Royal Oak Bike Repair Entrepreneur is Home Grown

Some people set lofty goals and pursue them until attained. Others, amid inaction and excessive chatter, prattle on about what they say they’re going to do.

Alan Schlutow doesn’t do a lot of talking.

The 28-year-old Royal Oak businessman is busy with the bicycle repair company he started in 2009. The company is run out of the basement of the house he shared with his fiancee, Melanie Pieknik. He did this while working a full-time job.

Schultow started Home Grown Cycles as a Plan B when hours at his day job were rumored to be trimmed. He works as a technician in the emergency room of Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital.

“I was working midnights at the hospital,” Schlutow said, “and I was close to being laid off. I had always wanted my own bike company, so I started doing repairs out of the basement.”

Schlutow still works at the hospital. The lay-off was a false alarm, but it spooked him enough to kickstart his dream. As his business model evolved, he struck gold with the idea to make his operation mobile.

Going mobile

A business that fixes two-wheeled machines needed some wheels of its own. Schlutow introduced pick-up and drop-off services to customers. He uses an enormous yellow parcel truck (a retired U.S. Postal Service truck) to pick up a bike, take it back to his workshop in his Royal Oak home, give it the TLC it needs and return it.

“We really do not do much advertising, just the truck mainly,” Schlutow said. “We started repairing bikes in the basement and became a corporation on Aug. 11, 2009.”

The truck is working well. Schlutow said it often is the one component driving work his way. In the early days of Home Grown Cycles, most of his clients were middle-aged moms, he said. That has changed in two years.

“The clientele (was) mainly middle-aged women with kids,” he said. “Now, I have a wide variety of customers.”

Starting a company is challenging, so it helps to have people on your side. When talking about Home Grown Cycles, Schlutow always says “we.” He could be talking about his father, who discovered the retired postal truck on the side of the road one day on a drive through Howell. Buddy Ben Krenke handles the company’s paper work and tax obligations. Another friend, Justin Curran, helped land a deal with suppliers. Schlutow’s aunt did the logo. That is how things get done in small business.

When the business started, Schlutow was working out of a small business incubator in Ferndale. He left there in December 2010 and with Pieknik — who works behind the scenes with marketing, orders, merchandise sales, networking and getting the word out about the business — moved into Royal Oak to a home on Potter.

The house had a small shop and garage so Schlutow moved repair operations from Ferndale to his home, saving rent and drive time. He still uses the big yellow truck, but it's only for pickup and drop-off,  a free service to residents of Royal Oak and Ferndale. He'll pick up and drop off bikes outside of that radius for a small fee. 

Pieknik and Schlutow met at the hospital where they work. The two share a Royal Oak home that abuts Whittier Park, and the truck parked in the back of the house is visible from the park and North Alexander Street. That visibility has helped, Pieknik said. Business has been picking up in the second year, mainly through word of mouth.

"It's definitely growing. It's amazing," Pieknik said. "It's really motivating and exciting for us. We are not putting our own money into it but building a client base to run the business."

The two work full time at the hospital. She is an ER nurse and Schlutow is an ER technician. They like their day jobs, but they love pursuing this dream of someday owning a bike shop and more. Schlutow's passion is cycling and Pieknik is on board and committed.

"I really don't know anything about fixing bikes," Pieknik said. "I admit that. I respect Alan's passion. I support his dream. We do a lot of runs together and spend time in the shop together. We balance each other out."

In the early days, most Home Grown Cycles customers were friends of Schlutow and Pieknik. Now, they get phone calls and orders from people they don't know. A recent visit to a local grocery store also gave them a boost.

"We'll get a call from someone and Alan will ask, 'Is so and so your friend?' and I'll tell him, 'I have no idea,' " she said. "I was in Trader Joe's wearing one of our T-shirts and the cashier said, 'Home Grown Cycles, I love those guys.' And I had no idea who he was. He recognized the logo."

Making it happen

Nik Butkinik lives in Clarkston and works in the same Pontiac hospital as Schlutow and Pieknik. He uses Home Grown Cycles to maintain his Trek 9.8 Elite.

"I made the mistake of buying a high-end bike that far exceeds what I need," he said. "While fun to ride, it's finicky and needs a lot of maintenance to run optimally, which is where I use HGC. More than anything, they act as consultants who love bikes and love to talk about bikes and biking. Also, they have a line of earth-friendly clothing which has been my go-to Christmas present for friends and family over the last few years."

Butkinik says the entrepreneur spirit embodied by Schlutow and Pieknik is refreshing.

"I love it when people figure out what makes them happy in life, then work hard to make it happen," he said. "Mel and Alan are two of the hardest working people I know who have found a great mix of high-quality professional services with a relaxed and earth-friendly delivery. Plus, it's cool to have someone pick up your bike in a big yellow truck."

Schlutow has ridden most of this life, working at a bike shop when he was 16. In the time between graduating from Waterford Mott and studying biology at Oakland University, he took his graduation money and upgraded his ride to a full-suspension specialized mountain bike. He races in the Michigan Points Series.

“The whole reason we got into repair was to get into frame building,” Schlutow said. “Fabrication. I want to build my own bikes.”

Suddenly, the reserved shop owner opens a bit, and starts diagramming on a tabletop how a bike frame comes together. He talks of steel frames and geometry, the Michigan emblem that goes on the back of the seat tube, dropouts, head badges and other jargon. He sees bigger things for the business.

 “We want to be able to sell our own frames,” he said. “I want to have a shop where people can come in, and hang out for a bit. We will have custom bikes that we build and repair. We can have showers and lockers within the shop where people can clean up after their rides before or after work.”

Contact Home Grown Cycles at 248-677-1360, al@homegrowncycle.com or visit www.homegrowncycle.com