‘Bicycles Are the New Toilet Paper!’ Aussie Dealer Comment Goes Global

When Australian bicycle shop owner Grant Kaplan of Giant Sydney made this throwaway line to a journalist last month, he probably didn’t expect it to go global.

But in a world that’s bored, desperate for some good news and starved of some comic relief his quote has gone global.

Grant’s exact quote, according to The Guardian journalist who interviewed him was, “We’re the new toilet paper and everyone wants a piece.”

He went on to say that for each of the previous two Saturdays, they’d gone from a typical $10,000 in sales to $40,000 and that they’d had to stop servicing bikes because their workshop was flat out assembling new bikes for sale.

Grant’s comment was soon picked up by mainstream Australian media including news.com.au, 7news.com.au and others, plus non-industry specialist outlets ranging from Seniors News to Body and Soul.

But now it has also gone global, being used everywhere from Channel 6 in Texas USA, through to Bike Portland, north into Canada and to multiple outlets in the UK.

It looks like this Aussie dealer is on a roll…