FOR STOCK CALL: 01798839300 OR EMAIL: INFO@USE.GROUP 5250 lumens • Handlebar mounted • Reflex technology Now up to a controlled 5250 lumens of measured output with 24 modes in 10 different programs, the Six Pack Mk12 has taken its beam pattern to the next level. The powerful focused beam is now widened and diffused, creating a perfect balance; light as far as the eye can see allowing riders to thrash through any terrain with confidence, while enveloping the front wheel to tackle the most demanding technical challenge Sixpack Mk12 2100 lumens • Helmet mounted • TAP technology The Zenith was created after years of rider demands and now has been upgraded to kick out 2100 lumens, with a long reaching, wider beam, for an hour or combined with TAP technology, the rapid mode change technology, the rider can use the 2100 lumens when plummeting down a steep, fast descent or tackling a technical trail and then TAP to lower the lumens when on the flat or a climb to increase the run time. Zenith Mk2 ISSUE 05 / 2022
FOR STOCK CALL: 01798839300 OR EMAIL: INFO@USE.GROUP OWN THE ROAD Handlebar mounted 1600 lumens STRADA SB AKTIV Seatpost mounted 80 lumens BOOST ReAKT JUST RIDE, NO BUTTONS REQUIRED AKTiv - Automatically dips the Strada’s dual lensed road specific beam when it detects an oncoming vehicles headlight to avoid dazzling, still enabling the cyclist to see and be seen. ReAKT - Rear lighting that automatically flares up automatically under braking. Intelligently adapts to the surrounding ambient light to maintain maximum contrast and visibility.
EDITOR FROM THE AVAILABLE NOW > GET YOUR LICENCE FOR THE LATEST REPORT MARKET DATA 2022 TO PURCHASE A LICENCE FOR THE 2022 MARKET DATA, PLEASE CONTACT MARK@CYCLINGINDUSTRY.NEWS Mark Sutton mark@cyclingindustr y.news ©2022 Stag Publications No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted n any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher The Publisher cannot be held responsible or in any way liable for errors or omissions during input or printing of any material supplied or contained herein. The Publisher also cannot be held liable for any claims made by advertisers or in contributions from individuals or companies submitted for inclusion within this publication. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Editor or of Stag Publications Ltd.
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To briefly illustrate the point, headlines from the past month include Porsche formally starting an eBike company, Specialized buying the Rutland Cycling business and the not-so-small Euro pean Investment Bank throwing its weight behind active mobility. These headlines, while unrelated in their specifics, are connected in that each illustrates a broad trend of focused investment in the battle for market share. Some consolidation is once again happening alongside.
LIKE those writers taking the time to document climate change records in printed books, the task since the last magazine hit desks has simply been keeping up with the pace of change in the bicycle industry. No sooner has the proverbial ink dried on a story published online documenting a significant shift in the bike industry, another whisper surfaces that will become part of the record. Our microcosm is experiencing a time of unprecedented change, driven in large part by mega trends in transport, health and innovation, plus societal strains such as the cost-of-living crisis and congestion, to name just two.
Publisher Jerr y Ramsdale jerr y@cyclingindustr y.news
ADAPT, OVERCOME
Editor Mark Sutton mark@cyclingindustr y.news Staff Writer Simon Cox simon@cyclingindustr y.news Consultant Jon Harker jon@cyclingindustr y.news
Some of these trends now becoming daily news gave me pause for thought when launching Cycling Industry News, nearly seven years ago now. What good is a B2B if the march of D2C is unstoppable, I have often thought over the years. But businesses evolve, adapt, overcome. Bike retailers will know only too well that dwelling on external threats is not only bad for one’s mental state, but that the time lost to unproductive trains of thought is ill-afforded.
That point is made by industry legend and now free agent Gary Fisher in an interview within these pages. Not shy of racking up column inches himself, Fisher told me that the bike industry has to get on with marketing itself, arguing that the time is now if you want to ride the next wave. “Somebody is paying the bills in the media,” he says, recounting how the auto industry has been successful in creating a ‘personality’ around its product where people buy as part of an identity. “Don’t just exist,” he urged the bike industry, adding “we are in a positive space for the planet, put up your marketing budgets. The writing is on the wall for large vehicles in urban areas.” Has the car industry’s estimated 1.44 billion strong customer book just become our blue ocean? Accounting for that sectors’ presence at bike shows lately, I’ll let you decide whether now is the time to double down on bike products and services, or to worry yourself about another threat to business.
C@CyclingIndustry@MarkSuttonBikeyclingIndustryChat www.cyclingindustry.news
Within this issue we profile retailers that have spotted the wave rising, catching trends such as commercial fleet delivery of eBikes early. Ahead of the pack, each has become an innovator, able to take more risks and open more doors. Likewise, each has done an excellent job at marketing themselves, making sure they are at the very least a reference point for those exploring transport habit change. If you are not at least visible, will you ever really be in the conversation?
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Ebikes also steal market share from acoustic bikes which are now relatively slow-moving compared to pedal assisted bikes. That means we are seeing some normal bike models hanging around on the shop floor a little longer than we’re used to, but sales are still good for us on enduro bikes and general trail bikes, just a little slower than usual. Our supply partners have been fantas tic in helping us manage this supply shortcoming, however brands launching new models without stock really does need to stop.
PANELLISTS
Mat Clark, Brink UK I think eBike demand combined with credit options like 0% finance and espe cially Cycle to Work schemes will become more prevalent in the next few years. Unfortunately for retailers offering these options, each can substantially erode an already tight margin, so it will be inter esting to see some of the more creative options we can come up with. Pay options like Klana and Paypal are going to be a focus for us going forwards, Costs and more costs! Your business might be making more profit on sales than ever, but without keeping a lid on overheads reverse gear is never far away. CI.N asks the trade how they’re managing their cost of doing business at this time… A LID ON
Ben, Afan Valley Bikeshed Due to building the new shop our outgo ings are all over the place, so it’s hard to keep an eye on screws and wood, as well as paying the electricity bill. Sadly we have had to cut down on the bacon rolls in the morning.
Ben, Afan Valley Bikeshed The greatest stress is trying to keep an eye on when stock is due and when the invoices need to be paid. We have been having to order more of our standard parts in one go, rather than order just enough to keep us going, so when the invoice comes in rather than say paying for three mechs we are now paying for 15.
WHICH ELEMENT OF TRADING IS MOST STRESSFUL LOOKING INTO THE MONTHS AHEAD?
WITH A RECESSION MOOTED BY THE BANK OF ENGLAND FROM Q4, WHAT IS YOUR FEELING ON HOW THIS WILL AFFECT CONSUMER SPEND ON CYCLING SALES GIVEN (IN THEORY) IT COULD SAVE PEOPLE MONEY?
WHAT OVERHEAD OR SUPPLY COSTS HAVE CAUSED THE GREATEST HARM TO RETAIL IN RECENT MONTHS?
Afan Valley Bikeshed Mat Clark Brink UK THE
KEEPING
MatOUTGOINGS?Clark,Brink UK We have recently been trying to reduce fixed costs as much as possible across the board and implemented a whole swarth of cost-saving exercises, from cancelling tech subscriptions to having fewer bin collections. The business is now running pretty lean, but we are now in a good position, with a great team and as supply gets better we should see positive results.
The biggest cost of sale increase for us has been as a result of the slowdown in normal cash buying. With 0% finance options being the only answer for more and more consumers, retail margins are being eroded from anywhere between 6% to 15% and even more with some Cycle to Work schemes topping 20% commission charges to the retailer. In a 30% margin business that’s not sustain able without charging the consumer.
Mat Clark, Brink UK
WHERE HAVE YOU MADE REFINE MENTS IN ORDER TO MANAGE
Mat Clark, Brink UK Ebike sales represent around 40% (maybe more, if supply was better) of our overall sales and the lack of supply of Shimano-equipped bikes is a direct hit on turnover. This lack of supply obviously affects everyone involved, but with brands driving demand for models that are then delayed up to a year it makes it very difficult for retailers to capitalise on initial demand and then manage consumers’ expectations of delivery.
IT STAY IN THE LOOP ASK THE PROFESSIONALS SCAN QR CODE > TO RECEIVE OUR BI-WEEKLY NEWS UPDATESBen
Ben, Afan Valley Bikeshed We have just built a new shop and our electrical standing charge is crazy expen sive because they knew that if we wanted to be connected to the grid we had to pay pretty much whatever they said. In a normal world it would have been 38 pence per day, but now it’s £2.61 a day!
WHAT HELP WOULD YOU LIKE FROM SUPPLY PARTNERS TO EASE TRADING MatSTRESSES?Clark,Brink UK Leaning on technology more would make the biggest difference. There should be more discussion and work going on around API stock feeds for retailers into distributors’ warehouse stock. The abil ity to sell slow-moving stock directly to the consumer takes away the traditional bottleneck of "in-stock/out-of-stock" for everyone involved and helps to maintain margin with retailers able to sell outliers. like extra-small or XXL bikes. This is with out having to buy into those riskier models and/or discount them when they haven’t sold. We have also been asking our supply partners to assist us with geotargeted digital adverts for each of their respective brands to help drive traffic to our site and footfall to our store. This is something I hope we can expand on going forwards and something I think will make a huge difference to the turnover of stock, as well as giving brands a way to maybe clear obsolete stock without the retailer having to discount, or the distributor having to extend terms, for instance. I think as an industry if those two activities can be utilised better, or at all, we would find there will be some huge efficiencies found that will benefit every one and we can all get back to riding our bikes a bit more.
FEATURE
Ben, Afan Valley Bikeshed People will have to choose where they spend their money as putting food on the table is more important than buying a new tyre. The other side is that at the moment people’s mental health has really been tested over the last couple of years and I personally feel that getting out and going for a ride is very good for you to relax and contemplate how you plan to deal with what is in front of you. We have also spoken to a couple of GPs and they have said getting people on bikes may be a good way to help their fitness.
If you are an independent retailer and would like to take part in future issues, e-mail: mark@cyclingindustry.news
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We have been asking to extend our terms to help pay for things. They all know we are good for it and have never not been paid, but it just gives us a bit more time to spread the costs, rather absorb them all in one go. Also, I know it’s been hard over the last couple of years, but more realistic deliv ery dates so when customers are asking about ordering a bike we can be confi dent on taking a deposit and the customer getting the bike on time and not 6-12 months later.
A TRADE
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Afan Valley Bikeshed says that electricity overheads are a key concern having multiplied.
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as well as even cryptocurrency checkout options. I do think workshops will always do well during a recession with consumers look ing after the bike they already have rather than splashing out on new equip ment, so positioning your workshop to good quality and good value right now would be a sensible place to start futureproofing your turnover.
THE PROFESSIONALS KEEPING A LID ON IT BIKE JOBS + RECRUITMENT BASIC, FEATURED AND ANNUAL PACKAGES ARE AVAILABLE TO BIKE BUSINESSES
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PERCENTAGE27
Most notable and reflective of the timing, stock concerns ranked highest, though the whipsaw effect is likely now to have significantly reduced this concern on many (but not all) fronts.
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WHAT THREATS HAS THE INDUSTRY TO FEAR FROM A RETAIL POINT OF VIEW? Continuing on from our retailer’s view on current headwinds, this month CI.N’s market research takes stock of trends working for and against increased sales...
What a difference six months may have made to bike retail’s assessment of threats to trading and profitability. Surveyed before Russia began its war on Ukraine and before inflation began its snowball, reflected here on these pages was retail’s assessment of the obstacles ahead at the very start of 2022.
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FEAR AND LOATHING
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In fact, the market appears to be back into the realms of overstock and discounting. Which is worse – low or over supply? For prof itability’s sake, we’d wager the latter. We’ve been here many times before and so the bike shop channel will be well weathered to the discounting dilemma, last prevalent prior to Covid’s arrival.
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Inevitably, shop overheads may now have shot up the ranks from the 9th greatest concern to small business. At the time of writing, we are unfortunately witnessing forced closures by energy bills alone for some businesses and, worse, inaction in Government over summer recess; time wasted that shops and staff can ill afford. Likewise, staff overheads are fairly rising as a business’s people similarly face pressures of their own. This ranked 15th at the start of the year, even considering ‘the Great Resignation’, a trend that has seen wages become moreSomecompetitive.silverlinings, you ask? Well shipping rates have stabilised somewhat, albeit well ahead of historical levels. A correction in pricing has seen around a 20% discount to rates at the start of 2022, for the most part. 37% / 67 60% 108 55% 98 28% / 50 8% 15 26% 47 13% 23 70% 126 23% 42 58% 103 49% 88 36% 65 20% 35 23% 42 12% 22 24 17% 23%
42% / 76 13% /
ANALYSIS
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/ 42 45% / 81 10% / 17 15% /
ANALYSIS
Some things change, and some things stay the same and, unfor tunately, the glacial pace at which the UK is adding safe cycling infrastructure remains the barrier bike shops perceive as the single greatest adverse effect on sales potential.Between the 2022 and incoming 2023 study some progress has been made. With the now established cycling and walking body Active Travel England busy recruit ing key staff, we are now at the stage where professionals are vetting each English local authorities’ ambition on active travel. A ‘self-assessment’ document did the rounds in August to gather evidence on where money has to date been best invested and thus where investments will be safely made, without political intervention, in future. What this does mean, however, is that areas with ambition will likely surge drasti cally ahead of those who have demonstrated resistance, in theory meaning that some councils will not gain funding and their constituents suffer as a result. Time, then, to talk round those opposed to active travel with the abundance of evidence showing the benefits to the economy, health and congestion, among other perks. So, what else are bike shops seeing as an obstacle to a larger marketBikepie?theft, for which a Telegraph investigation found to be an ultra-low priority for police forces, is a major customer concern. In that investigation it was found that 87% of UK neighbourhoods had not a single suspect identified by police in bike theft cases in 2021. The stretched resource of the police therefore makes secure bike parking infras tructure all the more important, as well as emphasising the need for add on sales of locks. Could your store apply for bike parking on the pavement outside? Finally, scratch the UK weather off as being a problem this year (that is unless you’re riding without a water bottle). Cycling UK has crunched the numbers and found ridership up 47% up on weekdays and 27% up on weekends, versus 2021 data. The increased is yet more pronounced versus pre March 2020 rates, up as much as 150% on pre-Covid rates.
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WHAT ARE THE GREATEST OBSTACLES TO GROWING CYCLING NUMBERS? MARKET DATA 2022 57% / 102 79% / 141 34% / 61 25% / 44 46% / 83 27% / 48 27% / 49 53% / 94 12% / 22 8% / 14 32% / PERCENTAGE57 / MENTIONS
The structure of the event was simply split into parts. Part one was insights gained from presentations from ZIV, Deloitte with its consumer study for the event, Gunnar Fehlau with its decadelong market trend experience and myself sharing digitalisation knowledge. Part two was a guided round trip through the highlights of the show with the group, to prove some of what they heard in the presentations in person on the showground. The interest of the investors is very broad and diverse, you cannot say that there are particularly special focus areas. However, I would say some areas such as financial services, bike leasing, cargo bikes, smart or connected products and gravel bikes have had a bit higher focus than other areas. Is there a link between automotive interest in cycling and investor appetite and if so, what does this indicate on the future of transport in cities? I don’t think there is a direct link, but you can see that automotive related companies such as PON, Porsche, Bosch, Mahle, ZF, Valeo or Pierer all invested a lot into the bike industry already, but I currently cannot see any indication for the future transport in the cities. Currently the car industry is rather opportunistically investing, more than being strategic.
One thing is clear after the Eurobike show, that is the bike industry will be a significant part of the future mobility and we are part of the solution and not part of the problem. This position attracts investors. Are investors looking for start-ups in particular, or does this cash entering the industry also similarly flow into established or listed businesses? It very much depends on the strategy of the investors, of course. There is money out there for all type of compa nies in any stage. The majority of inter ested investors, especially in the field of private equity, are looking for companies which are growing dynam ically in turnover and in EBITDA and which are over a longer period of time significantly profitable. I see a lack of money in early-stage investments. We as industry need to put more effort in to attract early-stage investors, particularly venture capital funds, to invest in the hardware innova tions of the bike industry rather than making their 121st venture investment into a software start-up.
You organised the Investors’ Lounge at Eurobike – what was the thinking about debuting this platform in Frankfurt? Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany and due to the increasing inter est in private equity investments into the bike industry we set up the event. In 2021 around 50 large investments into our industry were closed, so we thought it might be a good idea to connect with the investors at the Eurobike show to give them valuable insights. There were 70 people representing €10 Bn+ in the room. Was this money always on the fringes looking in, or is this a recent shift?
WhyANALYSISareinvestors circling?
