Posts by Phil Latz
New Farm Bikes is Closing After Over 30 Years
New Farm Bikes, located at 77 Merthyr Rd in the inner eastern Brisbane suburb of New Farm only a couple of kilometres from Brisbane’s city centre, is closing its doors. Long time owner Tina Quintner’s late husband Alex Quintner founded New Farm Bikes back in the late 1980’s. Tina has decided to close the business,…
Landmark NSW Rail Trail Opening Soon
A rail trail is created when abandoned rail corridors are converted into shared-use paths for walking, bike riding and sometimes horse riding. Rail trails are a proven generator of business for the bicycle industry with some popular Australian rail trails recording counts of 3,000 cyclists on long weekends. NSW currently has only 11 rail trails…
Brompton Australia’s Peter Keast to Retire as Sales Boom
Canberra based Peter Keast is about to leave the bike industry on a high after a bicycle retail and wholesale career spanning 42 years. For many of these he founded and grew the Onya Bike retail chain in the ACT but after selling this, he more recently set up Brompton Bicycles Australia. Peter’s first Onya…
Reid Cycles Launch Global Environmental Pledge
Reid Cycles is best known in Australia for their retail stores in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne of the same name that sell budget priced bicycles. But this Melbourne based business also has significant international operations. According to their website they’ve expanded into other countries including in the following order since 2014: England, New Zealand,…
MTBA Launches Bushfire Appeal for MTB Trails and Clubs
A significant number of mountain bike parks and trails have been devastated by the ongoing bushfires that have swept through Australia this summer. Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) the peak body for mountain biking activity in Australia has launched a national appeal through the Australian Sports Foundation (which provides tax deductibility) to help rebuild these trails…
Cyclists Deaths are No Accident
Will Your Customers Start Hiring and Subscribing to Bikes Instead of Buying?
Tech savvy media commentators, futurists and other technophiles are very eager to tell anyone prepared to listen that this is the age of the shared economy. They say that instead of buying products, customers, especially younger generations, are happy to share, hire, subscribe, rent or swap. While this may be beyond dispute for products such…
Letter From America – February 2020
It’s fair to say that most of North America is deep into winter, but winter across this vast continental mass is an iffy calculation. Temperatures in Southern California and across that broad sweep of territory that includes southern Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and into Texas have been generally mild. Good for business. A friend of…
Tariff Case Loss A Multi-Million Dollar Blow to Our Industry
There has been a story, bubbling away in the background that we’ve chosen not to report upon until now, because it has been the subject of a legal case. It’s also a somewhat complex issue, so we’ll start with some background explanation. Australia’s federal government has the power to impose import tariffs on any imported…
Wiggle CRC Posts A Massive Loss After Writedowns
Mapil Topco Limited, which trades as Wiggle CRC, has just released its financial statements for the year ending 30th December 2018. They shown a pre-tax loss of £132.5 million (A$253 million). But as is often the case with large entities, that single figure does not tell the whole story. Wiggles sales rose 15% to £453…