Beeline Bikes brings mobile repair to Peninsula thanks to two Atherton entrepreneurs and a “bike guy”

Growing up in Menlo Park, Neil Macc pedaled to Oak Knoll School every day. Now he commutes from his home in La Honda to Beeline Bikes, 20 plus miles each way.

Neil (pictured right) is the “bicycle arm” of the new company, started by Atherton residents Andy Jeffrey (center) and Pete Buhl (left). “About 15 years ago a buddy asked me to go riding, which prompted me to pull the cobwebs off a bike I had in the garage,” said Pete, who is the company’s CEO. “I used a mobile mechanic to get it in working order.

“When I sold my last company a year ago, I started noticing all these new services where you provision things online and the service comes to you. Startups like Uber and Task Rabbit. And I remembered the mobile bike guy and contacted him.

“Turns out he wanted to remain a sole proprietor, so I reached out to Andy to develop the tech side of a mobile bicycle repair business.”

Andy, Beelines’ CTO, also rides, although not as seriously as Neil and Pete. “My challenge was to make it as easy as possible to make an appointment,” he said. “And then to make sure one of our trucks with a technician is at the appointment at the scheduled time.” (Photo right shows repair technician inside Beeline truck.)

Beeline is currently offering its service to consumers who live between Burlingame and Sunnyvale and corporate clients from San Francisco to San Jose. “Our customers tend to be families with multiple bikes that need repair,” said Pete. “There’s no way they’re going to get them all to a retail repair shop. Then there are building owners whose residents have lots of bikes as well as companies who promote cycling to work.”

“Bike guy” Neil said he does both road and mountain biking as well as “a little bit of racing while I was in college.”

“Truth is, I’ve always been a better mechanic than racer,” he said. “My first job was at a bike store in Palo Alto and I’ve been involved in the bike business ever since.”

Why the name Beeline? ” Explained Pete: “We make a beeline direct to the customer to fix bikes!”

Photos by Irene Searles