The mentioned €10bn+ referred to the capital of the present funds which the attendees have currently under management. And, yes, in the last four to five years the capital under manage ment in most of the private equity funds increased significantly, because it has become very attractive to invest in private companies. It is notable the speed at which investment interest in the industry has accelerated. What factors are driving fund manager or investor interest? Of course, the underlying growth perspective of our industry mid-to-longterm is strong. Most of the investors are growth investors and it is important for them that the industry in which they invest shows growth potential. The bike industry has at least four strong mega trends driving the future growth such as: health and fitness, smart mobility, sustainability and digitalisation. All these megatrends are joining forces currently and accelerating our industry’s growth on a longer timeframe. If anything, what most puts investors off the bike industry, or what needs to change to appeal to a greater degree? I think the biggest pain point is the underdeveloped supply chain, which leads to unsecure supply and, ultimate ly, lost sales. To improve this situation definitely should be the biggest effort for the whole industry. We have been talking about improvements since the mountain bike boom in the 90s where we had similar situation, but obviously not so much happened since. We need to make a joint, extra effort all together globally to master the difficulties in the supply chain. How did you structure the event at Eurobike and were there any particular areas investors were most carried by?
12 cyclingindustry.news
MEGA TRENDING
Tucked away in the sprawl of Messe Frankfurt at Eurobike was an Investors’ Lounge, put in place for the first time to draw in Frankfurt’s financial folk for guided tours. Organiser Ralf Kindermann gave CI.N a post-show insight…
In terms of business structure and investability it has been said the consumer direct business carries the most sway due to profit margins on offer. Is this strictly the case? Of course, the best margins are achieved usually by B2C or D2C busi ness models because they simply skip one or two trading levels, which normally leads them not only to better EBITDA margins, but also to a faster growth due to more attractive offering. Notably the electric bike is not considered an online sale, rather something that must be tried (in part down to price and fit). Does this buck a retail trend and make retailers with presence investible? Yes and no. The electric bike sales share online is lower than for non-electric bikes, because the sports enthusiasts target groups buy online and they are
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“THE INCREASING ELECTRIC BIKES SALES FOR RETAILERS WITH PRESENCE DROVE NOT ONLY THEIR SALES, BUT ALSO THEIR PROFITABILITY, WHICH ATTRACTS INVESTORS.” buying less electrical bikes than the aver age consumer. This will change soon, I think. Also, in the sports segment the enthusiast customers will use and buy more and more eBikes. Then the share of online sold sport eBikes will grow further proportionally compared to retailers with physical presence. The increasing electric bikes sales for retailers with presence drove not only their sales, but also their profitability, which attracts investors. We have seen recently some interesting transactions on the physical retail side and I am sure there are more to come. The bike industry appears set for some consolidation once more. How difficult is it to pick winners for outsiders who may not understand the complexities of our ecosystem? That’s exactly what we are aiming to address at the Eurobike Investors’ Lounge; we tried to explain and educate potential investors with the specifics of our industry, so that they can make the best decision for their portfolio. With great partners such as ZIV, Deloitte and Gunnar Fehlau we had quite a good competence to give them the right insights.
The most professional approach would be, on top of the PR, to hire a mergers and acquisitions consultancy, like me, to start a structured process to get the needed funding and find the right partner who fits to the existing owners.
In order of appeal, what trends are considered most investible? Digitalisation; that means in short a connected bike. This will be a huge driver for all kinds of new business models. In short, using the user generat ed data to make the rider’s life easy, plus give entrepreneurs and investors great and profitable business opportunities as a result. We are quite early stage and it will take some time, but it took me 31 years in the industry to develop the importance of the bike, together with the global bike industry family, to where it is now: A respected and future proof mobility solution and at the same time a sport and fitness product with an real lifestyle character.
circling?
“DIGITALISATION IS SO INVESTIBLE; THAT MEANS IN SHORT A CONNECTED BIKE. THIS WILL BE A HUGE DRIVER FOR ALL KINDS OF NEW BUSINESS MODELS.” The debut of an investor’s lounge at Eurobike timed well with the frankfurt debut; a city known to be a financial hub of Europe
For a business with a genuine USP, but in need of funding to progress, how best to get noticed?
www.kindermann-valuecreation.com 14 cyclingindustry.news
To get consistent visibility on the known plat forms for on and offline media is very important. With lower, or no budgets, PR and social media is key to get in touch with the target group and get attention from them. This is also a good base for finding funding, because investors are also consuming special interest media on and offline and a regular presence will get attention.
Finally, why at a time when we are technically in recession is this market considered a safe haven for investment? I think our industry is not seen as a safe haven, but with the underlying megatrends and drivers we are very well set to grow in uncertain econom ic times both sales and profit wise. Furthermore, the industry is crisis proven. It is very likely that in times where inflation drives gas prices sky high, the people will use more their bikes, or their eBikes for cost reasons. Which is a quite good downside hedging for an investment.
WhyANALYSISareinvestors
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A former software engineer and cycling enthusiast, Alex brings to the table background in electronics and algorithms, while Oliver has a multi media background that has proven particularly handy in quickly and organically raising the profile to the point where Facebook’s ads team apparently could not understand the figures the firm’s ads were returning.
Confidence in the path the pair have been on has come very naturally, we’re told, with customers becoming advo cates for the bikes upon purchasing. Of course the brand is not so much selling to typical cyclists, rather people who have come to understand the practicality
Only months in, our visit to the HQ lands on a baking Summer day where the welcome offer of a test ride cools us. The demos come aboard a selec tion of hub-motor clad folding and commuter bikes that are now readily available to retail stockists thanks to a decision to switch to an omni-channel approach. This decision, made possi ble as a result of the enhanced volume capability offered by the eight sevenday-a-week workstations, has seen the business recruit its first 20 partners.
T he name Estarli will only have flashed onto the radar’s of bike trade folk with an eyes on the eBike segment in the past two and a half years. Started by the Francis broth ers, Alex and Oliver, the brand punched through the ceiling of a sub 2,000 square foot plot fairly recently and into a new Berkhamsted assembly with over 10,000 square feet of space.
Trained staff assemble the eBikes here in the UK cyclingindustry.news
ESTARLI
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“We started in Selfridges, who approached us six months into our timeline. Taking our learnings from that, we made a plan in December for entering shops, as we had lots of enquiries as visibility of the brand picked up. A local shop of ours came to see at a show and we worked closely together to tune the process. You’ll now find us from Cornwall to Scotland, but with big gaps. Our soft target for 2023 is 50 retail partners,” explains Oliver.
Bringing a splash of colour to cycle shop showrooms for the first time, Estarli has broadened the reach of its UK assembled eBikes. CI.N visited the new facility to see the firm’s wheels in motion and learn about the retail offering…
STAR OF THE SHOWROOM PROFILE
ESTARLI “THE BIKES
of the bikes Estarli offers. The folding bikes, available in 16 or 20-inch wheeled iterations of various spec, are the perfect companion for last mile travel, whether that be for work, or to be tucked onto a boat for onshore trips. The boating and caravanning customer have been targeted with appearances at events like the Southampton Boat Show and the brand is being thoughtful on tailoring product for specific lifestyles. “We are looking at whether we could do a special edition for boat owners using bolts that are non-corrosive, accounting for the sea air that so often destroys bikes. We also pitched up at the Green Live Show and will be doing London’s Sustainabil ity Show in October in a bid to place this product among certain lifestyles,” explainsWhetherAlex.its dressing up as Santa Claus in November and filming on the local High Street for a social campaign, or a partnership with Herts and Middlesex Wildlife trust for its Wild Ride Challenge, Estrali is going out of its way to reach the blue ocean of customers who perhaps would never badge themselves cyclists, but see how an eBike makes certain trips much more viable and satisfying. As it stands, while the brand ramps up its presence and sets down roots for the long-term, the bikes are almost too cheap for the spec and Alex explains that there is an element of subsidy in the price as it stands, just to ensure the brand’s reach in its early years goes far and“We’rewide. occupying a deliberately premium, but affordable space where the prices are accessible, the product reliable and the backup more than covered by the stock held here. The bikes are providing immense value, especially considering the add-ons that can be achieved for very little extra – the lighting, racks and guards, for example. Of course, prices will go up, that’s an inevitability at the moment, but we are doing our utmost right now to get prod uct out there in the market and build confidence with partners and consumers,” says Alex. For the bike shop that means no mini mum order, a decent radius of exclusiv ity, one-week delivery and short lead time, as well as support where required on things like brand merchandising. Spares are held in abundance, which helps the brand offer a consumer direct channel with a foundation, alongside the new retail delivery. Better still, the bikes are assembled and PDI checked in Berkhamsted by a team of largely bike shop trained staff who, judging by the many rides stashed around the factory, are clearly into their bikes. To settle any nerves for shops unsure on omni-chan nel, Estarli confirmed that it will sell at the same retail prices it offers partners.
STAFFBIKEABERKHAMSTEADPDIASSEMBLEDAREANDCHECKEDINBYTEAMOFLARGELYSHOPTRAINEDWHO.”
18 cyclingindustry.newsPROFILE
The brand occupies a ‘premium, but affordable’ space A burst of colour has been introduced to help bikes stand out in showrooms
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Mountain bikes and cargo bikes are future avenues for Estarli
“Shops that we work with love that they can call us knowing that the knowledge is here in-house,” says Oliv er, adding that as far as the firm’s online presence goes, the to do list includes a store locator functionality. All of this is further backed up by an investment round that concluded in April, funding the brother’s spring board into the new plot, but more than that, giving freedom for the brand to continue to grow its UK designed cata logue. Mountain bikes and longtail cargo bikes have both been mentioned as areas of interest. An interesting USP for Estarli is that the batteries used draw on cells from Panasonic, Samsung or LG, but it is apparently a specialist company in the Midlands that fine tunes the specs, battery thresholds and achievable charge rates. Alex says that there is a possibility that the customer could in future decide their battery spec in store. Thanks to the firm’s agility, customers can already choose certain spec upgrades on items like saddles and tyres, while coming down the line will be items like water bottle style range extenders, as already trialled on the E16s. Another interest for the modern bike shop is how a brand is helping to reduce packaging and up its sustain ability credentials. While the brand acknowledges that bringing in its frames from China does carry an impact, we’re told that Estarli has been an active player in making requests of manufacturing partners to clean up. Proving that incremental changes are possible when brands just ask,
ESTARLI “THANKS
Alex says “We made an effort to convince our factories in Asia to send goods without plastic. Now we get almost everything plastic free and better still they offer that to other bike companies too now.” Now capable of assembling 40 bikes per day, we wonder, is that enough to satisfy current demand and that of shops signing up?
20 cyclingindustry.news
Alex concludes by saying “Almost, demand is still high and so we are dialling up and down any advertising presence in order to manage things within our means at present. Out the back of this warehouse we have sublet to another company space that we anticipate that we will very easily grow into in time, but we will do so at a rate aligned to giving our partners reliable stock turns and low lead times. We are very well prepared for the year ahead and very much stocked, rather than operating at just in time.” www.estarli.co.uk
“WE MADE AN EFFORT TO CONVINCE OUR FACTORIES IN ASIA TO SEND GOODS WITHOUT PLASTIC. NOW WE GET ALMOST EVERYTHING PLASTIC FREE AND BETTER STILL THEY OFFER THAT TO OTHER BIKE COMPANIES TOO NOW.”
Estarli are pitching a lifestyle aligned to sustainability and convenience
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From the language in the Gear Change document you could be forgiven for thinking that Bikeability is a given for every child, at every stage of schooling and for many adults in the UK too. “The Government has a manifesto commitment to offer Bikeabil ity training to every school child,” proclaims the document, adding “this commitment would extend to any adult that wanted cycle training.”
cyclingindustry.news 23 INTERVIEW Emily Cherry, CEO, BikeAbility
Arguably it should be a given and as funding has steadily unfrozen for active travel it’s a case that has been made with increasing vigour by those heading up the cycle training organisation. In the CEO role at the Trust that oversees Bikeabil ity since the spring of 2020, Emily Cherry makes a compari son that will make sense to every person who has passed through the education system in the past few decades. Like countless other ambitious organisations, Bikeability has big ideas and is determined to deliver new strategies to see cycling maintained past the school gates. CEO Emily Cherry talks to CI.N about funding struggles, engaging parents and getting creative…
INTO THE FUTURE
EmilyINTERVIEWCherry, CEO, BikeAbility 24 cyclingindustry.news
TfL has slashed its budgets for cycle training, leaving a big gap for kids in the city “I
“It’s true to say we are not actually fully funded,” starts Cherry. “In 2016 cycle training for kids became a subsidy, but all local authorities are expected to contribute to the cost.”
This explains how a recent headline from North Yorkshire that detailed how parents had been asked to contribute funds for training came to pass. Last year the authority received £46.20 per pupil, but this time around the funding pot came up short, £90,000 short.
Emily explains “Some local authorities choose not to take an admin cut and give all funding direct to the provider. North Yorkshire’s in-house team have higher costs, so they have control locally of how they roll the contract out. The grant fund ing per head model rose in 2021, but hadn’t been changed for 14 years prior. It is up to local authorities how they spend the cash. It is the case that other local authorities also charge parents and carers, but latterly use the cash to expand upon the training available.”
With the second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy now out in the wild, the question of future funding requires attention. Cycling UK’s policy director has already derided the gap between ambi tion and funding as having a “glaring mismatch”. Is this the case for Bikeabili ty’s ambition and its funding, we ask?
“I welcome the record investment, of course. Now, is it sufficient and do we in cycling want greater parity on the road budgets? Of course we would. If we are truly serious about Net Zero, reducing carbon and getting walking and cycling to 50% journeys, well then what we have is only a start and not enough, nor fast enough. I dream of a structure where every child is trained consistently throughout their schooling life. To do that
Emily Cherry, pictured above right, hopes that cycle training can be taught as a life skill akin to swimming lessons
“As Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zawahi put Bikeability on the curriculum as part of education related to climate change and sustainability. That was a big step. We’re grateful for that and we will push further for a statutory requirement, the same sort of statutory requirement that is in place to teach kids to learn to swim by year 6. We think life saving skills such as this are important and Bikeability is a life skill in road safety.” Most of us in the bicycle industry will have recollection of either a cycling profi ciency test, or Bikeability training, but if you do then you may be one of the lucky ones. It turns out that the current avail able funding only covers 44% of children by year 6 and only 60% of primary schools are taking up the opportunity to have kids trained.
DREAM OF A SCHOOLINGTHROUGHOUTCONSISTENTLYCHILDWHERESTRUCTUREEVERYISTRAINEDTHEIRLIFE.”
Furthermore, during July and appar ently in response to its severe funding shortfall, Transport for London slashed its cycle training budget to zero, leaving kids in London massively disadvantaged against the nationwide picture; and in a city where the infrastructure makes cycling to school safer than many places and thus most likely to have a lifelong effect on transport habits. Worse still, this move has left plenty of cycle instructors without the work they enjoy.
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The current funding structure does not go past April 2023 and while that may even have changed by the time this maga zine lands on doorsteps thanks to Govern ment reshuffling, Emily says “we hope to confirm a further two-year settlement urgently. It has to be at least the same level at £20 million, which is still a way off every child being covered.”
Running the numbers, we’re told that with the current budget 500,000 children can be trained, which “is not even a single year group (approx. 650,000); there are 8.5 million children in education,” explains Emily, adding “Our dream is to have chil dren aboard balance bikes in reception, teach basic ride skills in year one and two, a level one course in year three to four and level two in years five and six. That’s longterm vision, all being well.”
Bikeability has success when riding routes families will actually use during training “WE ARE EMBARKING UPON CREATING A NEW LANGUAGE AND INVESTING IN A REBRAND FOR OUR TEENAGE OFFERING.”
Specifically on engaging more girls in Emily hopes to confirm future funding structures with the Government as soon as possible CEO, BikeAbility 26
EmilyINTERVIEWCherry,
cyclingindustry.news
With that achieved, the skill level would be comprehensive by the time kids hit a new stage of life and one where new chal lenges emerge to keep kids on bikes. Worry ingly, the national trend for cycling to school drops off as kids leave primary and move to secondary education. Why is that? “I think you cannot underestimate the effect of peer pressure and how the perception of body image affects young people too. The image of cycling, is it cool to teenagers? We think from our feedback that Bikeability is perceived as such a good thing at primary by the kids, but it’s true to say that we need a different brand image for teenagers to take notice. That means we are embarking upon creating a new language and investing in a rebrand for our teenage offering.”
we would easily need to double the budget. This is without talking about adults too. At the moment this training is done through other local authority fund ing streams. We don’t currently look after this budget, but we would like to take that responsibility,” says Emily, echoing Roger Geffen’s sentiment.
Part of that effort to keep teenagers engaged spans right through to driving age and includes outreach efforts to keep the learning process about cycling and cyclists running right through all road education.
All projects that help people see the other’s perspective have been helpful, we’re told. Emily adds on driver aware ness that “with the approved driving instructors we hear feedback that the process has been transformative and helpful; many see road use in different light thereafter. Safer urban driver and lorry courses also help on fringes. Some times our instructors do those courses for a different perspective. Lorry drivers can often be forced on courses, maybe they don’t want to be there, but the employer asked. We find that by the end they have transformed how they look at behaviours and understand why cyclists sometimes ride on inside, or turn the way they do.”
“We have a cycle savvy driving pilot that is training approved driving instruc tors so that when people are taking lessons they develop an understanding and respect of the road user hierarchy, responsibility and other safety elements,” explains Emily on another of the organi sations non-traditional projects.
