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Bikes With A Kick Keep This Business Electric

HAZEL PARK (WWJ) - A local electric bike company is sparking new excitement as the alternative to pure pedal power.

As WWJ's Mike Campbell reports -while the auto companies work to reign in an electric car audience, the electric bike is harnessing the image of a solid way to make your way to the office or back home after a long ride.

John Hall is founder of Amp Brothers Electric Cycle Inc. in Hazel Park and says the market is the key to this unique brand's success.

Electric Bk 2
John Hall.

Leave the younger audience to the big box stores, skip the sport enthusiasts because it's not their thing and focus on commuters and the aging population. "Pedaling is not at all discouraged, it enhances your range, it gets you the exercise you want and can do," Hall said.

"A lot of folks with some semblance of an injury or disease, COPD or emphysema - a bad hip; they could ride so much but they never know when things are going to go south, this way they can get home, " said Hall. "A commuter can get to work without being a sweaty mess when he or she gets there."

'Plugging into some fun' also comes at a consumer friendly starting price of around $650.

Hall says the small motor on the bike runs about $400 - in addition to the price of actual bike, but you can spend as much as $15,000.

He says he's seen sales of his bike with an electric kick have increased as much as 10 - 40 percent every year since 2003.

The company has been around about a decade, and Hall says they don't sell electric bikes -- they sell "bikes with an electric kick."

Find more information about the bikes with a kick [HERE].

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