her family was concerned about her.
“I lost my mom in 2018, and for Thanksgiving that year instead of doing it with the family I decided to go on a bike ride,” Westman said. “They asked me if I was OK or depressed, and I said no, I just really like to ride my bike.”
Not long after that, she did her first overnight bike ride on Florida’s Withlacoochee State Trail.
“I started a tradition of doing a retreat,” Westman said. “I would ride every day and clear my mind, and then come back and just think about life and journal and things like that.”
Pedego’s Future
DiCostanzo says his goal has always been to provide the best e-bike customer experience, not necessarily be the largest seller of e-bikes.
“The future in my view is not to be the biggest but to be the best. We don’t have to sell the most amount of electric bikes. We want to be the dominant brand. Not the largest but the dominant brand, top of mind in consumers’ minds.”
Part of the success in building Pedego’s unique customer-centric culture is thanks to the local store owners, DiCostanzo said. Local stores are not franchises but are locally owned under a licensing agreement. DiCostanzo said the store owners are entrepreneurs, most of whom first rented or bought a Pedego bike and only later decided to open a store.
“We don’t advertise to open a Pedego store. If you want to open a Pedego store, you’re going to have to find us on your own. Probably 80 to 90 percent of our store owners started out by renting or buying a Pedego. They were already passionate about the brand.”
Cynthia Newcomb, Vice President of Business Development for Pedego, said store growth is continuing at a rapid pace.
“We’re opening new stores every single week,” Newcomb said. “We will open between 50 and 60 stores this year.”
DiCostanzo said even he is sometimes surprised by the continued rapid growth of the company, but he believes Pedego’s unique culture and focus on the customer relationship play a prominent role in this success.
“This (culture) has worked well for us. An online guy certainly can’t do this. A chain like REI can’t do this. Who else can do this? We’re perfectly suited for this, for creating that special owners’ group culture.”
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