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On this note it is revealed that a new mobile app that delivers up to date informa tion on a child’s Bikeability progress will soon be offered. Through this virtual parent and carer hub digital badges and awards will be handed out and, aligning to other goals of the organisation, further engage ment in cycle training, or events, could be promoted alongside. “This is partially why we want to invest more in family courses. We have grant funding to see 5,000 households of up to six people. That’s personal, bespoke time as a household with an instructor for up to three hours. Parents can therefore see the confidence in their kids, and we can upskill the parent themselves. If a family came to us wishing to practice a child’s journey to secondary school, we could plan the route and talk about hazards before riding it together. As a parent that’s a huge confident booster, largely because they themselves have done it,” adds Emily.
TOGETHER.”BEFOREABOUTROUTEWESECONDARYTOSCHOOL,COULDPLANTHEANDTALKHAZARDSRIDINGIT cyclingindustry.news 29 INTERVIEW Emily Cherry, CEO, BikeAbility
There are more out of the box ideas in motion to really drive cycling appeal in a genuine way, we learn. Bikeability is to head to the pump track in a bid to add a layer of adrenaline into skills training. Cog, a Waltham Forest community group is one such partner introducing kids to BMX on its pump track. “With this method children’s levels of concentration, peer communication and learning is high. I’m a big fan of doing things in a different way. On that note, we are also working to develop an immersive reality cycling concept, one where partici pants use a static bike, but with an immer sive, 360-degree gamified experience delivered via eye-tracking glasses. Obvious ly, the kids love it. Brunel University and Dr Dan Bishop helped us develop the idea. We hope to have a national scale up later in the year and hopefully an industry partner to help us roll this training concept out.”
cycling, said to be among the greatest chal lenges for Emily’s team, the work is likewise to hit a new gear.
“IF
With electric scooters looking set for legislative approval in terms of private ownership use on the roads and cycle paths, Bikeability also has eyes for how this new transport form could capture children who prefer it to cycling. With that in mind, to understand the potential, in Bournemouth, in partnership with Beryl, There is a severe instructor shortage at present Aside from school yard training, some classes now hit the pump tracks A FAMILY CAME TO US WISHING TO PRACTICE A CHILD’S JOURNEY
“Because we know body image big for teen girls we have invested in widening participation funds towards projects to tackle this trend. I am soon to visit one that’s been live for 18 weeks that has looked at confidence, social and emotional work. We have invested in 44 such projects and I think they’ll make a big difference.” Parents have a role to play too, we’re told. Acknowledging its limitation, Bikeability is keener than every to engage parents and carers, knowing that without direct contact with the training there may linger a fear of letting a child cycle on the roads.
“Parents and carers hold the key to the bike shed, so they can also be the number one drop off cause. Those that remain fear ful of road conditions will not encourage continued cycling. So, we are planning on more work with parents and carers so they understand what has been taught and how it can impact a child’s life,” says Emily.
“Instructor skills are prized. Delivery companies wish to use qualified cyclists, for example. ZipCar like to employ proven safe road users. We are looking at recognising prior learnings from other sports coaches who know how to engage children as part of our work so that these things work both ways. I’d like to see more 16 to 18 years olds looking at a sport career get in touch, but also we don’t have gender parity, nor ethnicity parity by a big margin, so we want to see broad community representation as that’s a great way to build deeper community engagement into places where we have not been so successful before,” concludes Emily.
Recruitment has been a turbulent matter for most over the past few years and the effects of finding the right people are no less felt by the cycle training organisation.
“I would love to see more partnerships with the bike industry looking at recycling schemes for deprived areas whereby bikes could be repurchased at cost for disadvan taged children. I wonder how many cycle shops could do a communications campaign about old bikes sat in garages, then give those safety checked bikes to us to work with. All bikes would be welcome for donation, helping us train people.”
At this point a helping hand from the bike industry is called for. There exist a number of bike businesses actively involved in advocacy efforts, sometimes even direct efforts, to develop children’s cycling in a local area. Could more support from the industry be provided, however?
A SEVERE SHORTFALL OF INSTRUCTORS
The qualification is useful in terms of career progres sion, we’re told. Becoming a Level Two trainer adds an Ofcol recognised qualification that ups a person’s ability to work in a broader range of industries.
“We’ve got around 3,000 instructors currently through a network of 195 providers. To meet our goals we have done workforce modelling to grow that number to 4,500 in the next 18 months and so we have a 1,500 person shortfall; this is critical to address. We have launched 1,250 training bursaries and that pays for professional training as a level two cycle instructor. So far we have only found 300 individuals. We are slowly getting there with lots of targeted recruitment on social channels, but we are struggling to get people to come forwards,” says Emily.
“Two years ago Sustrans survey work shower that almost 80% of parents saw unsafe roads as the greatest barrier to cycling,” says FamiliarisationEmily.with road infrastructure must nonetheless take place and to be able to offer such training in a safe environment segregated from the road is extremely help ful, where such facilities exist.
So, with traffic looking busier on the roads for all things two and four wheel, what happens when road users are forced closer together and for motorists to pay attention more than usual for vulnerable users who have not traditionally been there as often? Safe infrastructure, as demon strated successful to stimulating ridership wherever present globally, is critical too.
teaching we give is fit for purpose in this space. The aim would be to offer this from 14 and above,” explains Cherry.
The greatest help would be to help Bike ability level up on opportunities for a wider crowd, says Emily.
80% of parents see unsafe roads and lack of dedicated infrastructure as the greatest barrier to cycling BikeAbility
“We think enclosed cycling spaces are critical and we support places like the Wheels for All Adapted Cycling Centres, as seen in Colchester. This is a brilliant cycling track, which has fake roads, T-junctions and a sports track too. The Wheels for All inclusive cycle training charity has adapted cycles, again crucially for engagement. There we can work with adults with learn ing difficulties and disabilities. We need more of these centres to create a broad and diverse modal share,” Emily explains.
EmilyINTERVIEWCherry, CEO,
30 cyclingindustry.news
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A re you a bicycle brand looking to engage with the 60 million people in the UK who don’t currently ride, or own, a bike? With the cost-of-living crisis encourag ing people to seek out cheaper ways of getting from A to B, my question to you is, “Have you reviewed your marketing strat egy to fully explore this opportunity?”
‘GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF YOUR WORK’, I HEAR YOU SAY We were an integral part of the creative development of the recent #BikeIsBest campaign, working with Fusion Media to deliver a message that measurably engaged a clearly defined target audience. WHO IS THIS NEW AUDIENCE AND WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE? They don’t look like your current target audience. They are not cyclists. They possibly haven’t owned a bike since they cyclingindustry.news
33 OPINION Marketing to non-cyclists
Jo Rigby mulls over what it takes to create brand growth by developing new paths to purchase for people who don’t yet cycle and certainly don’t consider themselves cyclists if they
MESELLdo… THISBIKE… @oscar.eckelcredits:Photo
I’m Jo Rigby your bike brand’s potential new customer someone looking to reduce the £1,000 I pay each year on travel. I’m also a marketing professional, working as Head of Agency and Media Partnerships at Zappi, the leading consumer insights platform. We provide companies with digital data to build things people love whether that be brands, ads, or innovative new products.
On Twitter I’ve developed friendships with other women who don’t consider themselves cyclists but use a bike to get around. It’s through reading their posts that I decided to try out an experiment in how I dress when I cycle to work. I switched my Sweaty Betty leggings for my aforementioned yellow and green suits. I also added in dresses and skirts.
AVOID FORCING THIS NEW AUDIENCE INTO YOUR EXISTING MARKETING PERSONAS
The clothes I was carting around in panniers to change into at work have become the outfits I wear to cycle in. I tend to plod along the road at top speeds of 13mph and my sweat levels don’t warrant changing clothes. This experi ment has transformed my experience of cycling. I notice that drivers are less aggressive, more likely to slow as I cycle towards them coming the other way.
34 cyclingindustry.news
CHOOSEOFMARKETUNTAPPEDOFMILLIONSPEOPLEWHOWILLABIKEINTHESAMEWAYTHEYMAKEDECISIONSABOUTWHICHSOFATOBUY–WILLITFITINTOMYPERSONALBRAND?” MarketingOPINION to non-cyclists
I’ve even had nice chats with London Taxi drivers at the traffic lights. I’m by no means suggesting that people shouldn’t wear cycling gear. Wear whatever you want to feel safe and comfortable. I’m observing that this experiment of dressing ‘normally’ has pushed me even further away from identifying as a cyclist. I’m looking ahead to a time when, like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, we become just people in all sorts of clothes using a bike to get to all kinds of places.
“THERE IS AN
The priorities I outlined above aren’t just mine. There is an untapped market of millions of people who will choose a bike in the same way they make deci sions about which sofa to buy – will it fit into my personal brand? These are people who will never identify as a cyclist, not within the current framing of what a cyclist is. If we achieve a future state of returning to cycling as a mass form of transport, then not many people will consider themselves as cyclists. We will be people who some times use a bike to make some journeys, like going to the shops, visiting a friend across town, and maybe the commute. Some may go further and add on a ride round the country roads or further afield. But we won’t be cyclists, in the same way that my nana’s generation weren’t called cyclists, they just used a bike to move around their society.
UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS OF THIS NEW AUDIENCE
If consumers find a new category confusing or complicated, they respond by delaying the purchase. I want to help you as brand owners make this consumer journey much simpler, to drive sales and grow your business.
were at primary school. Purchasing a bike is something that they may only have done for their children.
I’m going to start by sharing my path to purchase, as someone who is current ly delaying making a bike purchase.
To date, I’ve owned three bikes in my life. On my fourth Christmas Santa Claus left me a green Budgie bike, on my tenth birthday my parents upgrad ed this to a golden Dawes folding bike, and when I was elected as a Labour councillor, they gifted me a baby blue Bobbin bike. I’m now in the market for a new bike as I’ve progressed to cycling seven miles to work and would like something a little lighter. I will make this next purchase based entirely on how the bike will work with my person al style. I have a gorgeous yellow suit and I’m considering a yellow Bobbin to create the wow effect. Then again, a red bike would also work with my mint green suit. If only I could have one in every colour!
‘Cyclist’, as a contemporary term, and often used in a negative way, emerged as the number of people using a bike plummeted. The small percentage of the UK who continue to use a bike are labelled as cyclists to signal that they are in a minority, and we’re all aware of the many tropes that accompany ‘cyclist’. A consequence of this othering is that it creates hesitation about trying cycling out, it’s something that other people do.
So, if you’re a bike brand, or a distrib utor, wondering how you reach “the 80% of the population that is not cycling yet”, consider me as your target customer: The only brand I see that speaks to me right now is Bobbin Bikes. In the same way that my dad spent ten years visiting the Mercedes website and mithering the sales reps, I often visit the Bobbin Instagram feed to ponder if yellow really is my colour. Want to win my business, to lure me (and millions like me) away from the tube or car, or even a Bobbin bike, and win a global award for doing so?
TIME FOR SEISMIC CHANGE IN HOW BIKES ARE ADVERTISED
SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T A DIGITAL BILLBOARD WITH ONE WAY ‘BROADCAST’ TRAFFIC –CONVERSATIONS HAVE POWER
CREATE LIFESTYLEASPIRATIONALADVERTISING
OPINION Marketing to non-cyclists We’re a long way from that reality. We have millions of people to convince that they too can use a bike.
It’s time for the cycling industry to move on too in the way it advertises bikes. If the goal is to sell more bikes, then we need to consider more than oneRightaudience.now, the majority of bike advertising is aimed at cyclists. #BikeIsBest recently launched a terrific campaign aimed at people who were not cyclists. It featured some of the women I mentioned earlier. It showed them just moving around on a bike, mainly in everyday clothes.
My dream for the bike industry is that the bike account is the thing that lures the advertising talent to move agency. That one day, the Cannes Lion Grand Prix will be handed to an ecstatic team of creative agency types for their campaign that had millions of people rushing out to buy bikes they never knew they needed.
Bike advertising has mirrored that of classic early car advertising. The vehi cle is shown sitting majestically against a backdrop of mountains or backlit in a city environment devoid of other traf fic or signs of human life. Information about how the car had been built or what kind of engine it had would always be added to the copy. Car adver tising now seeks to imbue a lifestyle –the dad having good dad time with his daughter as he drives her to school, the happy memories created when the family spent quality time together on that scenic, traffic-free drive to the South of France. These ads speak to the millions of people who do not care what is under the bonnet, in the same way I’ve no interest in bike gears, they are buying something that amplifies their own personal brand. The choice of colour is just as important too – what am I going to look like in this car?
35
For us to get closer to an era when cycling is no longer different, we need the cycling industry to adapt. In many ways, the cycling industry is where the car industry was several decades ago. Cars were marketed to men as vehicles of power, status and ultimate masculinity. A purchase that will make you faster, more successful, increase your prowess. I worked in advertising in that era. Working on the car account was every male account executive’s dream. There was no higher calling than playing around with a limited lexigraphy to assemble new strap lines about how much hotter you’d be if you drove this car. It took several decades for the industry to take notice of data that women were involved in the car buying decision, for goodness sake, women were actually buying their own cars. Suddenly, the car industry had to change fast, and in the early days, in quite clumsy ways, to market to women. Think Paula Hamilton in that Volkswagen Golf ad.
The women in the cycling community on Twitter are aware of the influence they assert when they are seen on the road. We can often be the only female in a group of cyclists at the lights on the commute into central London. We are conscious that just by being present on the road, we are doing more than pedalling, we are showing that people like us can use a bike. I admire these women so much, women like @Auntiekay28, @cyclinginaskirt and @carlafrancome, who are showing up with their bikes with a goal to change society. We can often feel like a small group of evangelists. And we take a hammer ing online from those who get angry at cyclists, people who have stopped seeing us as just women on bikes, cele brating the freedom it is giving us.
Fusion Media, who created the advert, worked with Zappi, to help craft a strap line that would appeal to those who aren’t cyclists. Three different strap lines were tested against an audience of non-cyclists. The data helped Fusion Media to further develop the line that had resonated most with this audi ence. ‘If we can, you can’ featured in the final campaign, a beautiful call to action for the nation.
HOW ZAPPI HELPED TO CONNECT THE IDEA OF CYCLING TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T CYCLE
Don’t just take my word for it, here’s cycling industry veteran Laurens van Rooijen talking about the announce ment that cargo bikes will be sold in car dealerships in France: “Okay, that's a biggie! Speaking of reaching out to the 80% of the population that is not cycling yet much rather than those 20% that are already aboard. Big move by DOUZE Cycles and Toyota France.”
Shifting to marketing bikes that appeal to a wider set of lifestyles will bring in new consumers. Our entry level bike might always be the same, just in different colours. We might never buy that 21-speed bike. But we bring volume –there are millions of us waiting to be told that we need a bike if we want to enjoy our lives to the fullest; it worked so well for the car industry.
Let’s start the golden era of making brilliant bike campaigns aimed at people who don’t cycle! cyclingindustry.news
As a truly UK-made brand, we make almost everything in-house and can be very agile with our stockholding of raw materials. Thanks to our robotcontrolled CNC machines, we can turn billet aluminium and stainless steel into the finished product within four weeks. While you might be known for pedals, there’s now more to the brand. What expansion have you planned? Pedals will always be close to our hearts as that is how we launched the company, but we have invested in new tooling for an expanded range. We recently launched a seat post clamp that provides a much more even clamping force than the competition and handy for looking after those dropper post internals. Next up, we have a stem that’s UKmade, bolts and all. We showcased this at Ard Rock and the response was phenomenal. We also have three more products in testing and development as we speak. They should see the light of day in early 2023.
36
All of our products are produced in our solar/wind powered factory here in East Sussex, UK, using exclusively recyclable materials. In taking control of your distribution with direct to dealer sales what do you feel Pembree has gained? Dealing with the retailers directly gives us more control over the representation of our brand, but more importantly it keeps us in the loop on the developing needs of the independent bike shop. Since we produce the products locally and in small batches, we’re able to be responsive to any challenges in the market and better support the retailers through them.
For those new to Pembree, what’s the brand’s background? We set out in 2019 to make premium MTB components. Since founding the company we have set the bar high: we set out to be a global leader in respon sible, transparent and ecologically sustainable manufacturing. Since then, we’ve released two perfor mance platform pedals. The first prod uct to market was the R1V, in 2020. Featuring replaceable Traction Rails and premium bearings for maximum longevity, we designed it to be the most durable pedal ever produced and set the benchmark for our future work. We followed up the R1V with the D2A: a trail-specific variant hitting the sweet spot for weight, strength and traction.
Where could bike shops experience your product in person and are there opportunities for shop visits for those interested? We’re selecting new UK dealers at a sensible rate so that we can get them set up properly and trained on the products. We’re certainly happy to hear from shop managers though. Our email and phone number is available on the website’s contact page. Have you any plans to export your goods overseas? Certainly – the additional mileage of export will still keep us well below many of our competitors’ values in terms of environmental impact. We currently have retailers and distri bution partners in the USA, Mexico, Spain, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore and Australia. We are finalising additional partnerships in Canada and Germany, off the back of our recent trip to Eurobike, however we are not actively seeking other locations just now so as to not stretch ourselves too thinly.
cyclingindustry.newsNowsolddirect
Is there any POS or material support for stores to set the goods up in store?
