Smolan ? Pioneer Bike isn’t a big wheel in the bicycle world — yet. That’s OK, say Ed Morgan and his partners.

The retail giants of the industry, brands such as Trek and Giant, aren’t targeting the electric-assisted bicycle market precisely because of their size, Morgan said. They make enough money off of regular bikes.

“We just want an ‘in.’ If we get a 2 to 5 percent share of the market, we’ll be very happy,” Morgan said, standing with a couple of models of his company’s e-ko- bikes.

The e-ko- bike looks like a fat-tired cousin of a standard mountain bike, the main difference being a pair of lithium ion batteries mounted on the rear fender. The batteries combine to generate the 20 amps needed to power the motor, which is mounted on the bike’s downtube.

As handsome and rugged as the bike looks, it’s just as much fun and easy to ride. A thumb lever controls the throttle to the electric motor that whisks you silently along at a speed of up to 20 miles an hour, with no requirement to pedal.

A 12-hour charge from any wall socket is good for 35 miles without pedaling. The suggested retail price is $1,600. There are two models — a sport model with a cross-tube frame, like a traditional boy’s bike, and a leisure model without the cross tube, a lower step-through model like a traditional girl’s bicycle.

Business backgrounds

Morgan and his partner Chuck Macormic have been friends for 22 years, going back to their days working for frozen food giant Schwan’s at the Tony’s Pizza plant in Salina. Macormic also worked for about 12 years for Blue Beacon in Salina.

In both jobs Macormic, a Marine veteran with an electronics background, managed people and manufacturing processes.

“I’m a guy who putters with stuff. I’ve built my own motorcycles before,” he said.

For nine years, Morgan has owned and operated his own commercial cleaning business. Two years ago, Macormic, who was splitting time living with a mutual friend of his and Morgan’s in Shanghai, China, and New Orleans, came to Morgan with five electric bicycle prototypes he’d helped create.

“I went and rode them around and was sold,” Morgan said. “Between the three of us (another investor in the business lives in Las Vegas), we invested money, and we’ve been going since Memorial Day weekend of 2009.”

Recently their company received its first shipment from China of 159 e-ko- bikes, based on a design Macormic, Pioneer’s CEO and founder, helped create from scratch.

“If the economy was as good as it was five years ago, we probably wouldn’t have had a chance to get involved in a business like this,” Macormic said. “A down economy is a good opportunity for entrepreneurs like us. It’s not cost effective for bigger companies to jump in.”

Researching electric bikes

Several years ago nearly all the electric bikes in the United States were copies of bicycles being built for Europe, he said. Pioneer chose to design and invest in an electric bike more suited for the U.S. market — one made for heavier riders that has more power and can go longer distances.

The majority of older electric bikes featured a 250-, maybe a 300-watt motor, and were pedal-assisted, meaning the rider had to pedal to help the motor along.

Pioneer incorporated a 500-watt motor in the e-ko- bike that can propel a 200-pound rider, without pedaling, on a flat, smooth surface, for more than 30 miles and still have battery power left, Macormic said.

The entire bike, with batteries attached, weighs 65 pounds. The batteries are guaranteed to last up to five years.

Macormic said he drove across the southern United States visiting literally hundreds of bike shops to research what dealers and consumers desired in an electric bicycle.

“It actually qualifies as a car replacement in many situations,” he said. Macormic expects the most enthusiastic adopters to be university communities, state and national parks and municipal government agencies.

“The people who have come up to me unsolicited have been the RV crowd,” he said. “They put bikes on the back of their recreational vehicles. This gives a lot of people a lot more opportunity to use a bicycle.”

Another way to get around

Macormic begs to differ with skeptics who question what the point is of an electric bicycle if you’re not pedaling. Even without pedaling, it takes exercise to maintain balance on the bike, he said, and most riders will experiment with pedaling and adjusting the six-speed gear shifter to see how they can go farther on less battery power.

Pioneer Bike plans to sell four of its initial shipment of bikes through Salina’s Bike Tek, 660 S. Ohio.

Locally, Salina police now say electric-assisted bicycles are legal to ride on the street.

According to state law, riders of the machines are not required to register the bicycles and can operate them without a driver’s license.

The Salina law firm that helped Pioneer incorporate is advertising the bicycle business to its clients convicted of driving under the influence as an alternative form of transportation.