Electric bikes are the latest mode of golf transportation
For years the golf industry has tried to lure young-
er players to a sport whose participants are in-
creasingly older. A few Central Oregon courses
have offered the GolfBoard, a four-wheeled,
scooterlike electric board on which golfers can ride
during a round.
The latest version of time-saving, fun-enhancing
golf transportation is the Finn Cycle, an electric bike
that gets golfers around the course rather quickly
while providing a bit of an adrenaline boost.
Meadow Lakes Golf Course in Prineville is current-
ly one of just two courses in Oregon to offer the
Finn Cycle. The course acquired its four bikes only
about a week ago and rents them for $21 per 18-
hole round or $13 for nine holes.
“It’s nice because you can separate from the
people you’re playing with,” says Meadow Lakes
assistant pro Jared Lambert about the Finn Cycle.
“You play a little bit faster because you go to your
own ball. You don’t have to have two people in the
cart and drive back and forth across the fairway.”
Lambert says the course has rented only about
one or two per day since getting the bikes.
“We don’t think that anybody can do anything on
these that they couldn’t already do with a golf
cart,” Lambert says. “It’s basically the same speed.
And you actually have quite a bit more control
over this thing than you do a golf cart. You can get
your foot stuck in a golf cart pedal and if you don’t
know what you’re doing you can’t stop. These
things (the cycles) turn a little bit fast and are a
little bit more intuitive to respond to something.”
The Finn Cycle has two small motorcycle tires, as
well as front and rear suspension and disc brakes
comparable to a mountain bike. The golfer presses
the throttle with his or her right thumb and em-
ploys hand brakes like those on a bicycle.
The golf bag sits along the center line of the Finn
Cycle and the rider basically straddles the bag. The
electric motor is in the rear wheel and the lithium
battery can go 36 holes on a single charge, accord-
ing to Lambert.
The Finn Cycle travels at the same speed as a
conventional golf cart, about 15 mph, and can
substantially speed up the pace of play with each
player driving directly to his or her own ball, ac-
cording to www.finnscooters.com.
Rick Reimers, the CEO of Missoula, Montana-based
Sun Mountain Motor Sports, is the inventor of the
Finn Cycle. The company claims it is dedicated to
solving slow play in golf. According to Reimer, the
average golfer can play a hole in an average of 71⁄2
minutes on the Finn Cycle, as opposed to 15 min-
utes per hole with a two-person cart. That makes
for an 18-hole round of two hours, 15 minutes,
compared with 41⁄2 hours in a cart.
“It is time to rethink golf,” Reimers is quoted on
finnscooters.com. “The game is at a tipping point:
the young people we need in the game don’t have
41⁄2 hours to spend on the course. Pairing Finn
with golfers with a desire to play ready golf can cut
playing time in half.”
“We’ve got to start bringing younger people into
the game,” Lambert says. “Hopefully this is some-
thing that we can offer to separate ourselves a
little bit.”
Currently, Creekside Golf Club in Salem is the
only other course in Oregon that offers the Finn
Cycles, according to Lambert. “They’re pretty new,
so I’m sure other courses will be getting them as
well,” Lambert says. “A lot of other courses have
the GolfBoards. People are looking at alternatives,
and seeing the success of the GolfBoard and trying
to come up with other ways to bring in that extra
income and bring people into the game that might
not have been drawn to it before.”
Meadow Lakes applies the same rules for the
cycles as it does for carts — stay 30 feet away from
the greens and off the tee boxes. But cruising
along the fairways is no problem. “We’re not limit-
ing it to the cart path or anything,” Lambert says.
“That would take away the fun.”
OCTOBER 2019
23