How do you quantify the sustainability claims in your manufacturing? With almost all production processes in-house, we’re able to be very practi cal with our approach to manufactur ing responsibly. Renewable energy powers the factory, the aluminium we use is UK-produced, and even some of the parts we cannot machine ourselves are produced in the UK. Our carbon emissions are monitored and overseen and ultimately balanced by TEMWA, an independent UK-based charity.
Pembree has some tough competition, what helps the brand stand out? Pedals are a prime example of a bicycle product that is considered a consum able. We’re setting out to change that attitude. That means focusing on manufacturing the highest performing products, but with minimal impact on the environment. With a dedicated team of engineers, supplying partners and riders, we are able to create the most durable pedal and lower our carbon footprint. What equipment have you in house and how quickly can you turn around an out-of-stock line?
to dealer, Pembree Is putting on shelves a product of the circular economy and one pitched at riders wanting built to last parts. CI.N finds out more from the founder Phil Law
Pembree is no longer just about pedals, other accessories are in production
PROFILE PEMBREE FULL CIRCLE
We’ve worked together with our dealer network to come up-with an eye-catch ing POS that also stands firm with the values of the Pembree brand. It’s made from sustainably-sourced wood and machined aluminium, so is really built to last, and sits well visually in just about all retail environments.
We
38 cyclingindustry.news RetailANALYSISFinance
As we saw during Covid when there is uncertainty in people’s short-term finances and future expenditure, they opt to retain cash reserves. This, though, does n’t automatically mean that they don’t want or intend to purchase goods. Effec tive retail finance is likely to become an even more popular customer payment option as the economy goes into recession.
In August, the Bank of England announced a rise of 0.50% in interest rates to hit 1.75% - the largest for 27 years – predicting that inflation would edge above 13% with a recession beginning later this year, which could be the longest downturn since the financial crash of 2008. Once the dust has settled on the announcement, retailers need to process the implications for their customers and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Some might argue that this ‘buy now, pay later’ approach is serving only to cause consumer debt to rise leading to an increase in repayment issues further down the line. To an extent, whilst this can never be completely ruled out, this is dependent
This increase in customer desire to hold onto available funds isn’t restricted to the cycle sector nor just to higher priced items. When customers’ buying choices are restricted, and they can’t view items in person, their willingness to pay for goods upfront decreases. This led to a huge increase in the use of ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) as a payment method. Deferring the payment, often until the goods have been received, gives customers confi dence to make the purchase.
Data from Mintel published in the summer of 2021 suggested that the first year of the Covid pandemic gave rise to a 22% uplift in in the sale of bicycles in the UK, increasing from 2.7 million in 2019 to 3.3 million in 2020. The good news is that, although society is essentially fully reopened, the UK’s love for cycling shows no sign of abating, whether as a commuting option, a way of exercising (more UK adults enjoy cycling than running, playing football and strength training) or as way for families to get out and enjoy social time together. In case you missed the data published on CI.N in August, rates are said to be up 47% year-on-year (weekdays) and north of 150% above the weeks preceding the UK’s first national lockdown. Whilst accommodating and encourag ing this growing interest in two wheels is good news for the cycle sector, as the cost-of-living crisis bites and the threat of imminent recession looms large, the challenge for the sector remains making cycling affordable at a time when not many things feel like they are. That’s where effective and creative financing solutions come into play. Bicycle shops being excluded from the list of retail businesses that were forced to close during successive Covid lockdowns really highlighted the important role cycling can perform when people’s access to normal travel methods and leisure activities, like gyms and swimming pools, is restricted. Cycling became the go-to option for those who needed to travel but didn’t want to sit on a crowded bus or tube train; it became the preferred form of exercise for those unable to engage in team sports and, with theme parks closed, family bike rides were a viable alternative for enjoying time together. Whilst this led to an increase in new bike sales, what was obvious from the outset was that, when facing uncertainty, consumers opt to hold onto as much capi tal as possible. Consequently, the percentage of sales on retail finance increased at a larger rate than the sales themselves ie. the percentage of customers looking to spread the cost of a higher ticket item increased.
Whilst previously we saw an increase in sales as people didn’t want to use public transport, this time we may well see a shift towards eBikes if people can’t afford or choose not to use their personal car so much. Again, with a high average price of an eBike, retail finance will likely become a very attractive customer option. It is also certainly cheaper in the long run than buying on most credit cards.
An example of the tooling developed to help consumers calculate their costs “THE CHALLENGE FOR THE SECTOR REMAINS MAKING LIKEMANYTIMEAFFORDABLECYCLINGATAWHENNOTTHINGSFEELTHEYARE.”
GIVE CONSUMERS CREDIT FOR EMBRACING CYCLING find ourselves in another period where consumers are being forced to tighten their spending. But with cycling a great way to cut transport expenditure, is it again prime time for retail finance tools? We ask the ACT
Much of this is due to confusion by both retailers and consumers about what BNPL is and how it works:
Recent research by Barclays and the StepChange debt charity has shown retailers do not fully understand the credit options they’re presenting to customers with 54% wrongly think ing that most buy now, pay later (BNPL) companies perform a full credit check before deciding to lend money to a consumer. Another 52% mistakenly believe that all BNPL brands report their lending to the UK credit reference agencies.
Well, in short, these changes in customer habits are here to stay for at least the foreseeable future so retailers in all sectors need to accept this and adapt. Whilst larger retailers can have in-house expertise to manage the process for them, IBDs don’t have access to such resources within the business.
www.theact.org.ukACTMEMBERSCAN
Around 31% of Britons who have used BNPL service say the lending has got them into problem debt, as repayments have become unman ageable and Citizens Advice found more than 40% of BNPL customers are relying on other methods such as credit cards, overdrafts and loans from friends and family to keep up with repayments. So with misunderstanding and new regulations coming forward, how can an independent retailer stay on top of the situation?
THE ACT ON: 01273 427 700,or emailinfo@theact.org.uk
This could be valuable for retailers with surveys showing that consumers are more likely to spend a higher amount if retail finance is sold correctly, and that, for many customers, having the option to spread the cost is the main reason a purchase is made.
Two in five of those surveyed by Citi zens Advice between January in February felt what they had signed up for was not ‘proper’ borrowing in the same way a credit card or loan was, and 42% didn’t fully understand what they were signing up for.
cyclingindustry.news 39 on the type of credit, the value of the item and the market sector in question. Contrary to what you might expect, it isn’t higher value items purchased on traditional retail finance that have been highlighted by debt charities, the Financial Conduct Authority or the Treasury as causing most of the consumer harm. Access to longer term credit must, by law, include affordability checks and the finance provider must be able to demonstrate the customer could afford the repay ments at the point when they applied for the However,credit.the huge swing towards BNPL as a purchase method has seen customers get into serious financial trouble.2021data from TSB showed a 59% increase in use from the previous year, resulting in one in five UK residents taking advantage of BNPL services each month. Klarna the largest compa ny already has over 15 million UK customers.Unliketraditional retail finance, BNPL providers aren’t legally required to carry out affordability checks or share information with credit agencies. The lack of checks and transparency, as well as a general misunderstanding around BNPL, has resulted in the Trea sury publishing its initial proposal on how to regulate the BNPL market and give customers the same protection using BNPL as when using a credit card or traditional retail finance.
ACCESS THE RETAIL FINANCE TRAINING COURSE FROM JUST £75: indieretail.training OR TRY THE DEMO FOR FREE: demo.indieretailtraining FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL
Cycling is surging as the cost of living crisis bites, but consumers are still struggling with upfront costs
A survey of 2,700 users of buy now, pay later services found more than half of 18 to 34-year-olds consumers had signed up without realising, while 35% went onto regret their debt-fuelled purchases.
To compete with some of the larger players online and offline, IBDs are encouraged to take the ACT’s Retail Finance Training, an online learning course delivering an informed insight into retail finance that can be complet ed anywhere, any time. This will show your staff how to effectively promote retail finance, encouraging customers to maximise their spending through techniques such as financial promo tion, Point of Sale (POS) and bundling.
ALL BASES COVERED
“Ben founded Fully Charged back in 2014 as a pop-up shop in Old Street station.”
For those unfamiliar with London, Old Street is an underground station in East London, which as Parsons notes “is a very weird place for a bike shop and everyone thought he was completely nuts but Ben’s quite a visionary. He saw that eBikes weren't for ‘cyclists’ and Fully Charged has been incredibly successful.”
The expansion to larger physical premis es was not the only way in which the oper ation was growing as Parsons goes on to explain: “With the business expansion we made a conscious decision about three or four years ago, pre-pandemic, to not 40 cyclingindustry.news
Fully Charged
Dan Parsons, Head of Business Sales Ben Jaconelli, Founder at Fully Charged
STORE PROFILE
W hether you like them or not eBikes are here to stay and the market for them is growing. While some IBDs are content to simply dip a toe in the water others are completely devoting themselves to the scene. One such example is Fully Charged, which has gone from a simple pop-up store in London to a growing group of stores around the country with an impressive e-commerce operation backing the bricks and mortar stores. Founding Partner and Head of Busi ness Sales, Dan Parsons takes up the story of how Fully Charged was started when former super and performance car sales man Ben Jaconelli decided he’d prefer selling two-wheeled transport to four.
That success began with the move into the company’s first permanent store. The first fixed store was a space shared with a coffee shop in Globe House on Bermondsey Street, a location close to London Bridge railway station, which sees thousands of city commuters pass through every day. While the two busi nesses were run independently they worked well together as everyone knows coffee and bikes go together. However, as Fully Charged continued to grow it was time to move on again. “With the coffee shop share we’d done as much as we could,” explains Parson.
In order to attract commercial customers alongside regular consumers, eBike specialist Fully Charged has adopted retail practices more commonly found in the automotive trade as Duncan Moore discovered when he talked to Dan Parsons, the company’s Founding Partner and Head of Business Sales…
“We’d expanded upstairs, we opened up the basement, too. The workshop was downstairs and that meant that every bike box had to come in through the front doors and down the wiggy stairs before we could do anything with it. It became utterly impractical as the business took off. We were there until we moved in 2020 to our present showroom in Crucifix Lane. That was our first big showroom.”
simply be a retailer with a website. We were going to try to be an e-commerce operation supported by bricks-andmortar stores. Our idea was to flip the traditional bike shop model; bricks and mortar would be the showrooms; touchpoints and experience centres.” While the team at Fully Charged have not yet completely achieved that aim it is developing. Parsons feels that the stumbling block is a general reluc tance among eBike buyers. “People generally don’t have the confidence to spend four-figure sums on something they haven’t had their hands on.” However, Parson is confident that the change will come and Fully Charged is already starting to see an increase in e-commerce being driven by a situation that negatively impacted many other retail operations. “Covid really accelerated how we planned to promote this idea of retailing. PreCovid we had already started to do virtual consultations. People might come to us via the website and they can book an appointment with an expert and discuss things. We can use Skype, Facetime, etc and walk them round the bike and inspire them with confidence if they are not local to one of our stores. The pandemic really accelerated this way of working and we did a lot of no-contact sales during the lockdowns. “The e-commerce side of things has grown massively, but even so the majority of transactions are done instore and this is why having a demo fleet is so important. People might do all of their research online, they may have made the actual purchase online and we will have delivered the bike to them but at some point, they will have visited a store and actually taken a bike out for a test ride. It is a huge part of the sales process and I think it will remain so for a very long time.” It was not only online sales that Fully Charged developed during the various COVID lockdowns, the team also put other initiatives in place to promote the brand to a much wider audience than just cyclists while making use of unused demo bikes.
“We have found ourselves working with some unexpected businesses, too, says Parsons, “for example FM Conway the civil engineering and “PEOPLE GENERALLY DON’T HAVE THEIRTHEYSUMSSPENDCONFIDENCETHETOFOURFIGUREONSOMETHINGHAVEN’THADHANDSON.”
Dan Parsons Head of Business Sales
The focus on eCargo bikes began to develop for Fully Charged around three years ago and has quickly grown.
“We have gone from around one phone call a month to multiple calls a day now,” explains Parsons. However, in order to reach that point the business has taken onboard automotive fleet sales ideas and concepts. This has meant adjusting to concepts that are alien to regular IBDs, arrangements such as fleet manage ment, supply level agreements, leasing arrangements, service arrangements and more. The payoff for taking on these new ways of working includes having clients like Ocado, Freddy’s Flowers, multiple courier companies and consumer brands.
42 cyclingindustry.news STORE PROFILE Fully Charged
“We ran an incredibly successful campaign around May 2020, during the first lockdown, for the NHS. We quickly realised that because all of the suppliers had closed down and no reps were on the road all of the demo bikes used by them and for various test rides and expos were just sitting around. As a result, some very generous suppli ers, including GoCycle, Raleigh and others essentially donated bikes to us that were otherwise not being used and we put those in the hands of the NHS. That was an enormous PR boost for us, especially away from the tradi tional cycling media. We got coverage in the mainstream press while helping those who really needed it.” These unconventional ways of work ing are examples of how Jaconelli and Parsons are willing and able to look at other retail models and adapt those ideas to the eBike sector. This willing ness to work differently can clearly be seen in the way in which it has been used to grow the electric cargo bike side of the business with regard to B2B sales.
“AT FIRST, IT WAS LIKE PUSHING TREACLE UP A HILL. THEN, ONCE THEY HAVE ONE EBIKE OR ECARGO BIKE THEY KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE...”
44 cyclingindustry.news STORE PROFILE Fully Charged
For Parsons, success is not simply a high conversion rate of shop visitors to sales from the shop floor. His view, which some might consider contentious, is that traditionally IBDs have been hobbyists selling to hobby ists, but that is not the case for fully Charged “We are selling to non-cyclists and when it comes to selling eBikes it is about working backwards. It’s all about the service and support you’re able to supply and then you sell the bike off the back of that.
“We are selling eBikes to people who don’t even know what a chain is, never mind how to service a bike. These people are not traditional cyclists, but they know that when their BMW needs a service they take it to the dealership and that means that they accept paying a premium to have that work done and it’s the same with their eBikes when they bring them to us to be“Weserviced.charge more than a regular cycle shop for the service work we do but then again it takes a lot more to service an eBike correctly. If you’re going to undertake electronic diagnos tics you need more experienced staff and they can command a higher wage. However, it is a hugely important part of the business and it requires a lot of
While Fully Charged has been grow ing its B2B sales the team has been giving equal amounts of impetus to the consumer side of things too. Once again, the growth of this aspect of the business has seen a move away from traditional bike shop sales techniques and ideas. “To retail eBikes, you have to have different knowledge,” stresses Parsons. “With the greatest respect to other shops, the average Saturday boy is just working to earn a bit of cash. They’ll be passionate about bikes but are not overly invested in them, in the technical detail of them. “When people are spending £3,000 plus on an eBike, they want to be deal ing with people that are authoritative on the subject, that understand the bikes, that understand the technology. We have tried to create that bubble so that when people visit our stores we’ve always had the ethos of tell rather than sell. We won’t simply push the bike with the biggest margin, or the one that has the best deal on it from the supplier. We sit the customer down and discuss what their needs are. We say ‘Let’s try and match you with the right eBike for you’ and the conversion rate is high, about 70% of the people who walk through the door leave with an eBike.”
construction group. They have a fleet of eBikes to move things around sites in central London. They also have a cargo eBike we supplied that is fitted with a scanner that checks the road surface to check the condition of the road surface and they are continuing to find other uses for eCargo bikes.”
Parson believes that a key driver for the uptake of electric cargo bikes in urban areas was the Energy Saving Trust eCargo bike grant programme. It was first introduced in 2020 and returned in 2021/22 and was essential ly a £2.5k grant towards the purchase of a cargo bike for business use. As Parsons says: “We can call compa nies up and say park up your van, that is costing you a fortune to run, and which you can’t get around London, and we’re able or at least the govern ment is able to give you money towards a much more efficient alternative. “Buy an eCargo bike and it’s going to be cheaper to run, more efficient, and give you a greater profit. On an £8k bike there’s £1,800 of VAT off straight away and it’s 100% tax deductible, then there’s £2,500 from the government and then local borough councils are often also offering grants too. “Businesses are paying a pittance for something that is cheaper to run and more efficient than a van. At first, it is like trying to push treacle up a hill and then once they have one [eBike or electric cargo bike] they keep coming back for more.”
“When that happens it will be a seis mic shift for the industry, where Amazon leads everyone else has to follow.” When the change happens Fully Charged will be ready and waiting. WILL LOOK AFTER YOU. WE
investment, but it is the part that inspires most of the sales.” This last point is even more impor tant with the business’ commercial partnerships. “When it comes to busi ness clients they are not buying from a ‘bike shop’ as such. We have six eBike repair stands, and two electric cargo bike stands and that is not typical for a regular bike shop where the workshop is hidden away in the back corner of the store taking up as little space as possible. In the case of Fully Charged in London the space it occupies is 10,500sqft across the two premises; the consumer/lifestyle-focused store on Crucifix Lane and the recently added cargo bike sales, service area and warehousing on Holyrood Street.
