Features
Divine Quality With Riders at its Heart
~ Sponsored Content ~ Deity is a premium MTB component manufacturer that lives by the creed, “all heart, all passion, and all in”. The US manufacturer prides itself on being 100% rider owned, operated, designed and funded – so every decision is made by riders, for riders. Eric Davies, the founder of Deity Components, has…
NZ Success Story Brings Rush of New Energy for Ridley
~ Sponsored content ~ A New Zealand distributor putting Ridley firmly on the map in its home country has been granted the brand’s agency for Australia. Auckland-based Rush Velo, owned by former NZ elite men’s road cycling champion Darien Rush, introduced Ridley to NZ in 2019, focusing on the brand’s gravel range initially and gradually…
Business Focus Gives Huge Sea Otter an Interbike Feel
Monterey, US A total of 528 exhibitors, representing more than 1,000 brands, came to the Sea Otter Classic last month, jamming the Laguna Seca Raceway exhibition area, setting records for attendance, reaffirming the event’s hold on the US bicycle industry, and enhancing its growing cachet among a bevy of foreign exhibitors. Australia was represented by…
What Does Our Bike Industry Future Look Like?
As we all know, Australia’s bike industry went through an unprecedented two-year boom from about March 2020 until it started to taper during 2022. During that boom, I wrote two opinion pieces here and here predicting what would happen next and then, early this year, this article in which I summarised which of those predictions…
Letter From America – Banks Shaping Bike Industry
Sante Fe, New Mexico The US banking industry – turned topsy-turvy with the demise of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March – is quietly reshaping the bicycle industry. Retailers, facing a raft of cash flow issues, are finding it increasingly difficult to refinance older loans, refinance and pay for overpriced inventory, or seek loans to…
Bicycle Academy Growing and Evolving to Train the Nation’s Mechanics
~ Sponsored Content ~ Expanding training organisation the Bicycle Academy is swiftly implementing its own lessons, to ensure Australia’s only national bike mechanics apprenticeship program accurately matches the needs of the industry. It’s a little under a year since the Bicycle Academy, a joint venture by training provider Industry Graduates and leading bicycle wholesale and…
Letter from America – New Bugbears for US Industry
SANTA FE, New Mexico It seems the US bicycle industry has set aside – at least for the moment – worries over supply chain disruption, overseas shipping costs, and tariffs on some Chinese imports. That’s not to say these concerns are unimportant, but the industry is moving full speed ahead into other hot button issues.…
How Accurate Were Our Covid Bike Industry Predictions?
During the Covid pandemic I wrote two articles predicting what would happen in the future of the bike industry as a result of Covid’s ‘big disruption’. The first one was posted on 17th December 2020 and the follow-up was posted on 23rd September 2021. There’s a strong chance you might have read either or both…
Custom Kits a Tailored Slice of Castelli’s Extraordinary Heritage
~ Sponsored Content ~ Italian cycling garment manufacturer Castelli has spent almost a century and a half at the head of the pack – as one of the industry’s most influential innovators and as the garment of choice for athletic royalty. Fine tailor Vittore Gianni founded the company in Milan in 1876 and created garments…
Polisport Bottles Go Bigger, Lighter and Brighter
~ Sponsored Content ~ Portugal-based plastics and two-wheeler specialist Polisport moved into the high-performance bottle market when it released its lightweight R550 range in 2019. Tipping the scales at just 53 grams for the race-approved 550-millilitre option, the R550 narrowly pips the Elite Fly as the lightest bottle on the market and both are just…