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Enterprise Wheeling and dealing take on new meaning at Gold ‘N West

Sid Gowdy, owner and designer at North Park-based Gold ‘N West, measures his success on a slightly different scale.

Sure, he’s done well peddling three-wheelers with a Rube Goldberg-esque feel to them. But the true mark of his success is that he enjoys what he does.

Gowdy designs and builds three-wheeled bicycles. These, however, aren’t kiddie trikes , they’re constructed out of tempered aircraft aluminum and can go more than 45 mph on the road.

Technically, Gowdy’s “Tri-Cruiser” is a recumbent tricycle. But that description doesn’t fully capture the whimsy behind it.

“(It has) the right combination of efficiency, durability, and Rube Goldberg,” Gowdy said. “Everybody thinks it’s cute , it’s so totally unthreatening.”

That, plus the ease of operation has helped Gowdy’s product sell itself. With very little advertising, the company had revenues of $400,000 in 2000 and expects to make $550,000 in 2001, he said.

The revenue streams at Gold ‘N West come from sales of the Tri-Cruisers, and trike rentals in tourist destinations such as Balboa Park, Mission Bay and Coronado. Recently, at the instigation of Gowdy’s girlfriend and business partner Tonja Roman, he added yet another revenue stream , Tri-Cruiser tours.

“I like that one because that’s endlessly renewable. I don’t have to mark up my knuckles building bikes; I can just take them out on these tours and get some fresh air,” Gowdy said.

Several Advantages

There are several advantages to the bike tours. The program has very little overhead, because the bikes are very durable and require little maintenance. And the program practically runs itself, since the hotels set up the tours and collect the money, he said.

Gowdy founded Gold ‘N West in February 1999, after about nine years of designing bicycles for his own use. His nascent bicycle company began, interestingly enough, after he got into a car accident in November 1989.

At the time, he was making his living as a musician. But his injuries made performing painful and he had to stop, he said.

It took Gowdy 18 months to fully recover. That time was depressing for him because he had $40,000 worth of medical bills , and as a musician, he didn’t have insurance. To make matters worse, he couldn’t do many of the things he liked doing.

“I used to love to speed-walk, and ride bikes, and couldn’t , couldn’t support my weight on the bike, or if I tipped to the side where I had the most damage in my leg, then it was very painful. So all the time I was up on the bike, I was scared to death I was going to fall off,” he said.

‘Gawky Thing’

The solution was to design a bicycle that wouldn’t tip over , a three-wheeler. Gowdy drew on his earlier experience designing and flying hang gliders from 1979 to 1985, recycling old hang glider parts to come up with his first prototype , which he called a “gawky thing.”

But it worked. In the early stages of his recovery, he pedaled the trike in the lowest of the five gears, then as his health improved, he gradually went to higher gears. And as he was able to cover the same amount of ground in less and less time, he knew he was getting better, he said.

Between riding his bike and fixing up the car he damaged in the accident, that was excellent therapy, Gowdy said.

By the time his 44th birthday rolled around in June 1991, he decided he was healed enough that he would stop talking about his “bad leg.”

About that time, he resolved to build a new prototype in which he incorporated all the lessons he’d learned from the first one. The new trike got a lot of attention , everyone would always approach him, wanting to try it out, Gowdy said.

People always had suggestions on what he could do to make the tricycle better, and he took their suggestions to heart in building the third prototype in January 1992.

Emerging Design

The right design gradually emerged. The frame is an equilateral triangle, low to the ground, with two wheels in front and one drive wheel behind for improved steering. The seat is mounted in dead center of the triangle, for maximum stability. Braking, steering and gear changes are all handled through a joystick.

Once again, people would ask him about the trike , but now, they wanted to buy it. Gowdy sold a few trikes over the next few years, but didn’t consider himself to be in the bike business. Instead, he still viewed himself as a musician.

In February 1999, he added a suspension system , and knew he had come up with a winner. That’s when Gowdy entered the bike business for real.

The basic price of the Tri-Cruiser is $650. Since Gowdy custom builds each one, he can also add other features, including a baby seat, speedometer, adjustable seat and windshield, he said.

So far, Tri-Cruiser sales have all been direct. People who see Gowdy or part-time sales rep Ernie Antinori tooling around town become intrigued enough to ask about the trike, and some of them go so far as to buy it.

However, Gowdy hasn’t had much luck with bike stores. He has been able to get the Tri-Cruiser into some stores , such as The Bicycle Clinic in Tierrasanta , and they have attracted interest. But they haven’t sold there, he said.

Gowdy said it’s possible bike store owners don’t know how to push it. Also, potential customers don’t know what to make of the Tri-Cruiser unless there’s already a rider on it who can show them how to operate it.

Securing Patent

Gowdy is in the process of securing a design patent, in hopes of licensing the design to major manufacturers within five years. He stresses, however, it’s too early to talk about specifics.

Still, the important thing is not to over-reach. It’s the designing and building stage that interests Gowdy the most, far more so than anything else.

“My biggest challenge is to remain (where) everything is fun with this as I possibly can , trying to avoid big production, and things like that,” Gowdy said. “The temptation of it , the potential for power and all the things that finances bring , it’s very easy to get lost in that stuff.”

Whether there is a market for a three-wheeler remains to be seen. Their appeal is limited, said Mark Boufford, director of product development for Pacific Cycle, which owns Mongoose.

“Given our channel of distribution, which is primarily mass merchant, I’d see no place for a three-wheeled recumbent bicycle in our business structure,” he said.

Gowdy disagrees. From his own experience, people are receptive to the design, always stopping him to ask about the Tri-Cruiser.

Time For A Change

The basic design of the bicycle hasn’t changed in more than a century, and people are ready for something different, he added.

Antinori also believes the Tri-Cruiser will do well. He became a part-time sales rep for Gold ‘N West almost by accident , he had bought a trike for himself and liked it so much he wanted to promote it, he said.

Antinori also noted that most recumbent bicycles are fairly expensive, since they aren’t mass-produced. But because Gowdy’s overhead is so low, the Tri-Cruiser can be sold at a competitive price.

“It’s a great machine that he’s put together. I really believe that it can go somewhere,” he said. “I think he’s got something.”

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