DO AS
www.fullycharged.com“IFYOUJOINUS, WE
London is no longer the only loca tion for Fully Charged stores either as the operation has grown to include showrooms in Guilford, Silverstone and Cornwall. They are referred to by Parsons as “partner stores run by indi viduals on a sort of franchise basis, but not as a franchise”.
“The people who operate them run them as their own businesses and as such are very incentivised to do well. But at the same time, they get the bene fits of being a part of the Fully Charged operation; the exper tise, the supply relationships, inventory, pre-orders etc.,” notes Parsons. He then goes on to explain that they are a mixture of exist ing shops that have wanted to make the move to become specialist eBike retail ers and people coming into the busi ness from other industries. Talking about how the Full Charged brand has grown to include additional stores Parsons says: “We can say to people ‘you might be reluctant to sell eBikes or perhaps it’s not working for you because you’ve only got a couple of brands and they are not the right brands. But if you join us, we will look after you. Do as we say with these brands and it will work’. It is working and the stores are getting really high turnovers that would otherwise have taken years for them to reach. “We have proven this model with a rebranding of an existing eBike store and also with someone from outside of the trade who previously had an IT background. The Cornish store is a case in point of how we can develop a busi ness. It was originally more of a base for supplying home test rides rather than a big shiny store, but it’s been so success ful that it is now going to expand to more of a regular retail store.” Growth is very much on the cards closer to home too as Parson says: “We are looking to open another store in London – an experiential centre.” Discussions are already underway to make this a reality in West London and if all goes to plan that third London location will be operational before the end of the year. There are also plans to expand the service capabilities in the railway arch es that make up the Holyrood Street unit. To do this the plan is to move the warehousing and stock storage outside of London. As Parsons says: “It doesn’t make any sense keeping it here when floor space is so expensive and it will allow us to open up to more business to Currentlybusiness.”
Fully Charged’s sales are split equally between eBikes and eCar go bikes and then breaking that down further, the sales of electric cargo bikes are split 50:50 between personal consumers and commercial clients. However, Parson is confident that those numbers will change very quickly in favour of commercial sales, noting with some satisfaction that Amazon has announced that it intends to stop using vans and switch to electric transport.
SAY WITH THESE BRANDS AND IT WILL WORK...” 46 cyclingindustry.news STORE PROFILE Fully Charged
TailwindTailwindNewfor2023City •19kg (375wh) 20Kg (540wh) •Low crossbar available •Colours : Matt Black or Stone •Alivio 9 Speed Drivetrain •RRP £1799 - £1999 RIDE LIKE THE WIND! info@wisperbikes.comwww.wisperbikes.comor01732 762393 Tailwind COmFORT •20kg (375wh) 21Kg (540wh) •Crossbar version available •Colours : Matt Black or Stone •Aluminium Mudguards •Rear •IntegratedRack Front and Rear Lights •RRP £1949 - £2149 Tailwind trail •20kg (375wh) 21Kg (540wh) •Low crossbar available •Colours : Matt Black or Stone •Goodyear Peak 27.5” x 2.25” Tan Wall •RockShox Judy with Remote Lockout •RRP £2199 - £2399
ONE WAY TRAFFIC PROFILEGREENAER Stores showcase the bikes on attractive displays with a message
A leading presence in the Irish electric bike market, GreenAer has kept agile in the face of shifting market momentum. Founder Olivier Vander Elst shares with CI.N an expansion plan that will take the business nationwide…
It’s already 14 years since Greenaer founder Olivier Vander Elst bought his Reva G-Wizz, described by car mags at the time as among the worst cars ever made. Few took into account the reason ing for this quirky vehicle, that sat as an outlier to the bulk of cars featuring at the time, most of which were part of the trend of progressive creep in size that makes modern cars a nightmare to navi gate tight city streets and park. Olivier soon went further, longing for predictable trip times. Having started out wishing to be part of the change in the personal transport world, he and his wife doubled down on the idea that smaller vehicles are, more often than not, effi cient vehicles. “We morphed on the back of that experience and decided to start an eBike specialist business,” he told CI.N, while outside one of many electric bike halls now dominating the Eurobike show. “Ireland is notably car centric with bad public transport, so in 2010 we pivoted our business toward eBikes as Greenaer Mobility, shortly after buying our first Bakfiets cargo bike. It was very thought provoking and we saw the potential very quickly. It is not our game to look over our shoulder, so we carved our own track, believing these vehicles to have the potential to change the landscape for moving people and goods. Here we are much later and they’re playing a huge role in tomorrow’s transport movement,” says Olivier, giving a sense that the gamble on pioneering the product has now paid dividends.
cyclingindustry.news 49
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The big breakthrough in Ireland, in Greenaer’s view, came in 2019 when Ireland’s An Post took a fleet of 150 rearloaded Radkutsche cargo bikes from the specialist as part of a broader electrifica tion of fleets. As a result of the commit ment, the postal service is believed to have become Europe’s first to reach ‘Net Zero’ in its Submittingoperations.atender with bikes from Urban Arrow, alongside the winning vehi cle, Greenaer seized the moment and, as a result, now has bikes out in Ireland’s main cities. Bikes that require ongoing servicing by a specialist and one able to feed back toward the manufacturer as the market“We’vedevelops.learned from their rider train ing and ongoing use the type of abuse these bikes get and thus been able to improve our knowledge over time. We send staff out that are dedicated to repair of these bikes and the feedback shapes what we can tell Radkutsche. Even this ten-year-old model remains able to be refined on the back of real-world use. We found that the Irish weather was an early issue. Water ingress was a huge issue, but now a resolved one. There are some things you can’t account for, like rogue tuning of the bikes, that’s out of our control. Working with public services can beTheinteresting.”welcome trend noted by many eBike retailers to sell multiple bikes in one hit, in particular to business customers but also to families, has spurred Greenaer onwards and at the present time the busi ness is fundraising to get the next leg up. At the present time the business is 20 staff strong, but is recruiting with urgency to meet growth demands.
The difference in business terms will be in both volume and value of sales, should the right incentives come to the fore to stimulate riderships, we’re told. One such tool to fill in as a stopgap until things like subsidies emerge is leasing, something that in speaking to dealers in Europe Olivier has come to see as having potential in cycling. “We need financial instruments such as these to trickle through to the bike world and become more commonplace as they are in some European nations. I have spoken with dealers in Belgium who tell me that more than 50% of sales now go
ThesolutionsteamatEurobike on the test track “WE NEED COUNTRIES...”THEYBECOMETHETRICKLEASINSTRUMENTSFINANCIALSUCHLEASINGTOTHROUGHTOBIKEWORLDANDCOMMONASAREINSOMEEU
PROFILEGREENAER cyclingindustry.news 51
Keeping tabs on the broader market in Europe and surging demand in some countries with greater provision for cycling has given Olivier a sense of what may come in future if, that is, political willpower remains with traction for cycling. Having taken a keen interest in the subject, Olivier says that those who have “put their necks on the line” have shown great courage and been vindicated.
Whether for people carriage or business, GreenAer has the
“Politically in Ireland the Minister for Transport in the Green Coalition gets hammered all the time with criticism, so he acts every day is the last day on the job and tries to move quickly. That’s key, the pandemic allowed temporary measures to trial and turn to permanent, thus demonstrating their worth. Unfortunate ly, I see the media has a ton to do with stalling progress; our media is not inter ested in sustainability from transport. The knowledge base is poor and so the is the narrative that follows. A few people in Ireland are pushing at county council level with success. Robert burns, who changed things in the affluent county council in the south of Dublin, put down a template for others to follow. Here we are able to see property developers build ing on the sides of projects cycle lanes and pitching that as a USP. Therein lies a subtle and natural shift in thinking.”
Olivier says “We have a service hub in Dublin city centre, purely for the eBikes we sell, plus cargo, that is headquartered in Sandyford. There’s also a large 500 square metre store alongside and another in Mullingar, plus one in Cork too. Our view is to expand both in Dublin to cover north side and also west side in Galway. With a long-term view, we don’t want to have too many branches, but too achieve geographic cover, with a solution to have service coverage nationwide. We have privileged access to brands as we were serious early on, so we are really alone at our scale in Ireland.” Where the competition online has been fierce and occasionally unprofitable in the past for many online specialists, Greenaer remains happy that eBikes are deemed an instore purchase by most customers. The demo, says Olivier, is crucial. “We really enjoy the appoint ments side, ensuring we are giving people the time to settle on the right purchase. We want people to trial with our staff and buy into that feeling and knowledge we can deliver. It’s deeply experiential and we’re discovering that for most the eBike is no longer considered a leisure vehicle. Rather it’s to be used day in, day out. You cannot get a full understanding from a spec sheet and 90% of people stick to first impressions they develop in person.”
As such Greenaer is keeping its stocks focused around in demand premium prod ucts with Riese & Müller, the largest brand by value, flanked by offerings from Haibike, Moustache, Orbea, Tern, GoCycle, Raleigh, Hercules and Urban Arrow.
“The trend for us is to contract rather than expand the network of brands. There is always the temptation to add entry-level in swathes, but we made mistakes here previously. You know they sell, but when it comes to aftersales and meeting expecta tions its tricky to make it match up to a profit. I think that bubble has burst lately in a few businesses, this is not an oppor tunist industry where you can dip in with a value eBike product that does not give full consideration for net profit margins. After sales can get complicated,” he says.
With bike retail a changing beast and not afraid to experiment, Olivier has had a separate entity open in Spain since The An Post fleet supplied by GreenAer
52 cyclingindustry.news leased and that’s because the infrastructure exists end-to-end. It was tradition to give workers an Audi A3, but now that’s replaced with a smaller car or an electric bike lease. A Pedelec out there can qualify for 24 cents a kilometre allowance. Lucien, the new chain launched there, do a Stromer for €150 per year and thereafter sell the bike into the second-hand space, furthering the reach to those with less buying power,” explains Olivier. There’s a demographic barrier for younger folk, in particular. “It is a chal lenge here to get 30 somethings into the eBike sphere as they perhaps can’t finance it in the same way older people can and they are somewhat used to not owning an item. Subscription is where it’s at for this customer, so you need to break into their field of view somehow. We will certainly think about a subscription service of our own in future to crack this.” Bike sharing is another gateway into the product that has made an impact in Dublin. The introduction of these hired cycles “changed the narrative” around cycling, believes Olivier. “We saw people in suits hiring, which did a bit to change driv er behaviour once a critical mass became established. Those schemes give a taste of a different way to travel, but mostly they are not comfortable to ride, so people like to move on to ownership eventually.” Stargazing at mainland Europe where the cultures for active travel are more established has led to other envious feel ings. Again, comparing notes with Euro pean retailers, Olivier says that his average sale price of around £3,000 would more than likely be 25% higher. “There is an understanding that an eBike is an investment and one that holds its value,” he says of conversations had at Eurobike.
Pricing is a painful subject for all in the bike world at present, with increases on bikes said to be outrunning inflation and 17% higher than 12 months ago, on aver age. For a business based in Ireland some of that pain has been amplified by Brexit paperwork. “It’s hard for somebody in Ireland to see their bikes priced higher here than in Germany. It feels self-inflict ed, but the transit via the UK has made distribution that much more challenging.”
PROFILE GREENAER “IT’S A CHALLENGE TO GET ANUSEDSOMEWHATITTHEYSPHEREINTO30-SOMETHINGSTHEEBIKEASPERHAPSCAN’TFINANCEANDARENOTTOOWNINGITEMLIKETHIS.” Branded bikes are sought by corporates
Lisa and Olivier Vander Elst, GreenAer’s founders “THE TURBULENCE THE BROUGHTPANDEMICTOOK A MENTAL TOLL ON PEOPLE, EVEN IF CASH CAME IN AND THAT’S STILL FELT. NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THAT, BUT IT AFFECTS THE RHYTHM...”
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November under the Volo Bikes banner. Operating from a transformed ware house, this business is making the most of its location and an engaged community to become a hub and experience centre for those riding south of Barcelona. He explains: “We have transformed this warehouse into an attractive store that is also a restaurant. In truth it is a lot less transactional and more community focused. We are selling the experience around the mountains of Garaffe, which is the ultimate MTB and gravel play ground. We have fleets of bikes and events paired to their usage. The eBike is a catalyst for a happy life, so we build around that lifestyle, selling Healthy food, speciality coffee, Patagonia clothing and of course we do some cargo bike trials too. We partnered too with Thomson Bike Tours for multi-day tours. There’s a Licence to ride the Tour de France route ahead of the race so customers can do the main étapes. These customers have become very engaged and keep coming back to our meeting place, so of course they meet other like-minded people. This partnership is a joint venture and one that’s transferable to other places. It’s somewhat Rapha club membership esque. We are learning valuable lessons.” The perceived opportunities are now well covered, but as the world faces a new plethora of economic challenges ranging wars to recessions, what observations has Greenaer’s founder on the retail market’s frontline role in keeping consumers happy? “I can see a lot more consolidation coming and indeed we have been approached by several bike shops want to sell to us, many have had enough. The turbulence that the pandemic brought took a mental toll on people, even if cash came in and that is still felt through the staff. No one talks about that, but it affects the rhythm we can coast at. Unfor tunately, customers now can be very short and have low empathy as everyone is stressed. Working against online play ers that create unrealistic expectations in the market; that’s very fractious at times.” Despite ‘normal’ trading conditions being a distant memory, Olivier concludes by stating that he feels, for the bike market at least, the momentum is one directional and that’s a good thing for those able to address consumer needs while cash is thin on the ground. “The mathematics and need for social change make this transport mega trend likely to succeed. There is no going back now, the agenda is set. When I am Europe you can see that funding is given for those being part of the change. People can try to slow the trend down if they are nonbelievers politically, but when best prac tice is shown working next door it will not last. I’m glad in Ireland we are part of creating the mobility revolution.” www.greenaer.ie
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Imagery, influence and peer pressures are travelling further into harder to breach social circles, says Gary. As we look out upon the demo track at Euro bike, it’s the vehicles making up the lion’s share of tests that are starting to breach the notoriously difficult to crack demo graphic of mums on bikes.
“The whole marketing message is changing. The bike is a top five icon of good life in Maddison Avenue now. We have taken some advantage of that, but we as an industry don’t control the message yet. When I was a kid they say that most money went on a house then a car. The car folk were smart with the messaging, they created a personality around ownership. A lot of Americans got off on it and still do, on having the power of driving around some sort of auxiliary kitchen, ‘my private defendable space’. They go through any neighbourhood in the trucks with a mind set that some bad guy isn’t going to get me in this. It has been sold as a lifestyle, but also by fear. Of course, it’s nothing like that in reality. I took some rich kids to a lower section of town on bikes and they still talk about it for six months afterwards. They need that different experience to know this world isn’t a bubble.”
In short, that was part of the reason he had attended; to view in full the direction that the cycling world is now headed. This year’s event was ultra-light on sports cycling, instead focusing largely on A to B cycling, often with goods carried. That was met with approval.
Bikes are catching on with the youth for other reasons too, he says. Sometimes there’s simple economic reasons where the bike is seen as an affordable freedom against buying into expensive EV cars or fuel costs, but more than that Gary’s hopeful that the imagery changing around cycling is having a big impact on how ‘cool’ cycling is seen to be.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS!
that the “handwriting is on the wall” for cars in urban spaces “THERE’S A LOT OF VERY USHAVEANDTOPEOPLEINTELLIGENTCOMINGINTHEBIKEWORLDI’DSOONERTHEMWITHTHANAGAINST...”
“Women down at the playground near me are comparing cargo bikes now. I talk to a number of them and ask how it is and something’s different; they find the service of these bike companies to be fabulous.”
That’s not to say that the bike industry has been all bad in reaching the demo graphics that have looked at bike shops as intimidating places, but truth be told, it’s a historic viewpoint that is only now being addressed. What’s more, these start ups entering the bike world to tap the trans port movement are brining in fresh blood and new ways of thinking, or reaching Now no longer directly part of the Trek business, Gary Fisher made a rare trip to Eurobike with a view to potentially opening a new chapter in the bike business… or maybe something else entirely.
54 cyclingindustry.news GaryINTERVIEWFisher,the next chapter
“I’ve always been disappointed that bikes have been sold as ornaments to sit on SUVs. That’s all changing now,” starts Gary in reference to the trend of bikes being used as tools for transport, rather than arguably being seen as shiny toys.
t’s been a while since Gary Fisher made the journey to Eurobike, but after 29 years closely tied to the Trek business that relationship formally came to an end in the Spring of this year. How does he fell about it? In a few words: reenergised and free. That is free to just see what’s out there.
When we arranged to meet Gary in the halls at Messe Frankfurt he had no specif ic place to be, but lots to see. Posting to his social profiles, Gary wrote on Euro bike “The show has transcended from a purely commercial event to a powerful statement about the goodness of what we bring and our rightful place in society.”
“Now I’m seeing seven to 14-year-olds on these eScooters. A kid that weighs 2030 kilos can go up hills all day on a charge. That means the mother doesn’t have to drive them all the time. I spoke to Chief of Police locally, he says ‘if I crack down on them then the mums will be angry at me!’ Then there’s these eBikes like the Super73; that style is so popular and kids go off riding all kinds of stuff on them. In doing so they are creating new desire lines for their peers. The bike racks are full again and it’s down to regular eBikes and scooters. We live on a penin sula that’s seriously jammed up. The bike paths go parallel, so bikes go right by the traffic. Added to that fact, in last 15 years people of wealth see it very fashionable to be fit. ‘There’s nothing better than being rich and thin’, they say.”
