Questions

No. Fund-a-Bike is a rewards program, not an investment or security — contributors receive perks, not a financial return or an ownership stake in the company. CYKEL Vancouver is a for-profit business, but backing a bike does not buy you a part of it. The full legal and financial detail is in the business plan.

Naming rights on the bike, with a plaque and QR code carrying your name; a live dashboard showing its rides, kilometres, hours and milestones; 10 free rental hours a year for three years; and a lifetime 25% rental discount.

No. The grid of 30 cubes on the campaign page is an interactive demonstration of how the campaign will work. Picking a bike there reserves nothing and processes no payment.

Thirty in the opening fleet, each one fundable once. The business plan models the fleet growing from that opening size over the first five years.

Yes. Each bike is funded individually at C$5,000, and the rewards apply per bike — so two bikes means two plaques, two dashboards and two sets of rental hours.

On the Denman Street corridor in Vancouver's West End, between downtown, Stanley Park and English Bay, and directly on the Seawall route. We studied the first 500 metres between the front door and the cycling network before choosing a door — the working is in the Denman case study.

The plan targets a soft launch in April 2027 and a grand opening in May–June 2027, in time for the 2027 season, with bikes bought and the store fitted out through the spring. The feasibility study calls that timeline achievable but tight, so any slippage pushes the opening later in the season rather than earlier.

A six-person seasonal team — four runners, a store manager and a mechanic — on staggered weekly schedules rather than year-round full-time headcount. The platform handles the back office, which is what lets a team that size run a fleet several times its opening size.

It is one of the busiest urban cycling corridors in North America, sitting on the Seawall route between downtown, Stanley Park and English Bay. The corridor already carries the riders; the question we studied was how safely and quickly a rider gets from a shop door onto that network.

One e-bike from an identical fleet — the same specification thirty times over, which is cheaper to maintain, easier to staff, and means every contributor funds exactly the same thing as everybody else.

The business plan treats the fleet as a renewing asset rather than a one-off purchase. What the plan does not yet set out is what happens to an individual backer's naming rights at that point, so we are not going to invent an answer here — ask us and we will tell you where that decision stands.

Booking, identity verification and the safety briefing happen before arrival, then the bike unlocks from the phone. On the ride it carries navigation, curated routes, audio tours, group riding and challenges. For the shop, the same system runs reservations, maintenance, payments and fleet telemetry.

The app is how the contactless flow works — booking, verification, unlocking and return. There will be staff on the floor, and the shop is a real shop with helmets, lights and a workshop, so nobody is turned away for want of a phone.

Not yet — this page is a preview of the campaign, not the campaign itself. Get in touch and we will let you know when it opens.

This is the question we are asked most, and the shortfall and refund terms are not settled in the documents behind this page. Rather than guess at a commitment about your money, we would rather tell you directly — please ask us.

The complete business plan carries the market research, the financial model and the assumptions behind every figure quoted on the campaign page.