As a special addition to our member promotion services, the Chamber is now offering a free Featured Member Profile, which will be printed in the Chamber View and posted on the website for a month, then moved into a prominently-placed online archive for the remainder of the year.  To win this free publicity, just drop your business card into the Featured Member Fishbowl at each monthly Networking Mixer and be present for the drawing.  For more information, call the Chamber, 410-719-9609.

Featured Member

January 2010

Patapsco Motor Sports Completes First Year
with Solid Revenues and Bright Prospects

The Christmas lights are up in Ellicott City and the season for sport biking is past, but Scott Alpert of Patapsco Motor Sports is very far from taking a vacation: he’s busy making plans for next year. His Tongue Row shop is full of gas-powered scooters and accessories, and brochures for bike trails from Catonsville to Columbia.

The shop offers gas and electric motor scooters, electric bikes and mini-bikes for sale and rental, as well as providing repair services, renting two RVs and presenting guided tours on trails in the area.

 “We’ve just finished our first year, and we’ve done better than expected,” he says. “Summer was our peak, and things were really hopping around here.” Located next to Ellicott City’s biggest parking lot, Patapsco Motor Sports reaped foot traffic from the major renovations to the surrounding shops. A display of sleek, Euro-styled sport bikes parked in the courtyard outside the shop attracted both tourists and recreational riders.

 “These are the 50cc gas scooters that you don’t need tags, a motorcycle license or insurance to drive,” says Mr. Alpert, gesturing to the bikes now in the store. “They can ride on any road with a speed limit under 50 mph. They’re great for trails and off-road biking in the parks.”

They’re also a hot item, he learned, for parents buying low-cost campus transportation for their college-age children, as well as the occasional eco-minded commuter. “For commuters, the demand is largely based on gas prices,” he says.

“Last summer, when gas was $4.00 a gallon, you couldn’t find gas-powered scooters – they’d all been bought up. So I’ll be looking at prices in February and trying to project for the coming months, so I can have enough of them in stock ahead of time.”

Selling gas-powered scooters is one thing; keeping them on the road can be quite another. Because scooters are much less expensive than full-sized motorcycles and their motors are more difficult to access, motorcycle repair shops are not generally willing to deal with them, Mr. Alpert says. So Patapsco Motor Sports offers a drop-off service for off-site repairs.

With a small daily charge and a 1000-mile allowance, the shop’s RV rental service also won popularity points: their two RVs were constantly on the road to destinations as close as Penn State and as far-off as Georgia and Florida.

Patapsco Motor Sports is a second business for Mr. Alpert, a psychotherapist with an addiction counseling practice on U.S. Rt. 40 near CarMax; he also runs Drugensic, a transitional home in Catonsville . “I grew up in this area,” he says. “Biking the trails has been a hobby for me; I enjoy riding these bikes. One of my favorite things has been riding from Catonsville down Frederick Road and into the hills of Oella.”

Through the local tourism services, he has been marketing bike tours through the National Road trolley trails between Ellicott City, Catonsville, and Centennial Lake in Columbia; he will be offering these again when the shop reopens for the season in April.

Until then, Patapsco Motor Sports is open for sales or service by appointment only ; call 410-750-2425 or visit www.patapscomotorsports.com.

 Past Featured Members