Commuter benefits may start with pre-tax transit and parking, but they don’t have to end there. This is the first post in a new series at Jawnt looking at popular post-tax commuter benefits. For more on the difference between pre-tax and post-tax benefits, check out this previous post.

Jawnt’s Ruth Miller recently sat down with Worth Smith, founder of NEMO, a Boston-based, on-demand mobile bike repair company. This interview was condensed for clarity.

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Jawnt: What is on-demand bike repair?

Nemo: On-demand bike repair is having someone come to you to fix whatever issue you're having. Our services are a step beyond the kinds of mobile bike repair that have been floating around for decades, where a person with an entire bike shop in the back of a sprinter van tries to come out to you. That van gets stuck in traffic with everyone else, and then it has to find parking, so if you call it up at 5 PM in Kendall Square, you could be waiting an hour. The other option for getting your bike fixed is walking it to a shop, but then you’ve got to wait in line because they’re working on other projects.

What we offer, on-demand bike repair, hasn’t really been done before. You text or call our mechanic hotline, and we dispatch someone on an electric cargo bike with all the tools and inventory needed, and they’re able to cut through traffic and get to you wherever you are.

For us, it’s about making bike commuting as reliable as possible by being there for people in their time of need. The average cyclist might need help two or three times a year, and we want to keep those breakdown moments from spiraling into something that takes up a huge portion of their day. 

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Jawnt: Why should employers be offering on-demand bike repair?

‍Nemo: A lot of employers are rightfully concerned about parity and fairness. If you’re offering a $300 a month subsidy for a parking spot, how are you going to give something equivalent to someone who bikes to work? I love bikeshare, I’m a bikeshare member, and bikeshare membership is a great option. But if you already own a bike, what are you actually going to use? How can an employer enhance your commute?

Our service is something that can meaningfully improve the experience of a person biking to work on their own bike. We’re open 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday. No bike shop in Boston is open at 7 AM, and most are closed by 6 PM. On-demand bike repair is a huge advantage for these employees.

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Jawnt: I love this idea of fairness. Driving is so expensive and parking is so expensive, that it’s actually difficult to find ways to spend an equivalent amount of money on biking.

‍Nemo: Yes. A really comprehensive bike commuter program is a lot less expensive than I think most people realize. Even for a university, you’re talking in the tens of thousands of dollars, not in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that’s to get the best available program on the market.

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Jawnt: What kind of company do you see being the best fit for on-demand bike repair?

‍Nemo: It’s all about the lifestyles and work requirements of the employees. Right now we’re doing a lot of work with universities and hospitals. These industries require folks to be in the office, so these companies see themselves as being responsible for making peoples’ commutes easier. 

These places also have shift work that can extend to strange hours, hospitals especially, so scheduling time for a bike repair at a shop two neighborhoods away, a shop that’s only open 10 AM to 5 PM, that’s just not going to happen. It’s pretty typical for someone to message us and say, “I’m going to get out of this surgery in six hours, can you come by at 6:30 to look at my bike?” How would that person otherwise get their bike fixed if this kind of flexibility wasn’t available to them?

We have another category that I was kind of surprised by. A lot of our customers are parents. Maybe ten years ago they had all the bike stuff and time to do their own repairs, but now, maybe they had to get rid of all those extra tools they only used once a year, and they don’t have the time. So we can come meet them during their lunch break, or after they drop off their kids with their cargo bike. We’re able to easily and conveniently slot into their life in a way that keeps biking reliable enough for them to continue doing it.

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Jawnt: I have to admit that I wasn’t aware of the possibility of scheduling a repair in advance. I was just thinking about the roadside emergency case.

‍Nemo: About 40% of our calls are for immediate service, where we can get out to a customer in an average of 19 minutes. One of the first things we ask is where are you, are you on the side of the road, are you somewhere safe? If you’re on the side of the road trying to get to a meeting in 30 minutes, we know you need our help right now.

But the other 60% are looking for a slot later in their day. They’re messaging us saying “hey, I have this one hour window where I can come out and show you what I think is going wrong, can you meet me then?” We always try to prioritize based on the situation.

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Jawnt: What questions from riders have surprised you the most?

‍Nemo: We support a lot of digital natives, folks that are comfortable texting back and forth with our mechanics, and those relationships turn into asking for general advice on how to improve their commutes. “It’s getting cold, and folks are asking us what kind of bar mitts do you recommend for my bike. What do you think about studded tires? I think I want to get fenders, what kind, could you come install them?” Because we have a little more of a casual correspondence, it allows them to ask questions that they might not have decided to walk into a bike shop to ask. They get to become more informed bike commuters more quickly than they would otherwise.

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Jawnt: As we approach the holidays, would you recommend buying someone an on-demand bike repair subscription as a holiday gift?

‍Nemo: Of course, I think it’s the best gift. If you have a friend who always leans on you to fix their bike, and you want that person to stop asking you. Or, if you’re the person who’s always asking and you’ve burnedall those free credits in your friend group, this is the perfect gift for you.

Seasonally, I would also say that a lot of folks’ bike benefit dollars expire at the end of this month. If you have leftover bike benefit dollars, spend that money! Spend it on NEMO, on a helmet, anything for your bike commute. If you’re an MIT, Harvard, or BU employee, those bike benefit dollars are expiring at the end of the month, so make sure you spend them. You earned that money.