“How many times have you found yourself in need of a tube, flat repair kit, or pump and the local bicycle shop was closed?”

On July 1st, Trek installed the very first Trek Stop in front of Machinery Row Bicycles in Madison, Wisconsin. It didn’t take long before it caught the attention of locals and bloggers a like, and word of mouth spread. What is a Trek Stop you might ask? The Trek Stop is a vending machine for basic bicycle parts, anything from patch kits, spare tubes and chain lube to water bottles and energy bars and gels. The kiosk sports a bike repair stand and floor pump to aid in the repair of a flat or perhaps a busted chain. If you’re not sure how to repair your bike, a video in the kiosk will serve as a guide for minor repairs such as flat repair.

The lone kiosk in the pilot program sits outside of Machinery Row Bicycles in Madison (the largest metropolotian city closest to Waterloo, Trek’s headquarters). And is slated to run for the remainder of the summer before Trek evaluates it’s success.

We caught up with Rebecca Anderson, director of advocacy for Trek’s ‘One World, Two Wheels’ campaign and Michael Hammond, Trek Design Engineer to find out more about the program.

What prompted the Trek Stop program?
Rebecca - Trek Stop is not meant to replace a local bike shop, but rather just be an extension of one. Auto drivers have all sorts of support from service stations to tow trucks but there isn’t much for cyclists so the Trek Stop is meant to help fill a gap.

Michael - Trek Stop is a direct result of user research. Trek’s ACG and Industrial Design groups spend a lot of time talking to real cyclists to understand needs. With the data we get from our users, we generate new concepts - some of the concepts go to production, some do not.

How long is this pilot program slated to run for?
Rebecca - We’ll keep it running through August and figure and decide from there.

What will make it a success?
Michael - So far it has been success. Its everywhere on the blogs, etc. The response has been all positive, people are excited. People understand it, just as you need gas stations on a highway, you should have Trek Stops on a bike path. Every time I am at the trek stop and someone sees it for the first time I always hear, “Wow, that’s cool!”.

Any plans to roll it out in other cities, either as part of the pilot program or a more permanent program?

Rebecca - We’ve had inquiries about the Trek Stop from all over the country. We’ll evaluate the outcomes in September and decide what next steps should be but so far the feedback is very encouraging.

Michael - It is still unknown - We need to take all the research data from this first prototype and start to rethink the Trek Stop. What does it really need to be/what features are necessary? From there we can design Trek Stop 2.0 - and then implement these in other cities.

Is it Trek stocked, or LBS stocked?
Michael - Right now Machinery Row is stocking the machine and gets any profits from it. (They are also paying the electricity bill for it!)

We definitely like the concept of a vending machine kiosk for cyclists… This could be extremely useful if placed in the right places in many cities across the country. And the 24 hour availability should appeal to early morning riders as well as late evening riders… We’ll check back in with Rebecca and Michael in the fall to see what happens next, but so far, we like what we see.

Have something to add, or want to chime in with your thoughts? We welcome comments below!