COPyRiGhT niGEl hORslEy dECEMBER/JAnuARy 2018 BCBusiness 45
Dragan ended up in Vancouver in 1983. With a
couple of partners, he opened the rst version of
Reckless—called Reckless Rider Cyclery—in May of
'86, catching the Expo wave. Dragan supplemented
his income by working nights as a waiter at the
Hotel Vancouver, and the bike shop thrived at rst.
But four years later his partners forced him out, and
the business itself lasted only another year.
His next venture, a commercial construc-
tion company, soon gained traction. "We built
the Starbucks in the old Manhattan Building at
Burrard and Thurlow," Dragan recalls. "That was
a big contract for us." But on Boxing Day 1992, he
noticed moving vans outside the cycle shop at West
Second Avenue and Fir Street—the former location
of Reckless Rider. Dragan, who felt he had learned
a lot since his rst Reckless experience, had never
lost the bike bug. Striking a deal with the landlord,
he opened Reckless the Bike Store in February
1993. Dragan was determined to concentrate on
customer service, drawing on his experience as a
waiter in the '80s along with the business savvy
gained in construction. "I know how to take money
out of their wallets and leave smiles on their faces,"
he says. In 2000 he launched the Reckless location
at the foot of Davie.
Dragan was content to stick with what he
knew—electric bikes weren't his thing. But in 2011
a kid named Tony Sun started hanging around the
shop. He and Melody Chan had just launched a line
of electric bikes called eProdi¡y. Dragan agreed to
put some of their stock on the "oor. "As Paul puts
it, we started dating before we got married," Sun
recalls. In early 2014, the relationship bloomed
into a full-"edged Reckless e-bike shop on Hornby
Street, managed by Sun. "He was our rst dealer,"
Sun says. "It was huge for us." The Reckless family
had grown to three. Dragan, who started with just
three sta¢, now employs a seasonal high of 22.
One of his seasonal employees, Battersby
had started work at the Davie Street location in
the summer of 2013. "He talked a tremendous
amount," Dragan says. "We tried to use him in
the store, but he would say inappropriate things,
especially to women, like 'I bet you'd look better
if you wore tighter shorts'—you know, weird stu¢.
We said, 'We can't have that guy in the store.' So no
problem, he's in the basement assembling bikes."
Dragan owned a rental property in Kerrisdale
that was occupied by a mentally challenged man
named Joel, the son of a family friend. Over the
summer, Battersby and Joel became beer-drinking
buddies. One day in August, Battersby approached
Dragan with a proposal: "'Joel's got an extra room
"We tried to use
[Battersby] in
the store, but he
would say inap-
propriate things,
especially to
women, like 'I bet
you'd look better
if you wore tighter
shorts'—you
know, weird stu•"
— Paul Dragan,
owner, Reckless
Bike Stores
mAN dowN
physician Clifford
Chase (right) attends
to a wounded paul
Dragan in June 2014
