Welcome to Hamilton Electric Bikes

In 2017 after retiring from his technician’s job at Bell Canada, avid and life-long cyclist Glen Doe had a dream which turned into an idea, then finally became reality. As a pre-teen he loved to tear down, paint, and rebuild bikes. He and his wife after cycling on their acoustic bikes for years heard about ebikes and became early adopters. By 2017 they had been riding their electric bike for five years and had already clocked over 9,000 KM’s.

He had a strong premonition, backed by extensive travels to European countries and lots of research that electric bicycles or as we like to call them e-bikes were the future. He put together a business plan, headed to the bank and launched his Pedego-branded store in Hamilton in March of 2018.

Within the first year he realized that a single brand store was not going to work in this market. He started to bring on more brands to appeal to a broader audience and aspired to become the largest ebike multi-brand retailer in Ontario. At this juncture Glen rebranded the shop to Hamilton Electric Bikes in late 2018.

Unfortunately for Glen just as he was hitting his stride, health issues struck and a world-wide pandemic was in full swing. By the fall of 2021 Glen knew he couldn’t manage the shop to his high standards any longer. 

Enter Jay Higgins and Laurie-Rimac Higgins. Laurie and Jay were also hit hard by the Pandemic and decided to divest from their 25 year old consumer trade show company in 2021 and look at new opportunities outside of the trade show industry. 

Jay and Laurie are also avid cyclists. Jay has been very active in the local cycling community for decades both as a cyclist and advocate for safer and more integrated cycling infrastructure. Jay also had been getting more and more interested in micro-transportation and how to move people the “last mile”. It was through this that Jay first heard about Hamilton Electric Bikes and the ebike movement that had been sweeping first across Japan and China and then into European countries like Germany and most famously the Netherlands. 

Once Jay and Laurie heard that Hamilton Electric Bikes was possibly going to be closed down due to Glen’s health issues if a buyer could not be found, they reached out to learn more. From their first meeting with Glen they knew instantly that he was a passionate, knowledgeable and dedicated business owner and customer service was his most important and treasured calling card. This was an instant bond as both Laurie and Jay valued customer service and customer experience above all else. Glen’s biggest concern was for his customers and what would happen if there was to be no more Hamilton Electric Bikes. “Who would look after them?” he worried. 

Glen helped as long as humanly possible with the transition of operations and in March 2022 Jay and Laurie took over the shop. Since that transition we have grown the business substantially to the point that we outgrew the original location on the East Mountain in Hannon, Ontario and relocated to a much larger and more centralized location. In March 2023 after months of renovations the Hamilton Electric Bikes sign went up at 1931 King St East (between Parkdale and Kenilworth) in east Hamilton.

Since moving to the King St location, we have introduced a number of new products and services: such as e-cargo bikes, larger select of e-trikes and kick scooters, rentals, expanded service and repairs area, more selection of floor models, ever-growing list of ebike accessories and a great area to test drive that even has a pretty steep hill to prove how much an ebike can help you climb those mountains. 

We are excited for the future and are here for you when you are ready to join the ebike revolution or if you need a tune-up, repairs, cool ebike accessories or just want to chat about ebikes or cycling in general, roll by!

So get out and ride as much as your situation allows. You will be healthier, happier and so will our planet!