Work Life: Northampton cycle inventor answers southern call
by Chad Cain

He'll ride in Memphis, or perhaps pedal.

Either way, the owner of RunAbout Cycles Inc. is moving to the land of the Delta Blues for an opportunity too enticing to pass up. And he's taking his young company - he makes hybrid recumbent tricycles - with him.

After months of negotiations with national and overseas investors, in hopes of securing funding to mass produce the trike he's spent the last eight years developing, Kerson finally reached an agreement with an investment group in Memphis.

This group has larger visions to incorporate Kerson's trike, which is powered by a combination of pedaling and an electric motor, into its business model. That plan also calls for the 38-year-old and his team to develop a prototype for a two-wheel electric bike and for the future opening of a chain of electric bike stores.

"We finally broke through the barrier," said Kerson, 38. "Our investor group has made us a great offer, and we have moved the prototype shop down, and are working on a new two-wheeler project, with fantastic funding."

The new venture calls for the production of The Aerobic Cruiser, an electric, two-wheel bicycle that will have the ability to travel 100 miles on a single, 15-cent charge, with the rider going about 16 miles an hour. The prototype for this bicycle should be ready by the end of July, with manufacturing planned within a year.

Plans for the hybrid trike he has perfected, called the SpinCycle, will be put on hold while The Aerobic is developed. Within a year's time, however, Kerson hopes to tweak the SpinCycle trike design to ready it for manufacturing and the company will likely mass produce the three-wheel trike as its second product.

Kerson said the deal with the investment group includes ownership interest in the new venture and in The Aerobic and SpinCycle, the licensing or purchasing of RunAbout Cycles, royalties on the vehicle designs and resources including manpower to help with the design, manufacture, marketing, and sales of both products.

Once the bike and the trike are in production, the investor group would like to begin opening 10 stores in Florida, California, and Arizona and other spots where they expect the product to sell well. Kerson said the stores will be modeled after a Harley Davidson shop, and will sell electric bikes and accessories and include a repair shop.

Kerson said that he'll likely end up running one of those stores. Eventually, he'd like to move back to the Valley and open a store here. But for now, he's excited about the opportunity to push forward an idea he's spent this decade thinking and working on.

"I'm very thankful and grateful to have the resources available to be able to take this idea leaps forward," he said.

It's a bad news-good news story for the region. Bad because the company won't keep its headquarters local, at 30 N. Main St. in Florence. where Kerson got his start at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

But with gas prices topping $3.50 a gallon this week - not to mention the millions of baby boomers set to retire and the emergence of a go-green movement - Kerson could be on the cusp of a life-changing development with his electricity-powered creation. If that means moving to where the money is, then more power to him. "This is very exciting. It's a big change for us," said Kerson.