Seeing the sights from the seat of a bike

Bethesda couple makes biking a business

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Bike the Sites owner Stephen Marks of Bethesda helps 9-year-old DreyGerger with his rental bike. Gerger, who is visiting Washington, D.C., from San Francisco with his family, is preparing to tour the city with the bike tour company.

But they don’t spend their time in a corporate office, or on Capitol Hill — though they do provide great views of the landmark.

Since the couple took over a Washington, D.C., bicycle tour company several years ago, they’ve been in the business of fun — providing it for others and in turn having it themselves.

‘‘So many people in this area work in the government or the defense industry,” said Janna Marks. ‘‘People say to us, ‘Oh wow, you own your own business.’ It’s something different.”

In 2002, Stephen and Janna Marks, both 41, took over Bike the Sites, a 10-year-old business that provides guided bike tours of the District’s national monuments and bike, scooter and wheelchair rentals.

Stephen’s friend who had previously owned the business decided to sell and head west to Seattle.‘‘He asked me if I wanted it and I said yes,” Stephen said. ‘‘Then I asked Janna.”

Bike the Sites offers a variety of different guided tours, including those for kids, of the monuments and other capital city sights. It also rents equipment for tourists who want to explore on their own.

And while tourists are the company’s bread and butter, it’s starting to see more locals as well.

‘‘It’s a very different experience to see things from a bike,” Stephen said. ‘‘You cover a lot more ground than walking and it’s a more intimate experience than taking a tour bus.”

One of the best parts of the job, said Stephen, who grew up in Potomac and Rockville and graduated from Thomas S. Wootton High School, was rediscovering the area for himself.

‘‘I’ve been reintroduced to the city and learned the different layers to it,” he said. ‘‘I just love sharing it with people.”

While Montgomery County residents often take for granted the monuments and memorials downtown, there is a lot for locals to appreciate, especially on a bike tour, they said.

‘‘Even if you’ve been down here before, you see it with a different set of eyes,” Janna said.

Guides also provide history, facts and stories about the landmarks that even veteran D.C. sight-seers may not know about, she said.

Since the Marks took over the business it’s definitely been a family affair. Stephen’s sister Nikki is the general manager. The Marks’ neighbor, Kelly Diamond, is the marketing director.

‘‘We’ve had various neighbors help us at various times,” Janna said. ‘‘It’s a real community business.”

Even Stephen and Janna’s kids, 11-year-old Eli and 7-year-old Noah often hang out in the Bike the Sites office located at the Old Post Office Pavilion or come along on tours.

In the four seasons they’ve run it, the business has grown from 4,500 participants during the first season to an expected 16,000 to 17,000 this year.

In their biggest day, they had 215 customers, between tours and rentals, Nikki Marks said.

While they take the business seriously, they also make sure it’s fun. The business office in some ways resembles a basement hangout with comfy old couches arranged between computer stations. M&M dispensers in the office keep the tour guides happy and fed between rides. And a seven-seater, round ‘‘fun-cycle” that resembles something out of Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory is one of the company’s biggest attention-getters.

The fun-cycle is usually parked outside the Bike the Sites reservation kiosk, except when Stephen’s out giving customers rides on it.

‘‘It’s like you’re in a parade,” he said. ‘‘Everybody’s looking at you.”

Before taking over the business, Stephen and Nikki both worked for their father’s printing company in Virginia. Janna worked in different capacities in the custom database business.

Working together as a family has been one of the best parts of the job and one of the biggest challenges.

‘‘I’ve really enjoyed learning what each other’s strengths are and working together and seeing how we complement each other,” Janna said.

But the company would be nothing without its staff of guides, the Marks said. Guides range from college students to retirees, such as Carl Airhart, a retired teacher from Indiana who is in the middle of his third season as a Bike the Sites tour guide.

A cyclist for 40 years, Airhart said the job is a perfect fit for him.

‘‘I work with a lot of really great people,” he said. ‘‘And I like dealing with the public and I’m actually earning a living on a bike.”