BCBusiness

60 BCBusiness JunE 2016 tanYa GoEHrInG i started playing squash right around 2000, when my daugh- ter was born. I went from hav- ing all this time to having no time, and that's the beauty of squash—you get a great work- out in 45 minutes. I would put my kids to bed and then I could go to Jericho and play squash at 8 and be home in an hour. One of my business partners, Je¤ Mason, was a top-ranked squash player and I started playing more with him. We would mix squash with busi- ness. He was of course the CFO at Hunter Dickinson and joined the board at Coastal and now he's on the board at Shoes.com. He would run me around in circles. It always takes one person that's better than you, in squash, to get you hooked. Then I joined the Vancouver league and I think I started out in Division 9 but I was playing so much with Je¤ and getting better. Over about šve or six years I made the jump to the šrst division and then I was playing with some competitive people and losing more than I was winning, for sure, but I was there and still getting run around in circles. Now we sponsor the Premier Squash League. It's the top 50 players in the province, and we play every Wednesday. All those players wear our logos, Shoes.com, when they play so we get quite a bit of expo- sure from it in all the clubs in Vancouver. Squash is always battling for sponsor dollars, so you get a lot of value there. There are six teams of two, and it's a point system throughout the year. Then there's the playo¤s: last year the two teams playing in the šnal had to all bring their passports, and the winning teams actually ªew to Vegas for dinner. It was pretty fun. Our team didn't win, but I was the host. Someone had to do it. —as told to Marcie Good a group of six uBC and sFu grads is putting its own spin on electric bikes with a new company called shocke. the first model out of the garage was spark, in 2015, followed by ampere and surge in February 2016–all funded on Kickstarter. With more than 600 bikes sold, the Delta-based company (com- prising brothers steven, Frank and Edward lo, Hussein and Ebrahim Jafferjee, and Hasan Hamze) is increasing produc- tion to meet expected sales of 1,500 this year. so far sales have been online only, but by summer shocke hopes to sell through local and u.s. dealers. Purchasers tend to fit one of two categories: baby boomers using the bikes for leisure, and under-30 urban commuters. the three bikes feature different frame designs: spark, us$1,399, is a sporty all-terrain electric mountain bike hybrid suitable for recreational riders; ampere, us$1,550, is a step-through bike designed for maximum comfort; and surge, us$1,850, is designed for urban commuting. all three models are con- structed using name-brand parts assembled in a Delta ware- house, have a 350-watt motor, go 32 kilometres an hour and have a range of 70 kilometres. Batteries are integrated into the frame or wheel so the bikes look conventional. Front and rear lED lights with turn signals and laser-illuminated lanes, throttle power, five-level pedal assist, fenders and rack are standard. –Felicity Stone Shocke Bikes, a new line of electric bicycles designed and made in B.C., is enjoying some "shocking" success What a Racquet E-commerce giant Roger Hardy on running circles and talking business on the squash court GearinG up Roger Hardy, CEO of Shoes.com, gets ready for a squash match at West Vancouver's Hollyburn Country Club N e w + I m p r o v e d WaRRiOR sPOTligHT Venture capitalist Roger Hardy is CEO of Shoes.com Technologies, the digital footwear empire that includes Shoeme.ca. In 1999 he started Clearly Contacts, which he sold to Paris- based Essilor in February 2014 for $435 million. W e e k e n d W a r r i o r

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