Davey Oil Brings Wombi E-Bike Subscriptions to Seattle

High-quality Tern electric cargo bikes with Bosch motors are too expensive for many households. Family cargo biking entrepreneur Davey Oil has a solution: e-bike subscriptions.

“This means someone can make an easier choice to experiment with changing their transportation lifestyle,” says Oil, who recently became Seattle general manager for the new e-bike subscription service Wombi.

Wombi offers monthly subscriptions to Tern e-cargo bikes with Bosch motors for $115 to $150 per month, including insurance and maintenance. Tern products and Bosch motors are considered among the best in the e-bike marketplace.

The subscription model is similar to the way people lease new cars rather than buying them outright--with the exception that there is no long-term contract. The service package that comes with a subscription is another benefit.

“Owning and maintaining an e-cargo bike is hard for some people,” Oil says. “It can take work to keep your e-bike running in a city as hilly and inclement as Seattle while using it for family transportation.”

Image

Cascade Customer Service Coordinator Emma Wimmer is among Wombi’s new customers. “It’s a much more affordable entry point for me than spending $3,000 to buy an electric cargo bike,” says Wimmer, who subscribed to a Tern Quick Haul for $115 per month. “In addition, you can buy it out after a year if you choose to do so.”

As Cascade seeks ways to enable more individuals and families to live a car-free or car-lite lifestyle, subscriptions that enable people to bring home an e-bike without the cost of ownership represent an exciting business model.

This desire is also why Cascade’s partner organization Washington Bikes supported the creation of Washington state’s e-bike incentives program that included funding to create “e-bike lending libraries.” The state has yet to launch that initiative, however.

In addition to individuals, Wombi is offering its subscription plans to businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities that want high-quality fleet bikes for employees or public use–without the expense of fleet maintenance.

Image

Wombi opened its Seattle location in August in the Greenwood neighborhood in the same storefront where Oil operated G&O Family Cyclery for 11 years. Wombi offers three models, the Quick Haul, HSD, and GSD. The models it offers would cost from $2,900 to $4,600 to buy.

“If one’s mission is to make people collectively less reliant on cars,” Oil says, “having this option reduces the financial barrier.”

Making people less reliant on cars has been the career mission for Oil, who previously worked as a bicycle educator for Cascade and Bike Works, and who helped found The Bikery, a nonprofit community bike shop in Seattle.

In 2013, Oil co-founded G&O Family Cyclery in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood to sell cargo bikes and e-bikes for family transportation. The shop gained a loyal following, and G&O has inspired multiple “family cycleries” in other cities nationally. The family cyclery business model focuses on utilitarian transportation bicycles rather than the expensive road bikes and mountain bikes that most shops sell.

Oil is also a social justice advocate who hired many individuals who identify as Transgender and Queer to work at G&O. He is an outspoken critic of the low wages that many bike shops pay their mechanics, and he strived to pay living wages.

Oil was the 2016 recipient of Cascade’s Doug Walker Award, given annually to someone whose work has improved lives through cycling. “Davey is a hero of the Seattle bike movement,” says Cascade Deputy Director Vicky Clarke.

Image

Running a bike shop with a social conscience and high standards for customer service rather than maximizing profit was a challenge throughout the history of G&O, Oil says. In January, Oil announced that G&O was closing due to an inability to obtain financing.

“It was a sad occasion. It feels like some of our work, much of our work, was not completed,” Oil says. “It felt particularly sad to let down some customers and my staff, for whom I feel a lot of gratitude. One thing that was amazing, however, was the blanket of love that we got from the family biking community and the bicycle advocacy community here in Seattle. People were pretty spectacular.”

It’s a beautiful act of symmetry that Wombi cargo e-bike subscriptions are located in the old G&O storefront. Oil says that bike industry friends at Tern connected him with Wombi, which was seeking opportunities to expand in the United States. Wombi operates a shop in Los Angeles and Seattle is its second city. Wombi is the U.S. arm of Australian company Lug+Carrie, which operates e-bike subscription services in three Australian cities.

Oil says that Wombi enables him to continue growing the family cargo biking movement, while also supporting his family in expensive Seattle on a bike industry salary.

“As a bike advocate and bike educator before anything else,” Oil says, “I’m not done helping people in Seattle get on bikes for transportation.” Learn more at Wombi.us.

Read our 2023 story, “Oil on the Roadways,” to learn how Davey Oil, born David Giugliano, gained his memorable moniker.

Curious about family cargo bikes? Read our 2022 story, “A Transportation E-Bike Buyer’s Guide.”