CI.N caught time with the industry legend, letting the conversation roll across all things bike, advocacy and future mobility…
Gary feels
“The handwriting is also on the wall space that urban areas won’t be forever given to cars now. It’s a realisation that they in that business have failed big on the promise of delivering useful transport to humans. Instead the car has ultimately delivered death directly and via fine particulate matters, plus the ruination of peace and stifling of community.”
“AUTOMOBILE COMPANIES HAVE MADE MARKETING WORK, NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE BIKE INDUSTRY TO DO EVEN BETTER.”
“The teams are well budg doing well by demographics that felt alienated before,” says Gary. “We’re becoming professionals now. I tell you this, if you’re an amateur in this business now, you’re out that’s the handwriting on the wall. There’s a lot of very intelli gent people coming into the bike world and I welcome them, I’d sooner have them with us than against. For the old school thinkers that’s going to mean putting up more to compete on market ing. Automobile companies have made marketing work, now is the time for the bike industry to do even better. Compa nies must put up real budgets; so far they are 5% of expenditure, that’s not enough, it’s 20-60% for software companies.” In that nod to a creeping input from outside forces the subject shifts to the quickly changing corporate structure of the bike industry and why, all of a sudden, the bike world is attracting investors and fresh blood like never before. Why is much of coming from the automotive world lately, we ask?
But what does Gary really think? “The ‘we have been acquired and are enjoying the resource addition’ story is certainly a trending one. Let’s look at why our industry is interesting from outside from a resource perspective. There is no way to Net Zero without micromobility; one Tesla battery equals 200 eBike batteries. That’s the product side, but there are other cues that are driving city-based changes. Property developers are look ing more at building close to transit routes, be it public transport or bike paths. Each building comes with less parking spaces put in as they’re no longer needed and you can lower the cost of the building without them. From an employer’s perspective, traffic does not make for a reliable or healthy workforce. Don’t cyclingindustry.news
customers, with little to no preconception of how the bike world did it previously.
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Marcus Storck’s bike with Porsche with the cameras on it, just wow. I told Garmin years ago I wanted accessories like these built into the bike, but we never did it. Inte grating this stuff intelligently is key. The functions that solve problems for riders can really up the game.”
“Mechanics have magic hands, don’t they? The average person can’t take a tyre on and off. People value that service, so don’t let yourself be devalued. Only 30% or fewer human beings should be allowed to have a wrench in their hands. I’ve been saying for an age that the automobile guys HAVE MAGIC HANDS, DON’T THEY? PEOPLE VALUE THAT, SO DON’T LET YOUR SERVICE BE DEVALUED.”
Not quite the Grateful Dead setup that Gary once helped with, but this musician brought to Eurobike, by cargo bike, a fold up stage and
gear
you want your employees to show up on time consistently?” It's at this point our curiosity peaks, what’s Gary been up to since he parted ways with Trek and is the bicycle the answer to every transit problem?
There will be mechanics out there read ing with a degree of scepticism, of course. With integration of tech and internal rout ing comes potentially longer hours in the workshop. That’s a good thing, says Gary and a chance for the industry to finally start charging for its skillset.
“I’ve been getting into local politics. We have this whole thing about building more housing. Orange County had 200,000 people in 1970, today it’s 260,000. As the sprawl has grown people who work for you now have a 90-minute commute. They can easily pay two million dollars for houses close to work places and have a nanny costing $30 an hour. So, I’ve been pushing to expand local transit with ferries; they’ll hold 760 people. I’ve been pushing for extra docks to be put in where working people come from. It all helps.” As for the reasons Gary is walking the halls of Eurobike, posting selfies with brands and making connections – is there anything to be read into this? Not yet, he says, but there could be.
“Truth is, I want to get back into creative, I have new ideas. I am finding a lot of friends and I’m having a great time here. I really love all the connectivity in bikes now.
56 cyclingindustry.news “MECHANICS
GaryINTERVIEWFisher,the
next chapter
“We have a massive bike shop consol idation in the USA too. Five years ago a great dealer of Trek’s hit retirement age. His kids didn’t want the shop and nobody would buy it for a fair price. So, Trek said ‘we will take care of you’. That’s obviously happening more now and with many labels. Some dealers say this may all fail, but then they tend to ignore the extra 28 points on a bike sale. That extra cash ultimately means service can be upped with savings made, so they can listen to people and solve their problems better.”
Fewer, but higher quality bike shops, greater levels of service and new ways to access bicycles; it’s not all bad, one might argue. Change is one of life’s inevitabilities and so having been part of the pioneering movement of moun tain bike riding, we have to know, what does Gary make of the evolution of modern bike design? “Things change all the time, the way steel is now is different to how it used to be, it’s air hardened and hydro formed. Gary Klien put more zirconi um in to aluminium frames to stop cracking. A good computer will help you design things you weren’t capable of doing not so long ago. Now we’re going to have additive manufacturing that will cut down on inventory like crazy, that’s all coming. I’d wager in 10 to 15 years 40% of all parts will be printed on the spot.
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A final thought?
That’s gravel, bikes for transport and eBikes covered, as well as some of the politics that puts a ceiling on progress.
Gravel bikes, have we been here before?
are serious when they start these tech nical schools. Some bike people are doing it now, thankfully. When a customer goes to a modern bike shop it should be more like entering a show room and the maintenance programs should be perfectly aligned and profes sionally laid out. People do buy into it as they’re conditioned in this way by auto mobile industry.” The workshop is of course becoming critically important to the bicycle retail model. Here in the UK, just shy of a third of independent bike retail respon dents to CI.N’s annual market research said that the workshop was either the majority or the entirety of their trade. While the bike boom temporarily swelled numbers, the long-term trend of consolidation appears to be resum ing. With the market seemingly offer ing up ample opportunity to tap an evolving customer base, what’s hurting the bike shop?
A pioneer of the mountain bike, successful racer and a big part of the evolution of the off road marketplace, we wonder what Gary makes of the gravel market’s overwhelming success and the very often blurred lines between product categories. How did this category come to be pedal powered cycling’s latest success story? “Mountain biking rightfully became more extreme. The World Cup 20 years ago was essentially on today’s gravel course. Then came the art of trail build ing, which enabled us to take so much fun from the sport. Not just anybody can go out and ride World Cup races now, so gravel is more accessible. On the road side, I promoted racing when I was 17 years old. We didn’t pay anybody, or call the police. Nowadays the reason the Tour of California is not around is it’s wicked expense to do due to sheer volume of automobiles on the roads. Gravel comes without all of that hassle. People forget the economic goodness brought to areas that see hotels and restaurants full for a week. California doesn’t need that money, but Kansas took it with Unbound.”
With all tied in, what has Gary to say to the industry at large? “Bikes are not going away. I’d like our industry to think big because that’s what engages people. We have got to start engaging in the construction conversation with our politicians, to point out that automotive has failed society; given us noise, separation and pollution. All that negative stuff, you don’t need that. The way it will all change is, as leading cities succeed by being bold in change, others who don’t go to dust and it will be noticeable. We in the bike business are in a positive space for the planet, so don’t just exist, do something today to be a larger part of the change.” cyclingindustry.news No longer an “ornament for an SUV”, Gary was pleased to witness bikes with practical purpose come to the fore
e·til·i·ty \ ē-ti-lə-tē ebike + utility + agility
DisabilityANALYSISCycling
If you’re lucky, they will get you some money. Also, you need a third-party to apply for you so that person, even if she had the capacity to apply, it’s a lot of work.
Isabelle Clement, CEO of Wheels for Wellbeing, who was awarded an honorary MBE in July for her charitable work, said “the barriers to cycling for disabled people are the same as everyone else’s, with a cherry on the top”. Clement’s hand-cycle adaption for her wheelchair “is more expensive than most secondhand cars” at around £4,500 or £5,000.
Kay Inckle, Clement’s colleague, is also a hand-cyclist. She says: “The equipment is really expensive and then disabled people tend to have the lowest disposable income,” adding “people pay a fortune for something and then something not huge ly complicated goes wrong but you just can’t fix Inckleit.”says parts are hard to get, and few cycle shops repair and maintain them. She juxtaposes Brompton bikes, handmade in England and retailing at less than a quarter of the price of her clipon handcycle, with hers – with one less wheel. This is part of what she calls the “disability premium” where disabled people pay inflated prices for essential or everyday equipment.
ADAPTED CYCLES OUT OF REACH?
Janet Paske, who founded Wheels for Wellbeing but now works with Inclusive Cycling, says: “Cycles [for disabled cyclists] can cost up to £8,000, with elec tric assist, while typically [grant] funds will give you £250 to £750 that’s a lot of applications. You have got to find funders.
Non-standard cycles can cost from £4,000, and purchase assistance is scant. One expert says she can no longer help people fundraise for such cycles, because the likelihood of success is so low and the effort so enormous.
Key enablers would be the availability of subsidies for non-standard cycles, as well as more affordable quality cycles for smaller markets, such as for disabled cyclists, machines currently manufac tured in silos at huge cost to customers.
“So much of it seems to be designed on the basis that disabled people don’t really do anything and aren’t going to be
59
n a survey of 245 disabled cyclists specialist cycling charity, Wheels for Wellbeing, found that while cycling is easier than walking for around two thirds of respondents, and use a cycle as a mobility aid, for a third access to appro priate cycles was a barrier.
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Laura Laker
If you’re dealing with a disability charity you are likely to need a statement from a health professional. I haven’t got the capacity to do this anymore. Maybe it’s possible for a £3,000 cycle, but it’s too much to do as a Crowdfunding,volunteer.”sheadds, is an option for individuals but adds: “The last thing you want to do as a disabled person is to go with a begging bowl”.
Cycling is out of reach for many disabled cyclists, and those who need nonstandard cycles, not necessarily because of ability but cost and availability, locking people out of cycling, according to those working in the field.
AREtheexploresissue…
cyclingindustry.news
Of Wheels for Wellbeing’s respondents, 87% own their own cycles, with most of the rest only able to access machines via inclusive cycling events, often limited to London. Paske adds while inclusive cycling hubs, where people can try differ ent machines to understand which works best for their needs, are essential, “one of the big issues is even if you hired a cycle, you know you like it, and you have some where safe to store it, you can’t rely on a hire cycle because that has to go back”.
“THE EQUIPMENT IS REALLY EXPENSIVE AND THEN DISABLED PEOPLE TEND TO HAVE THE DISPOSABLELOWESTINCOME.”
“It’s based on the idea that either a charity or health service or an insurance company are going to pay for it,” she says – and often the quality isn’t the best.
Carbon Responsiblyneutralmade in the UK pembree.com In—MadeFinishedCraftedEngineeredSourcedTestedDesignedResearchedtheUK
www.wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk cyclingindustry.news
Goodall said: “In a world of massproduction, the small market size is the most challenging. To initially get bikes to market, we’ve made the first frame in our frame-building workshop in Ludlow, UK. Our main supplier in SE Asia has been incredibly supportive; we were taken aback by their enthusiasm for the project. They saw what we saw, a portion of soci ety not at all catered for.”
Motability is developing an active trav el grant programme for cycles used as mobility aids, available to “charities and organisations”, including for equipment. Motability says, “being able to get around under your own steam, whether for work or leisure, is something that everyone should be able to do” and describes this as “a priority area for focus and investment”. While the Cycle to Work ‘cap’ was lifted a few years ago, many disabled people aren’t in work, or have poor credit ratings due to intermittent working patterns, and the payback time is the same no matter the cost. This was an issue for a Scottish programme of interest-free loans for eBikes, which also didn’t recognise clipon hand-cycle adaptors as cycles, but as wheelchair modifications. Inckle suggests standardisation of more parts could bring down costs. For example, both recumbent and hand cycles have really long chains. “Makers of non-standard cycles, that’s all they make, they’re not necessarily joining up the dots [around] a standard piece of kit, and everybody is just making their own”.
The result, says Isla Bikes’ Tim Goodall, has been ‘overwhelmingly posi tive’. The Joni, for adults with dispropor tionate dwarfism, retails at £899, with a child’s model for £399.
commuting or participating in sports or leisure activities on a regular basis.”
61 DisabilityANALYSISCycling
He adds: “If you lead a company or work in product development, begin talk ing to people that are not like you. Maybe they have different physical characteris tics or abilities or come from a different background so putting on lycra to go for a ride isn’t the most normal thing.
“BEING ABLE TO GET AROUND UNDER YOUR OWN STEAM, WHETHER FOR WORK OR LEISURE, IS SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO.”
“Then get on and solve some of their challenges. It’s easy to think there is no market for non-standard bikes because you don’t see anyone riding them. But there’s no-one riding them because they don’t exist, or they are mega expensive”.
There is a successful non-standard cycle model in the UK. Isla Bikes received numerous enquiries from adults with dwarfism about their children’s cycles, and designed a specific cycle for that market the challenge being designing a low stepover frame that met ISO fatigue tests.
Adapted cycles come in many shapes and sizes, something which inevitably ramps up costs for those in need
WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL ISSUES WITH DIFFERENT FABRICS?
This third article in the sustainability series for Cycling Industry News covers the various types of fibres and materials used in the clothing and accessories for the cycling industry and looks at the impacts associated with each, and how we can start to make informed decisions in fabric choices.
Synthetics: Anything which is ulti mately derived from fossil fuels. These are essentially plastic polymers such as polyester and nylon (or their recycled counterparts which are a step or two removed from the original crude oil)
A quick internet search of “which is the most sustainable fabric” will lead you down a wormhole of claim and counterclaim, opinion-driven argu ments, and inherent bias towards synthetics or naturals. One problem lies in the expectation that we can dumb down a vast number of variables in the creation of a fabric to arrive at a single measure of sustainabil ity to rank fabrics against one another. And this is where people are tying themselves in knots. There is no single most sustainable fabric. The fibre type is certainly important in determining the sustainability of a material, but even looking at a single material type the impact can vary greatly between suppliers. It depends on a wide range of variables including; where it’s sourced; using which tech niques; how it was dyed and finished; transported, etc.
cyclingindustry.news
SustainabilityOPINION
Naturals: Including cellulosics from plants (cotton, hemp, etc), and animalderived materials such as wool, leather, down, etc. “Semi-synthetics” usually fall into the naturals bracket too – cellulosics that are chemically processed (e.g. bamboo or eucalyptus) to manipulate their form and function.
There’s barely enough space in this whole magazine to delve into the issues with all of the various fibre types, but they boil down to:
We can categorically say that virgin synthetics and “standard” naturals are the worst options for a whole host of environmental reasons. The start ing point is to choose “environmen tally preferred” fibres but beyond that it’s such a grey area. The starting point for any brand should be to choose fabrics that fit your ethics, 62
The fashion industry is said to account for 8-10% of global emissions
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FIBRES AVAILABLE?
The major fabric groups that we currently use are:
Naturals: Land use in a world where we need to feed a growing population, animal rights (depending on fibre type), along with chemical use (fertilisers, herbicides & pesticides), and water-use & run-off during the farming.
The above is a vastly oversimplified summary. But all of these impacts will vary significantly again depending on how and where each fibre type is produced. A virgin polyester from China (predominantly coal powered) will have higher emissions than the same polyester produced in Germany (which has a lower-carbon power mix). But then you need to look at where that polyester is shipped to make the fibre, yarn and fabric, where it is finished, and where the manufacture happens.
Synthetics: They come from crude oil which we really need to keep locked away; chemical and water use during processing; microfibres; and, potential contamination of recycled fibres. The incredible longevity of these fibres, which is such a benefit in their use phase becomes a challenge at end of life. Note – all fabrics can have major impacts at the dyeing and finishing stage, depend ing on the fibre type, but also heavily dependent on the process used, the wastew ater treatment, source of the energy used, etc. This is one of the greatest impacts in a garments lifecycle so it’s worth researching to avoid the worst impacts.
SO HOW DO WE CHOSE WHICH FABRIC IS RIGHT FOR OUR PRODUCTS?
DEEP DIVE ON FIBRES & the cycling industry
WHAT ARE THE “SUSTAINABLE”MOSTFABRICS
10) Keep old fabrics in use longer –repurpose existing fabrics or repair your products to reduce churn.
NOTWITHSTANDING THE ABOVE, HERE ARE SOME GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR FABRIC CHOICES:
1) It must be fit for purpose. The quick est way for a product to be ditched is if it doesn’t do what it’s designed to.
8) Check your dyehouses have adequate water treatment.
9) Design with the end-of-life in mind. Can your products be monomaterial, or easy to disassemble into compo nent parts, therefore easier to recycle in future?
2) Choose quality. Good quality fabrics will outlast their cheaper counter parts significantly. They’re likely to be more valued by the customer so kept longer – good for the environ ment and good for your brand image too.
