Bicycle cabs pedal tourists and fans through Seattle

SEATTLE — Candi Wilvang isn’t much of a baseball fan.

“The fans start leaving around the seventh or eighth period,” she said recently near Safeco Field — apparently referring to innings.

But with Labor Day marking the traditional beginning of baseball’s pennant races, Wilvang is rooting for the Mariners to make the postseason.

Formerly homeless, she now owns her own business and knows that more games mean more people to pedal back and forth from the stadium in her pedicab.

She was sitting in one of two seats up front in her pedicab in Occidental Mall in Pioneer Square, her feet on the pedals. Behind her, under a canopy, was a seat for two that she was trying to fill.

“Ride to the glove,” she called out, referring to the statue of a baseball glove on the South Royal Brougham Way side of Safeco Field.

She was getting only smiles, but no takers, until a young girl eyed her and looked at her grandfather.

“Kids ride free,” Wilvang said.

“Hop in,” the grandfather said with a shrug, and off they went on the ride to the stadium a little more than a half-mile away.

There are no formal numbers for pedicabs because they are unregulated in Seattle; one veteran pedicabbie estimated about 40 people on the job.

But they seem to be out in abundance this summer, and owners of pedicab companies say their numbers have grown slightly as more people such as Wilvang discover that there is money to be made at a job that allows the freedom to be outside, hustling rides.

“Every ride is a brand new experience,” said one pedicab driver, who goes by Steve-O. After peddling rides for 27 years, he is considered the city’s most-senior pedicabbie and drives for Cascadia Cabs, the largest pedicab company in the city, as an independent contractor.

Three pedicabbies from Phoenix have worked the waterfront the past month or so, to avoid pedaling around in 100-degree weather.

Scott “U-Turn” Muth, who owns Phoenix-based American Rickshaw, said he and the two others traveled around the country, giving rides at county fairs, before they came to Seattle to work Hempfest and pedal in the cool weather.

“I haven’t been bored this summer,” he said.

For Wilvang, though, the journey was in some ways an even longer one.

A newcomer, she started her company, Emerald Spokes, with her 41-year-old boyfriend, Kim Johnson, four years ago. When she was 15, she ran away from home in Los Angeles, and for 15 years was homeless off and on.

“I always had jobs, but I never had enough to get a place,” she said.

About 10 years ago, she got her first subsidized apartment at the Aloha Inn on Aurora Avenue North and has since moved to a two-bedroom South Lake Union apartment run by the Low Income Housing Institute.

About four years ago, she and Johnson bought the four-seater while trying to give up one of their cars, and figured they could make money with it. With the help of a grant from Washington Community Alliance for Self-Help, an organization that helps minority- and women-owned small businesses, she created a business plan. She figured out that she could make money from advertising, along with the $5-a-passenger fare.

The other day, Wilvang displayed a sign behind the passenger seats for Stellar’s pizzeria and another for Bites Asian restaurant.

Wilvang and Johnson make about $6,000 a year. Johnson still has a full-time maintenance job at the Low Income Housing Institute, and until last month, Wilvang sold advertising for Real Change newspapers.

But business is growing, Wilvang said. They’re buying their third and fourth pedicabs, and plan to hire their first two drivers.

One time, she picked up one of the Maloof brothers, who own the Sacramento Kings basketball team, though she doesn’t remember which brother. He had just left a Mariners game when he saw the pedicab and told his entourage he’d meet them at his hotel.”

“He wanted to help pedal and he said, ‘This is better than the gym. I’ll give you $200 for the ride.’ His face was getting all red, and he said, ‘I’m going to give you $250.’ “

Wilvang said he gave her $300, more than she or Johnson each make on a game day.