Safe and Durable Homes for Bikes
BikeKeeper capitalizing on growing U.S. cycling community
A Finnish bicycle rack company wants to capitalize on increasing bicycle use in the United States by changing the way that Americans park their bikes.
BikeKeeper, started in Helsinki in 2006, has had operations in Lake Worth, Florida, since 2016, when its founder and CEO Juho Sillanpää relocated to nearby Wellington, Florida. Well established in Europe, BikeKeeper is in startup mode in the United States with a staff of five, including Sillanpää, as it works to make connections, create friendships and begin marketing its line of bike racks (or bike parking solutions, as the company calls them), bike shelters and outdoor furniture.
“Everybody understands the bicycle is the best transportation in most areas, including the United States, as long as it is safe,” Sillanpää says. “You have to have a safe bicycle path, and also the bike parking has to be safe.”
Racks, Shelters and Furniture
BikeKeeper has created racks with modular, patented configurations, making it easy to build a bicycle parking solution of any size. Many of the base modules are free-standing and can be easily removed for maintenance or remodeling. Wall-mounted vertical space-saver racks and vertical free-standing racks are also available.
The company’s bike shelters provide a covered area for parking. “We decided to make shelters that are kind of extensions of our existing products, which already have proven track records,” Sillanpää says, with an emphasis on stopping bike theft, promoting safety and supporting the cycling community. The shelters, which Sillanpää says are hurricane-resistant, are designed specifically for outdoor use and have a clear or shaded polycarbonate roof that is lighter and more durable than glass.
Outdoor furniture includes tables and benches, picnic tables, trash receptacles and ashtrays, and even laundry racks.
BikeKeeper products are particularly suited for apartment communities, office buildings and hospitals, parks and recreation facilities, colleges and universities, schools, businesses, and railway and bus stations—basically anywhere people might need to park a bicycle.
Aesthetics play a major factor in BikeKeeper products. If bike parking areas look good and people use them in high-traffic areas, this can discourage theft, Sillanpää says. BikeKeeper shelters “provide a lot of protection, and are really, really good-looking. They can upgrade any building,” he adds. One of the company’s major outreaches has been to architects and designers asking that they specify BikeKeeper products in their plans.
Durability is also key for BikeKeeper products, which are made of thick-walled, high-quality pure steel. They are hot-dip galvanized inside and out and then powder-coated, and are designed to last up to 100 years, rust-free, Sillanpää says. The products are currently manufactured in Europe and imported to the United States, but Sillanpää says “we’re looking forward to finding some American companies to make our products.” However, U.S. manufacturers must be able to deliver the required quality.
Expansion in the U.S.
BikeKeeper already has clients in the United States and is currently in active negotiations nationwide with about 30 municipalities and agencies, Sillanpää says.
“We have several local clients and long-term contracts nationwide with municipalities and private enterprises,” says Olga Smith, who serves as business operations manager.
Sillanpää is encouraged by the growing bicycle market in the United States. According to estimates from the American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 850,000 Americans currently use bicycles to commute to work.
“All the small towns here, they have a budget already for increasing bicycle use,” Sillanpää says.
Sillanpää’s oldest daughter, Kateriina Sillanpää, works for the company as an international messenger between BikeKeeper operations in the European Union and the United States.
Creating Solutions
The idea for BikeKeeper began when Sillanpää, who had a successful career in real estate and property and building management, become a stay-at-home father. On a walk with his daughter and their dog, he passed a celebration in front of a recently renovated rental housing project. “And it was beautiful, everything was OK,” he says. “Except, I saw no good bike parking solutions. There were broken bikes or bikes without the front wheel or back wheel. Many of them were hooked on old-fashioned front-wheel bike stands.”
Sillanpää saw a problem that nobody else noticed. “There was a feeling that it’s a normal thing that bikes are just available for people to steal them. There were no good bike racks and no interest to invest a little bit for the better products,” he says.
He began researching bike security, traveling all over Finland. “I went to different cities. I met with many people. I spoke with normal people who used bicycles and the people who lived in rental housing and contracting companies. I tried to collect as much information as possible,” Sillanpää says. He began to understand that there was little focus on stopping bike thefts.
Sillanpää, who studied civil engineering in Finland, designed what he felt was a better bike rack system: well-designed, well-made, frame-locking bicycle racks that are easy for cyclists to use and also enhance the environment of the spaces where they are installed.
Soon after receiving his first patent, he called the city of Helsinki’s transportation department to see if its leaders would be interested. He was invited to a meeting that same day. He thought to himself, “This is going to change everything in the bicycle parking world.”
“I drove there as fast as I could,” he recalls. He decided on the name BikeKeeper because it “tells what the products are made for,” he says.
“They decided to buy the product on the spot. My jaw dropped,” he says. The official told him, “We can’t take just you, but you will be one of the companies we start to buy from right away for connection parking” at local train stations, where people leave their bikes and need safe parking.
On his way home, Sillanpää passed a recreation venue with all kinds of sports activities. “The whole front yard was full of those ‘dead bikes’ without wheels, so I stopped to see the manager of this building and asked if he would be interested in having a safe bicycle park there. He said, ‘Of course.’ I showed him the drawing and told him, ‘The city of Helsinki is buying this, what about you?’ And he said, ‘Definitely, this looks wonderful.’ So I made a deal with him, too.”
Soon after, he also sold a BikeKeeper system to his own gym.
From there, BikeKeeper began to snowball, Sillanpää says, and he began to get bigger clients, such as university student housing developments. “Most of those organizations in Finland have bought our product for every existing house they have, inside and outside, to provide safe bicycle parking to their tenants,” he says. The Finnish student housing associations also began to mandate that BikeKeeper products be specified in the plans for any new housing.
He chose to expand BikeKeeper in the United States, rather than continue to concentrate on bicycle-friendly Europe, where the company continues to prosper, because it would be a challenge, he says. “I want to do something really big, one more time. I’m 58 now, and I feel like this is something nobody has done,” he concludes.