Rob is the CEO and head of climate positivity at Presca Sportswear. He trained as an environmental scientist and worked in sustainability for 15 years before founding Presca. He freely admits that he is a generalist in this space and there are many people far more qualified to write at length on the subject, although very few have had the lived experience of putting it into practice and trying to build a brand along these principles. Further articles in this series will delve into the detail behind “sustainability” in the cycling industry, and how that might apply to your business. Rob recommends the Future Fabrics Expo as a fertile learning space for fashion brands in cycling
6) Try to source from countries that have a low carbon energy grid.
3) Choose “environmentally preferred” fabrics. Ditch virgin synthetics and standard cotton as a priority.
7) Research the various dyeing/finish ing options.
www.prescasportswear.com
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Sustainability & the cycling industry and those of your consumers, and clearly communicate why you’ve chosen them. To understand the specific impacts of your fibre choices the Higg MSI (Material Sustainability Index) can be a good place to start, though it’s not without its detractors. It’s essentially a library of LCA (LifeCycle Analyses) datasets for a wide range of different material types. In and of itself the MSI is a useful tool for making a high-level evaluation of fabric options depending on which of the impacts you most want to focus on. A word of caution though - H&M were recently called out by the Norwegian Consumer Authority, for using the MSI to describe how “sustainable” their clothes were. There’s a lot going for the MSI in that it aims to quantify the impacts of various fibre types. Howev er, the datasets that sit behind the LCA are specific to each fabric and can vary greatly depending on how and where that fabric was made. The NCA ruling found that it’s not acceptable for a brand to use generic data and the asso ciated assumptions to drive a market ing message around sustainability. So how can companies get more accurate data? A detailed LCA for your product is good to a point, but they are not cheap (potentially in the many £000s per product), so probably not realistic for many companies and certainly not smaller ones. It’s also a lengthy process, taking 3-6 months to complete a full LCA, which requires a lot of engage ment throughout the supply chain. Another decent option is provided by the likes of Greenstory / Compare Ethics – tech-for-good start-ups looking to increase transparency in the fashion industry. They take a more tailored approach compared to Higg: they aggregate all available LCA data then use clever tech to apply the relevant data at a country level, taking into account things like shipping emissions, processes used, etc. Even then the results are only as good as the data they are working with – publicly available LCA datasets for materials like Hemp and Silk are considered to be unreliable and need more datapoints before these can be used with confidence. And there are many sustainability factors play that even the most detailed LCA won’t consider – is a fibre displac ing food production; what volume of the fabric is being produced for a specific range – selling millions of items of a low impact product will do far greater damage than a short run of a high impact product; and crucially, how long with that product remain in use, perhaps the biggest determinant of the genuine sustainability of a product.
5) Research the impacts of each fibre type. The Higg MSI is a good starting point but it can’t be relied on as the single font of all wisdom.
cyclingindustry.news
4) Consider emerging innovative fabric options. The annual Future Fabrics expo is an excellent place to learn about the latest developments in the fabric world, although the sustainability data around these fabrics may be less mature.
At Presca we choose to take responsi bility for every single garment we’ve ever made and ever will. We guarantee to take it back when a customer no longer wants it, to rehome, repurpose or ultimately recycle it. It’s a big commitment, but we don’t believe that any responsible business can continue to ignore the impact that we’re all having through our products.
WEI-HO
My bike fit education started in 2007, whilst working at Condor Cycles. Every Condor bike was, and still is, sold with a bike sizing session. To work out the right size frame and components for each indi vidual rider, I was taught how to ‘fit’, using a fit jig, so that I could sell bikes.
64 cyclingindustry.news Bike fit is ever evolving; so are the tools of the trade
How did you get started as a bike fitter?
The staff took me under their wing and showed me what they knew. Each of us had to take responsibility for the customers we had fitted, so you had to find solutions to help riders enjoy their bikes. In that envi ronment I had a curiosity to try to figure things out and was given the opportunity to pursue my curiosity… as long as we were still selling bikes of course. Riders would come back to the shop and give feedback on the ride experience and position, which was also an invalu able learning tool.
“SOME RIDERS MAY BE TRYING TO THEMSELVES.”DECISIONSCANPROCESSTHROUGHJOBANDUNREALISTICACHIEVEGOALSIT’SPARTOFMYTOGUIDETHEMANHONESTSOTHEYMAKETHEBESTFOR Continuing our
Using a fit jig enabled the rider to try out different frame sizes, stem lengths, handlebar widths etc, ensuring bikes were assembled to meet rider’s needs and spec ifications - building the position this way ensured customers collected a bike which would feel great straight from the off. All the fitting was done by visually observing a rider on the jig. Looking back now, most of the fit theory was outdated, however, the fundamental concept of ensuring a rider can move well and be comfortable on a bike was, and still is, a cornerstone of my fitting practice.
We had a great team whilst I worked there with a broad range of knowledge and experience. I think Condor were ahead of the game at this time and it shows in their continued success.
FITTER’S CORNER
PROFILE BIKE FITTING WITH NG series with professional bike fitters, Wei-Ho Ng is in the hotseat, his education from his time running Foundation Fit.
sharing
How long does it take and what does it cost to become a solver of complex bike fit problems?
If you’re honest in your work, customers will see that you have done the best job that you can. I think that builds respect.
What does it take to be respected by your customers?
First and foremost, if you want to solve complex problems, you need to place yourself in an environment that helps you achieve your goals. This might be a supportive bike shop, or where you have access to specific bike fitting equip ment, or simply being able to discuss issues and ideas with other experienced fitters or health practitioners.
LESS EMPHASIS ON THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY AS AN INDICATOR OF THE QUALITY OF A BIKE FIT Bike fit technology systems were initially developed with the hope of providing consistency and quality of results, but we’ve seen this dispelled over the last ten years. Technology systems alone cannot provide these results, but they are still useful tools. I feel most good fitters focus primarily on understanding the quality of move ment of a rider in a similar way to how a physio or personal trainer will assess a person. Have you ever been to a physio who’s used a machine to measure your body angles to assess the pain in your knee? No, they use their eyes, get hands on, feel, ask a lot of questions and then test out some solutions.
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With this in mind, when someone is interested in learning about bike fitting, the most important factor they need to understand is their attitude towards learning and problem solving.
I think working in a bike shop envi ronment provides crucial product knowledge and experience for a fitter.
What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in bike fitting? The biggest changes I have seen are:
If bike fitting is about understand ing human movement, each bike fit is essentially an individual ‘problem’ to be solved. As a result, bike fitting exists at many different levels. There’ s a time and a place for all of these levels. Not all bike fits exist to solve complex problems. However, if there is the curiosity to explore complex problems, then the solutions require a willingness to get stuck in, experiment and learn from your ‘mistakes’. Of course, the more fits you see, the more patterns and connections you understand, the more confident you are in finding solutions, the bigger and more effective your toolbox becomes.
I am constantly confronted with situa tions I have not seen before but if you explore beyond your comfort zone and see problems as opportunities for learning and progression, solutions will present themselves.
This is the same for all jobs and skills. Expertise is the accumulation and application of experience.
I think customers always appreciate honesty when you are providing a service. This means being honest with yourself, as well as encouraging customers to be honest with them selves. Bike fitting may be described as ‘complex’ because human beings are complex. I don’t always have the answers as a bike fitter, but I’m willing to try to find out, if a customer is will ing to go on that journey with me. Conversely some riders may be trying to achieve unrealistic goals and it’s part of my job to guide them through an honest process so they can make the best decisions for themselves. If you are trying to set up a rider’s contact points on a bike, it helps to know how you could achieve this with particular products that are available on the market. There’s usually more than one way to achieve the same result e.g. you can achieve an overall longer cockpit reach by installing a longer stem, or by using a handlebar with a longer reach, or a combination of both. Each solution has different consequences: Having the fundamen tal product knowledge makes you a better problem solver.
MORE AWARENESS AND ACCEPTANCE OF BIKE FIT BY THE PUBLIC (+ INDUSTRY) AS A USEFUL PRACTICE
BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF CYCLING BIOMECHANICS, BACKED BY SCIENCE
Fitting still requires some art, but the growth of sports science and biome chanical studies over the last 15 years has really helped to validate certain fit methods and anchor fitting in the realm of Ibiomechanics.feellikethepioneering bike fitters were similar to pioneering coaches. Coaches often know what works best for their athletes, through experience and trial and error. They don’t wait for a scientific study to be published to validate them before applying their methods. Science is often slow and applied after methods of training have beenThe‘discovered’.pioneering bike fitters also knew from intuition and experience what constituted a ‘good fit’ but often struggled to explain why it worked. This is why there are so many bike fit myths and why bike fitting was considered a ‘dark art’ up until fairly recently.
What’s the biggest myth about bike fitting? I thought I’d offer a myth that might be more relevant for those working within the cycling industry: It is complicated and expensive to get started in bike fitting. I think bike fitting is often viewed as synonymous with expensive technology or motion capture systems and the myth that it is a ‘dark art’ is confusing and offputting for both customers and practi tioners. In reality, bike fitting doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. All you need to get started is a set of Allen keys, a turbo trainer, some decent bike fit training, and a real drive to learn.
66 cyclingindustry.news Today’s integrated components mean a strong relationship between bike fitter and workshop is immeasurablyIfvaluableyouwant to solve complex problems, you need to place yourself in an environment that helps you achieve your goals PROFILE BIKE FITTING WITH WEI-HO NG “I THINK THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR CUSTOMERS IS TO FIND A BIKE FITTER WHO TRIALASERVEDWOULDN’TBIKE,ONLOOKINGGOALS.ACHIEVEWITHWILLINGTHEIRUNDERSTANDSGOALSANDISTOWORKTHEMTOTHOSEIFYOU’REFORAFITYOURMOUNTAINYOUPROBABLYBEBESTBYGETTINGFITWITHATIME-SPECIALIST.”
Thinking about points one and two, there is now a greater acceptance by the public, by riders, that bike fitting is relevant prac tice and resolve problems.
The fundamentals of body positioning in a bike fit can be analysed through visu al observation, asking the rider for feed back and a solid understanding of cycling biomechanics. Essential changes to many bikes can be made simply with a set of allenWhenkeys.I started my own fitting busi ness in 2016, I didn’t have access to a studio space, so I began by offering a mobile bike fitting service. Everything I needed for a session fitted in a 80L duffel bag including a Feedback Sports portable turbo. I would load my kit onto a cargo bike and travel to rider’s homes, physio practices, club houses and even fitted outdoors. Initially I didn’t know if the service would be successful, but the business has gone from strength to strength and most of our business still comes from referrals.
Of course, as the scope of your fitting grows then you will need to invest in more equipment. If you want to do prepurchase sizing, or need to fit bikes with integrated cockpits, then you will need to invest in a fit jig.
Even then we’re currently using a modi fied Wahoo Kickr bike as a fit jig. It’s not the best jig available but it does the job and is three times cheaper than a top-end Purely Custom dedicated fit jig. It can feel off-putting when many bike fit specific products are very expensive, however there are solutions now that put things like jig fitting well within the reach of smaller bike businesses. When it comes to technology like motion capture systems, they can certain ly be useful and help to ‘sell’ a fit, but are not essential to complete a bike fit. They are simply tools and can help to illustrate certain issues or offer reassurance to a fitter. They show you what is happening but they don’t offer solutions; these still have to come from the fitter. Two of the most useful technology tools we use on a daily basis are an iPad Pro and BikeCAD software. The iPad camera is superb and the format allows for easy communica tion with the rider. You can film a rider, from any angle, turn the iPad around and show them instantly what their body is doing on a bike, frame by frame.
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Although bike fitting and the bike shop run as independent businesses, we work very closely together. I simply hire a space within the shop to use as my fit studio. Cloud 9 focuses on building and servicing custom bikes, so the majority of new builds start with a bike fit. This gives the shop reassurance that once the fit is done, the shop can then order and build the right size bike from the start, there’s no wasted time in trying to get rid of surplus OEM parts or trying to send back an incorrectly sized bike.
In the face of forces trying to distance customers from physical shops – pureplay eComm businessesI believe that bicycle retailers still have a great opportunity to attract riders instore by providing services which simply cannot be fulfilled online.
How can customers tell which fitters are deeply knowledgeable, not just trained on a piece of technology?
I’d also recommend riders speak to other riders who have had bike fits and understand their experiences. Again, what might have been a good fit for them might not necessarily be the right fit for you. However, you can gain an idea for what different fitters offer and decide which sounds most appealing to you.
However, it’s worth noting that there are definitely some very knowledgeable fitters who are not on the IBFI list.
Do you see repeat customers in bike fitting?
Absolutely. I think it’s the same for most services too. If you find a good mechanic or plumber, you’re likely to stick with them.
Do retail stores understand the commercial opportunity that comes with a truly skilled bike fitter?
If I do a good job as a fitter, riders will want to come back to me when they get a new bike, or when they buy new shoes, or just to see how their body is adapting into a new position.
A fitter can deliver on a commercial level everything from loyal customers and repeat customers who will travel, to more footfall into a shop, and ultimately, happy, satisfied customers - because they have a bike that feels amazing to ride. Cycling is a social and physical sport. People want to ride with other people. People want to feel part of a community. Bike shops can create and care for these communities. A cafe gives riders a reason to stop by. Mechanics will keep your bike running smoothly. Bike fitters ensure you get the most out of body and bike. Bike shops can change from mainly selling products to selling knowledge, expertise and quality of experience.
The best way you can determine this is to get in touch. Talk to your prospective bike fitter, in person if possible. Bike fitters come from many different back grounds, have different experiences.
Finally, I would check the IBFI website and review listings such as Google. Results often speak for them selves. If a fitter is getting regular, good reviews, it’s probably worth getting in touch. The IBFI is an indicator that bike fitting is a maturing profession. It hopes to certify fitters, somewhat like other health practices, to allow riders to choose a fitter who has demonstrated they are competent to a certain level.
I also try hard to get riders to come back to see me again after an initial fit, otherwise it’s really hard for me to know if what I have done is working or not. If I don’t have any feedback, I can’t improve. If I can’t improve, I can’t grow myself or my business.
Some may not have the specific knowl edge you require; some may have a philosophy which doesn’t match yours. Bike fitting is a collaborative process between rider and fitter, so there has to be agreement and synergy between both to achieve good solutions.
On the flip side, if I have a client who needs work done to his bike following fit, I can simply send them to the work shop who can sort it out. This is becoming an increasingly common scenario with the proliferation of inte grated cockpits and integrated tri-bikes where changing a stem can add up to being a two-hour job. I don’t have time to do that as a fitter, but it’s bread and butter business for the workshop.
BIKE FITTING WITH WEI-HO NG PROFILE
IF I DO A GOOD JOB AS A FITTER, RIDERS WILL WANT TO COME BACK TO ME WHEN THEY GET A NEW BIKE, OR WHEN THEY BUY NEW SHOES, OR JUST TO SEE HOW THEIR BODY IS ADAPTING INTO A NEW POSITION.
I’m lucky enough to work with a bike shop (Cloud 9 Cycles) that has integrat ed bike fitting into its business model.
With EZLift designing and manufac turing everything in house, the busi ness can also design, develop, deliver, and service support custom lifts, including custom capture devices specifically for manufacturers of eBikes and cargo bikes.
Fitted with the Cargo Carriage mechanics can now comfortably lift cargo and eCargo bikes – including big box 3- and 4-wheel cargo bikes –making serving or assembly far easier.
Having launched at the 2021 Euro bike and subsequently shown at the 2022 London Cycle Show, the 12-volt DC electric powered Shop Lift is capa ble of lifting 90kgs or 180lbs, making it entirely possible to service 2 eBikes at once. With the Cargo Carriage fitted and cargo bike lifted from the ground, the Shop Lift makes it easy to elevate any cargo bike to head height for maintenance or assembly work.
Cargo bikes are increasingly used for “last mile” deliveries, with businesses including DHL, UPS and FEDEX now running cargo bike fleets, as are a number of County Councils and local authorities. In the UK and across Europe sales to people looking to replace a car with a cargo bike are also growing.
Fully portable For workshop and fleet management businesses supporting cargo bike fleets, EZLift also manufactures a fully portable lift, which is waterproofed, and matches the same specifications as the Shop Lift, making this ideal for field repairs.
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EZLift took to the challenge of cargo anservice,bikecreatingadaptiverig
For further ease of use, the Shop Lift can be operated either via a hand controller or a foot control.
Custom capture devices can be designed and manufactured to meet the customer’s exact lifting needs, as well as offering adjustability to tailor the actual height and lifting capacity of the lift assembly.
EZLIFT YOU LIFT ME UP
For businesses servicing commercial cargo bike fleets, or shops servicing eBikes and cargo bikes used as personal transport, the unique capabilities of a workshop stand such as the EZLift Shop Lift become absolutely essential to enabling full service for customers.
The Shop Lift, which retails at £2,000.00, includes a 360° rotating capture claw. The Cargo Carriage is offered at £350, and an additional claw can be purchased for £250.
As eMobility continues to grow, the ability to offer servicing of eBikes and cargo bikes will become ever more important. In this space bicycle retail ers have already see new challenges from outside of the traditional cycling retail sector, with the example of Kwik Fit just one of many sure to follow the shift from car maintenance to e-mobil ity solutions servicing.
