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Q. Did you have any connections in Detroit?

A. I don’t really have any connections, although I think five generations ago my family on the Czech side came through Detroit.

Q. You were pretty successful here in Calgary. To pick up everything and go to Detroit surprised a lot of people here. Why did you decide to start a bike company there?

A. I think it’s an emerging market. In the research I did going into the election, I started noticing this trend of urban cycling. I realized how negative building a city to a car scale could be, and how important it is to try and get away from that as much as possible — I’m not saying to completely do away with cars. We need them. But some of the more successful urban areas have different ways to get around. And there need to be bikes on the market that are built for that purpose. Simple, basic bikes made to be ridden around a city; not mountain bikes, not racing bikes. You don’t necessarily need them to be made of carbon fibre, or cost $3,000. You need something sturdy, cheap and reliable and I didn’t find a lot of those bikes on the market. So it looked like a growing segment of the market. There are consumers, but the bike industry hasn’t caught up to that yet.

Q. Was there a reason you thought Detroit was a better place to manufacture bikes than Calgary?

A. The bikes came about because of Detroit. I wasn’t thinking that I wanted to manufacture bikes, and what city I could do that in. I had a general interest in Detroit and what was going on there. I realized I felt compelled to be here and figured out what I could best do in this city to have a positive impact.