Flat tire? Dead battery? Speedy’s serves stranded Seattle riders as a quicker e-bike picker-upper

If you’ve ever tried to lift and fit a big, heavy e-bike into the back of a car, Tyler Swartz feels your pain, and went to work on a solution.

Swartz, a Seattle native and cycling enthusiast, is the founder of Speedy’s, a roadside service for e-bike owners who are stranded by a flat tire, dead battery, or some other breakdown and need their bike transported to a shop for repair.

Speedy’s doesn’t do the fixing, but it does the heavy lifting, promising a 90-minute emergency response time.

The idea came to Swartz after he was laid off from his product manager job at Reddit in 2023 — during parental leave with his third child. While using his e-bike as the family errand and adventure wagon, he realized how hard it was to get the bulky machine to a bike shop if it stopped working. His brother pitched the idea of AAA for e-bikes — all he would need is a truck.

“My initial reaction was, ‘Wow, that sounds like driving a truck around,'” Swartz told GeekWire. “Doesn’t sound fun. Doesn’t sound like a sexy software solution.”

But the more he wrapped his head around the problem, the more he liked the idea of serving a community of e-bike enthusiasts in a city that values sustainability.

He launched Speedy’s in 2024 after purchasing an electric cargo van outfitted inside for e-bike transport and wrapped in pink outside with his branding. Two years later the bootstrapped service has attracted more than 325 active members and completed 384 trips across 1,900 miles with a team of five drivers.

Speedy’s is partnering with several Seattle-area bike shops, which are offering a free trial of the service with a new bike purchase. Swartz said it was important to him to convey that he was not out to steal the shops’ business — he wanted to help get customers back to shops.

The service costs $99 per year — covering all bikes in a family — and is good for up to six pickups. Speedy’s handles emergency calls and scheduled ones which can be arranged 24 hours in advance with the company’s calendar tool.

Speedy’s covers a big area across Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Bothell, and surrounding communities. And it guarantees its 90-minute response from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. It’s been on time for every call it’s received so far.

Beyond the website, the user-experience is mostly text-based. Swartz did create a feature where he sends customers a link that tracks the location of the Speedy’s van, for an Uber-like experience as they wait.

Swartz is excited about Seattle’s robust e-bike market, especially with Washington state’s e-bike rebate program, which started accepting applications this week and will begin random selections on April 13.

His goal is to get to 600 customers this year so he can start paying himself. His long-term vision is to be in 30 cities across North America, serving 225,000 members.

“It’s just slow and steady growing,” Swartz said. “In software you’re used to nothing, nothing, and then it really accelerates. With local services, it’s slow and steady.”