RAD Power bikes rolls out its new Santa Barbara location with pop up sales and free rides

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - RAD bikes is not waiting until its building project is finished to start selling the full line of ebikes its bringing to town.
RAD saws the buying demand in the Santa Barbara area with online sales and identified the area as a solid location for a storefront.
Work is underway at the site, an old paint building on 132 East Montecito Street in the Funk Zone.  In the meantime, RAD employees are in the parking lot with bikes, information and test rides.
RAD was also a featured vendor for the recent Earth Day festival.
The new site is expected to be open in June, but in the meantime, parking lot sales have introduced the bike maker to the market.   
Recently the building had a lit sign installed, and its caught the eye of drivers stuck in traffic on the freeway.  Some have veered off and come by to learn more about the bikes and pricing.

   The popularity of electric bikes has surged in recent years and the demand is still in high gear.

Josh Holley at RAD power bikes says the riders have responded enthusiastically. "Most of the time they don't  even make it out of the parking lot and you hear them laugh because it is that changing, they don't expect to have that feeling."
Holley says working from the containers he can keep a flow of bikes available, "so now we can hold 54 bikes in one container and we can do 27 built bikes in another containers so when we have a customer show up the first question  asked is 'how long is it going to take?' We say as long a it takes you to check out. "
  Around Santa Barbara electric bikes have all ages either getting on a two wheeled vehicle  for the first time or returning back to the youthful spirit they had years ago, with a different form of pedal power, with a long lasting battery or sometimes, two. 

 Holley said, with a special battery feature "you can slide it under the seat and you can run it in parallel and this bike goes 40 to 80 miles, almost 100 miles you can do with the two batteries in tandem."  
   At RAD they are offering free test rides  on their complete line of bikes, from the smaller ones to the full sized,  mountain bikes,  and a trike with a basket.

For those who look at buying on line, this is a hands on option that matters when they make this kind of purchase.

Holley says, "now this way  they can come in and they can touch it, they can feel it,  ride it. They can test ride it (and say) this is where my  money's going."

For existing owners, this is the same convenience.   Loren Bass stopped in for an accessory and said, "I like the idea you can just come and get all the different parts you can see them all because  usually it's on line."
   RAD says it picked Santa Barbara for a full sized store because the city is bike friendly, and continues to roll on with many existing and new bike routes in the future.

Santa Barbara has seen a spike in ebikes and non ebikes since the COVID crisis. Several bike businesses including the eBikery (590 E Gutierrez St) and Open Air Bicycles (135 E. Carrillo St.) have expanded their store sizes or relocated to meet the needs.

For more information go to: RAD Power bikes and SBCAG