When Will Our Governments Start Joining the Dots?

In this article I’ll look at two recent decisions by two different governments, that are equally disturbing for a slightly differing set of reasons.  Banning Scooter Trials  Andrew Constance has deep roots in the Bega region on NSW’s far south coast. In the 1860’s his great-great-grandfather, James Constance, drove a team of bullocks through the Bega…

What Will Happen to Bicycle Demand in 2021 & 2022?

Bicycle Purchase

Just before Christmas I shared with you my opinions about what would happen to bicycle supply over the coming year. In case you missed the article, which was entitled, ‘If You Read Nothing Else, Read This! My Predictions for 2021 Bike Supply.’, then I suggest you read it first here, before reading this article that…

Is It Fair We’ve Virtually Legislated the Necessity to Own a Car?

By Christian Haag* Decades of transport planning policy that has given the car unchallenged primacy of place has proved and continues to prove destructive to our social, economic, physical and environmental wellbeing. Decades of ever-expanding suburbia, with little or no thought put into affordable, sustainable transport solutions other than to drive, locks us all into…

Let’s Seize This Golden Opportunity!

Clearly we’ve seen a global tragedy unfold over the first half of 2020. At the time of writing this (23rd July 2020) we’ve seen over 15 million Covid-19 cases leading to over 624,000 deaths worldwide, according to official figures, with actual numbers likely to be much higher. Meanwhile Australia is battling the much feared ‘second…

Increased Global Bicycle Demand Could Mean Re-Stocking Delays for Australia

It’s becoming apparent to me that the Covid-19 related bike boom will have two distinct phases and that the second phase will be larger and longer than the first. In Australia we’re already coming out of Phase One. That’s been when bored people, chafing at the bit from lockdown: closed gyms, closed theatres, closed sport,…

How to Improve Your Bike Store’s Appeal for Women

Whist females sadly comprise only a small percentage of overall cyclists in Australia they are, nonetheless, an important audience for all bike retailers.Somewhere around just 10% of cyclists are women, across all types of riding – commuting, leisure, mtb and road/gravel. But there has been improved media coverage and further progress towards gender parity –…

Four Children Killed, ‘Riding Bikes’

On 2nd February 2020 I woke up early on a Sunday morning to the news that the previous evening, four young children, three girls and a boy, were killed on a suburban footpath in Sydney. Three more children were hospitalised. At appears that a 29 year old male drunk driver, behind the wheel of a…

Current Tariff Legislation is Hurting our Industry

Several major product categories that are sold within the Australian bicycle industry are subject to import tariffs. These are federally imposed taxes paid for by the importer. But because importers need to make a sustainable profit, they must pass these higher prices on to the retailers and that ultimately makes these goods more expensive for…