F ounded by long-time cyclists Gary Snyder and Tim Greatorex, one a former bike mechanic, the other having previously sold eBikes, EZLift was formed to directly address the chal lenge of servicing eBikes and eCargo bikes, for which the traditional work shop stand simply isn’t engineered. Step in the Shop Lift, a UK designed, developed, and manufactured lift that is built to lift long wheelbase heavy loads.
cyclingindustry.newsPROFILE
EZLift has launched a fully modular eBike/cargo workshop stand with a 90kg lift capacity, designed and manufactured in the UK. As the cargo bike business booms, we take a look on behalf of curious workshops…
With a modular construction, the Shop Lift features a patented quick release plate enabling mechanics to change fittings in seconds, including an optional extra claw, enabling mechanics to work on either side of the stand.
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Raleigh is on a journey. Communications from the Accell-owned label focus on attracting new audiences to cycling. Ed Pegram, head of marketing and partnerships, talks to Simon Cox on how the shift in image is opening new doors…
The cycling promoted by the bike industry nowadays can mean anything to anyone and is so much more than recreational elite sport.
“As a business our ethos and outlook is that we are trying to shake things up, to have a difference for employees, with some seeing an extra £50 to £60 in their pay packet each month as a result, on top of access to the Cycle to Work Scheme and standard employee benefits,” explains Ed. “We’re in this industry because we’re enthusiasts, wanting to drive change. Empowering people to ride bikes as a means of car replacement. Our staff need to feel that, just as our retail partners and our end customers do. We are about making change not just possible, but also accessible and exciting. We’re really focused on creating this culture. Employee benefits was the first step. The second step is our ESG, or social governance, piece.”
Environmental impact Looking at everything in terms of social impact and of environmental impact, starts with a group directive, which is to remove all single use plastics by 2030. That kicked a year ago with the introduction of paper tape, followed by a move to packing with Forestry Commission approved boxes. Removed all plastic from outbound logistics for parts and accessories. The business is really focused on reducing its impact on the environment, but also improving its social impact. Everything from assessing repurposing of used bikes, parts, accessories, so as not to send to waste – it’s upcycling good parts from bikes, donating these to community inter
“External brand communication reflects the internal values, and the cultural frame work of the business, as well,” adds Ed.
72 cyclingindustry.news RaleighINTERVIEWUK
“WE’RE IN REPLACEMENT.MEANSTOEMPOWERINGDRIVEWANTINGWE’REINDUSTRYTHISBECAUSEENTHUSIASTS,TOCHANGE.PEOPLERIDEBIKESASAOFCAR”
To this end, the business has recently launched volunteering days for staff, paying people to take time off to enable volunteering for a charity of their choice.
Also introduced is an additional day’s holiday so that each member of staff gets their birthday off. Paying staff 20p per mile, to cycle to work, in partnership with Love to Ride.
As such, the Raleigh business wants to fully reflect, internally, the way it commu nicates to its customers. Ed Pegram, Raleigh UK’s marketing and partnerships leader points out, “the business sees this as integral to the staff experience, viewing the team as ‘internal customers’. We want to ensure we are practicing what we preach. This is particularly important given our consumer communications and dealer communications linked to the Raleigh brand are all about inclusivity and diversi ty, acknowledging that cycling meaning different things to different people.
Raleigh, with Accell’s help, has targeted a broader
range of customers than ever
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“THERE’S STILL A LOT OF WORK TO BE DONE TO ENGAGE NON BICYCLE OWNERS. A GOOD EXAMPLE: WHEN WE ATTEND VARIOUS SHOWS, WE STILL GET THE SAME QUESTIONS AROUND, ‘OH, IT’S AN EBIKE; HASN’T IT GOT A THROTTLE?’.”
Potential customer education
est projects and that started in Nottingham with Lily Beaven, who runs women in tandem. And it will definitely expand. “As an organisation we are exploring how we improve what we do, instead of just throwing everything away and it going to landfill. The focus on being better comes from the top at group level. The Accell Group has this enormous ambition to reduce, reuse and recycle,” says Ed. “Being a socially and environ mentally engaged business is the model we are striving for and working daily towards. When you’re in an organisation that is intent on living those values, it’s a tangible thing within the business.” Apparently, this sincerity in wishing to drive change has directly impacted the people the business attracts, the person alities and latterly the culture that they bring. This undoubtedly makes forming emotional connections with consumers more authentic. Brand partnerships in the EV space Raleigh sees EV adoption as a gateway to new riders. Cyclists who maybe aren’t looking for a bike, but when presented with one in a space not typical to selling bicycle, will see the obvious appeal. To this end the brand has begun devel oping a partnership with a Gridserve, a growing business who not only lease elec tric cars, but also have a number of EV charging forecourts across the East Anglia, with rapid expansion already seeing other regions developing. As a business, Gridserve share a lot of Raleigh’s social values and, as a business, has an innovative sustainable energy business model. The Nottingham busi ness is looking at options to display bikes in this prime EV space, engaging EV drivers with an additional electric powered option; the Raleigh bicycle. Ed explains: “With our existing Norwich retailer, we’re also looking at exploring these alternative customer acquisition options, because they’re already the most prolific stores in that region for the Raleigh brand. We see this as a potential model to expand across the UK.” This hybrid approach to reaching a new audience, where the electric vehicle driver is already engaged will further harness the power of the Raleigh brand, in tandem with Bosch eBike motor and battery units. Combining the Gridserve opportunity with the expertise of a local retailer and IBD is very much a win, win, win, situation “Our strategy is very much based around the need for specialist retailers. The new EV and other partnerships we form also enable us to support and improve the consumer journey online. Here we have lots of data and insights we can share to help deliver the customer centric vision we have. These kinds of partnerships have really started to ramped over the past 6 to 12 months,” says Ed. It’s common knowledge that many busi nesses which are continuing to be really successful despite the flattening out of demand post pandemic, are the electric bike specific retailers. Namechecking just a few, Ed points to Smile Bikes and the fast-expanding The Electric Bike Shop chain. “Both are doing some great things. Businesses with a similar ethos, focused upon being consumer centric, giving the best advice, the best service, and sharing great best local knowledge with their customers,” explains Ed.
Cargo for consumers has actually racked up less column inches as the B2B trials have surged
This strength of service is critical. Raleigh continues to reach new audiences and expose people to what electric bikes are, and are not, and what they can do with its outreach“There’swork.stilla lot of work to be done to engage non bicycle owners. A good exam ple: When we attend various shows, we still get the same questions around, ‘Oh, it’s an eBike; hasn’t it got a throttle?’ We, as a brand, can do more to support and help consumers understand what an elec tric bike actually is. “The good news for the eBike sector is that it won’t be long until brands like Piag gio, Vespa et al will have eMopeds in the market, in the classic scooter sense of things. At this point there will be a very clear delineation between a pedal assist product and a moped with an electric motor. This will make our conversations an awful lot easier,” believes Ed having done a fair few shows of his own. We have broken into new realms, Ed says, pointing to things like Autocar maga zine regularly running eBike and LEV features. On this he says, “there’s clearly an interest from the parent publishing company, but the first time I saw it was like I’m sorry, what’s happening here?” “I think these things definitely do play a massive part because it’s introducing the concept of people who simply wouldn’t look at it otherwise, and even if it’s just familiarity for the eBike product amongst motorists.”Thisisalso why Raleigh has broaden its reach, and marketing horizons, looking to these and other markets like the EV market, which is a prime example of where electric bikes will thrive.
With cargo bikes the curiosity has built very quickly and with its trial offerings Raleigh has cornered a chunk of UK market for both business and day-to-day consumer use.
Ed says: “As a business we have been really delighted to support a number of projects across the UK, delivering free bikes to regions with challenges, helping to tackle transport inequalities. We’ve got quite a heavy focus on that. Funding from the Treasury, into the Department for Transport, then channels into the likes of the Active Well-being Soci ety, who are a non-profit organization, delivering pilots schemes in a number of regions, Essex, Birmingham, soon to launch in Southall, London. For context, there’s a very similar project happening in Scotland. In total that has delivered some thing like 12,000 bikes already.”
“You’ve got an array of users spanning trade and businesses on then,” he says. “Your Amazon or otherwise kind of busi ness buying a fleet. Add to that sales of a product which may or may not look simi lar at all, for private buyers who’re replac ing the second car. “We have really high hopes for the cargo bike market. Now, more than ever, with the cost-of-living crisis, external factors mean people are genuinely look ing for an alternative means of transport.” Here we mention somewhat constrained government funding to support trials, and obviously the Gear Change document to gauge the strength of feeling that new transport means are backed.
74 cyclingindustry.news RaleighINTERVIEWUK
Constructiondifferenceworkers have been key demo users, saving plenty in parking fines alone, not to mention fuel and taxes
Over the past five years this has been absolutely tailored to tackling health and
Raleigh just launched its lightest eBike to date under the Trace banner
Raleigh now works closely with local authorities to seed bikes in places where trials can make a
Birmingham is a great example of this. “One piece of feedback that struck me was one chap said ‘if you don’t drive a BMW or a Mercedes and you’re cycling round on a bright orange bike, you’ll be seen as poor around here’. I’m quite passionate about this cause of levelling things up as I’ve spent two years living and breathing it. As an industry we have tended to focus on one particular segment of the market. It’s clear, for example, that we’ve neglected women’s cycling. And getting young children on bikes, so they’ve got these ideas instilled in them too. There’s a role for brands here as well, not just leaving it to Bikeability and others, who do a great job, but clearly can’t meet every need.” This is especially important when we want to ensure young children from a wide socioeconomic and cultural back grounds have access to training and to bikes. “We, the industry, have a role to Raleigh’s Stride 2 cargo bike is the long wheelbase option Ed says that women’s cycling has been neglected and that the balance requires redress cyclingindustry.news
Thinking about this, Raleigh set-up a Business-to-Business Department, which works with local authorities, charities and basically any kind of organization that that wants to procure large amounts of bikes. Where it can, Raleigh supports drive that through a retailer, but, more often than not, these councils want to procure such volumes of bikes that direct communication is the most effective means of managing the relationship.
One of the challenges the cycling industry has is that as a whole we tend to be very male and very white dominated, so not reflective of wider society, nor necessarily new cyclists.
wellbeing inequalities, we’re told. Refer encing headlines about mental and physi cal health, as well and the cost to the NHS, Ed suggests there’s real ambition around social prescribing on a regional level.
“It’s as close as we’ve got so far to social prescribing, you know, giving a free bike, which is tracked for a year. The Council gets all the anonymous data, where it’s tracking the bike rather than the individ ual. This helps with things like infrastruc ture, and route planning, actually seeing how people use and get around on bikes to improve things for the future, seeing a real impact,” he says.
“AS AN INDUSTRY WE HAVE TENDED TO FOCUS ON ONE CHILDRENANDWOMENWEFORMARKET.SEGMENTPARTICULAROFTHEIT’SCLEAR,EXAMPLE,THAT’VENEGLECTED’SCYCLING.GETTINGYOUNGONBIKES.”
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Velobrands has tilted itself to become on of the market’s more agile, yet reliable distributors in selecting brands with short lead time potential. Simon Ford, the new MD, explains all… Velobrands
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TIGHT SHIP
VeloBrands is a relatively young compa ny with a small, well organised, friend ly, professional team. At the level the business has been running at there was no need to change much, however, my remit from my start was to help build a better structure in readiness for a larger team and a better product offering. Organisation, communication, visibil ity, assets, marketing, and reporting have been added to or improved to a level that can now support our growth.
Since you landed, what things have been a priority for shaping the business for the future?
Talk us through the ups and downs of an unusual few years. Did you ride the wave and following storm well? My experience, I think, will be the same as most distributors. As the pandemic took hold sales immediately dropped off a cliff, then roll forward a few months they rocketed with high sales continuing right through until around September 2021. Companies grew 30%, 40%, 100%, which is staggering. As a sales director then, it was a very easy place to be when you have market demand and growth like that. For anyone in procurement and operations though, it was not easy, nor is it easy now.
Choices on current brands and potential future brands have been made and we now have a clear portfolio plan in place. We’ve taken some time to understand who we are, what we want to be and to whom, and this is ongoing. It’s required the patience and understanding that we can’t do everything at once, but I am glad to say that seven months in, everything is going well and beyond expectations. I have a great team with me here.
Post pandemic, the market is facing headwinds as trade returns to a more realistic level with most people seem ingly looking at a target around 2019 levels. At VeloBrands we have growth from adding to our portfolio, so we needn’t slip back, if at all. There is a lot of excess stock in the market now which is diluting and devaluing sales at a time when the market, according to the UK BA Data, is around a third down versus 2021 year to date. It’s still very choppy out there.
You’ve had a short while to settle as VeloBrands’ new MD, but for those that do not yet know you, tell us a bit about your background: I began my sales career at 17 as a van salesman selling fresh foods to shops, garages, and campsites and from that, way back in 1992, I got my first area sales manager position with a well-respected London-based company selling fine foods to delicatessens and butchers’ shops all over the west country. Around the end of 1994, as a keen cyclist, my local IBD made me aware of a sales role in the cycle trade with Moore Large. I got that job and did well there, then went on to work with a few different cycle industry companies, and happily, 28 years later I am still working in the industry.
Over the past years shops have more than ever been juggling suppliers in a bid to source the right stock. What labels has VeloBrands added and what’s the stock situation like forward looking?
In addition to this, in the next year, we would like to add another major brand to sit alongside our current major brand that is KASK. We also consider where current brands are in their timeline, for Italian eyewear brand Koo gives accounts a desirable range of MTB goggles and cycling glasses cyclingindustry.news
77 “OUR MOST THEIRSPATZWEAR,PARTNERSHIPRECENTISWITHWHOHOLDSTOCKHERE,SOWECANDRAWSTOCKSMALLANDOFTEN..”
During my career to date I have worked in most areas of the industry; P&A and bike sales; key and national account management; brand management; marketing, and sales team management. My most recent role was at Extra UK where I was Sales Director until the end of 2021. I have enjoyed working closely, in a variety of roles, with some of the best brands and people in the cycle industry over a long period of time.
We have added three fantastic brands to our portfolio so far in 2022. We also removed six that we felt didn’t have a future with us. We will exit brands where they don’t fit, or if we feel that we are not adding value in some way. With brands that we have added the lead times are working in our favour. AbsoluteBLACK, for example, their production is in Poland and the lead-time to me is around ten days from order. This means that we can react very quickly to market demand, a real advantage over many other component companies.
Litelok locks are made in Swansea, so our lead time for locks is just weeks, and they are delivered next day with out import duties and container issues. It’s exciting to be working with this young British brand. And our most recent partnership is with Spatzwear, another British brand. They hold their worldwide stock here in the UK, so we can draw small and often replenishment orders. A lot of their product is made in Europe and fortu nately Spatzwear have a very close rela tionship with their factories so lead time can be as little as six weeks. We have a very clear future portfolio plan. Additions should have a clear USP over everything else that is in the marketplace. Each of these new brand additions has that, they are not just another XYZ. The strategy is to provide a limited portfolio of interesting and creative products, market disruptors maybe, with each brand having a desire to fit those criteria.
The advantages with all our brands is great stock availability, the extensive range possibilities, no big buy-ins, free product for staff use, and for Juice Lubes, a monthly free product offer with new orders of just £100. Free point of sale is also available, which can work well in a workshop setting. From a retailer’s perspective, with so much competition, why choose VeloBrands?
I hope that, increasingly so, our brand portfolio is such that it stirs interest with retailers. We won’t be a retailer’s largest supplier and that’s fine, but we have great products that create interest for their customers above or alongside some of the more obvious product and brand choices.
www.velobrands.co.uk
example, we distribute Kids Ride Shotgun which fits our USP model precisely and is also on a steep upward trajectory, with a young blossoming team and brand with a clear path forward; that’s a perfect example of the type of brand we wish to work with. Overall less brands and more focus is the strategy, we are not brand collectors.
Consumers are more product aware than ever, so I’d ask retailers to consider looking wider at what will differentiate them from a standard bike shop or an online store. Every new account application must be visited by one of our sales team, we do this as a responsible distributor. Interest ed new accounts can contact us on info@velobrands.co.uk, or 01363 85617 (yes, a 5-digit telephone number, we are based in Devon!)
Juice Lubes has all the workshop essentials
For the large part of the market that are now workshop focused, what specialist service propositions can you offer?
78 cyclingindustry.news “WE HAVE INVESTED BY DOUBLING THE SIZE OF THE SALES TEAM IN THE LAST MONTHS WITH THREE NEW RECRUITMENTS, THIS IS TO GIVE THE OURFULLNECESSARYSUPPORTTOBRANDS.”
and is now sold internationally Velobrands
Has VeloBrands recently made or planned any investment in the capability of the business going forwards? We have invested by doubling the size of the sales team in the last months with 3a trio of new recruitments, this is to give the necessary full support to our brands. I believe that face-to-face contact to under stand a customer’s profile, situation and needs is really important; it’s hard to do everything on a Zoom call. We will add a sales manager to help manage and train our new sales team and to help with key account visits. We have also planned investment with an additional internal salesperson and a national brand manag er. Further to this, we continue to invest in the best CRM software to help us manage sales, reporting and customer contact.
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