Will this SAVE the BICYCLE INDUSTRY from total COLLAPSE! (of course not, but you know it should)

so I've been kicking around this idea of bike shops versus cycling stores since I first learned about the Tre retail concept store idea 20 years ago needless to say the recently leaked Memo from Tre CEO John Burke to his executive team needing to rightsize the brand to adjust to a global cycling Market in total chaos was a serious no moment for me so welcome to another overtly cynical scripted video where I make sweeping generalizations about the bicycle industry and culture based on my own anecdotal experiences as a disgruntled bike shop owner in a Tiny Town barely eing out a living under the shadow of the largest cycling brand on Earth some people are calling it bike aedon and I saw it coming back in 2014 when Trek first began its crusade to transform bicycle retail as we know it with the Trek retail programs for independently owned concept stores since then it's estimated that Trek has taken over almost 500 retail locations across the world and turn them into corporate retail stores just so we get an idea of what this means please leave a comment letting us know how this is going in your neighborhood and I'm not an executive level business genius or nothing but logic tells me if we suddenly find a global market in total chaos and one of the leading brands has been going around and gobbling up all of the bike shops and turning them into cycling stores maybe it's time to reconsider our strategy here now this is just one guy's opinion and I kind of have a unique situation here so let me tell you a little bit about it back in 2016 at the end of my first season after opening the bike mobile I had the opportunity to realize my lifelong dream of reopening Gibbs Bike Shop in my hometown of lak Mills Wisconsin I knew going into it that it would be very difficult to thrive as a bicycle retailer in this area even when my mom got her first bike from Gibbs in 1953 it was a recondition used bike even my first bike came from Gibbs in 1983 it was a Tracker freestyle a second tier house brand of a regional Parts distributor that nobody's ever heard of but around Gibbs passing in 1990 a trek employee thought they'd try their hand as a trek retailer in Lake Mills and open the bicycle Clinic they lasted about 5 years before they ran into the same problems of never being able to meet the minimum purchasing requirements to remain a dealer and so as T signed on with the world's top Racers and experienced stratospheric growth over the next 25 years Little Old lak Mills Wisconsin went shopless cuz you really got to be a special kind of stupid to try doing what I'm doing here but I got something going for me in my tiny little town in my tiny little shop I hear it all the time I'm not a big biker and I don't need anything fancy like a track or anything like that it's just regular people wanting to go for a bike ride and it's not just here since starting this channel I've learned there are regular people across the globe that are really just turned off by all the fancy overpriced bicycles and gear sold by the dominant cycling store model and would love to see a shift back to the smaller independently owned Community focused bike shops they remembered seeing when they were kids so bike shops versus cycling stores what the hell am I talking about well follow me down the rabbit [Music] hole if I had to distill it down to one simple sentence it would be this bike shops provide products and services for regular people wanting to ride bikes and recycling stores create cyclists to consume novel bicycle products and services to support industry Trends and to dig into the Nuance just a little bit more I've written some really long runon sentences to nail my point down further a cycling store is a sterile brand focused corporate retail business that focuses on creating a trendy fashionable exclusive culture of consumers for a wide selection of Novel cycling products by exploiting Fitness and competition to ensure obsolescence requiring upgrades and Replacements to line with targeted messaging to a perpetually conforming customer base and a bike shop is a local customer focused independently owned service business dedicated to providing a small cerated selection of practical durable affordable bicycle products to their local communities by encouraging the use of bicycles and everyday activities like Transportation Leisure and Recreation meeting the needs of the diverse general population by sustainably optimizing and repairing existing bicycles for a dynamic customer base now that's a mouthful for you simple tons I've got some real world examples now if it's a newer Commercial location with clean floors and racks full of shiny new bikes raging from $800 to $8,000 a clothing section and a well-groomed fit gentleman with a button-up shop shirt with a chest logo and flatbrim samam hat greets you you're in a cycling store and if it's an old storefront with a faded sign worn tile floors with a row of $700 new bik bikes on racks above a row of $300 used bikes some helmets stacked in a pile in the corner and a total dirt bag behind a dominant service counter in the back with every inch of the wall covered in filthy tools and old stickers congratulations you found yourself a bike shot I'm going to simplify it even more just so we fit in with today's world bike shops are for commies and cycling stores are for capitalists I suppose you think I'm about to tell you how it's going to save the industry huh well who am I to leave you hanging like that hoay does the industry even need fixing probably not I mean bicycles are toys and fixing them as a hobby anyway right but with the dominant Brands seemingly speaking out of both sides of their mouths and with no consensus of how we got here in the first place it's really no surprise that the industry has become so chaotic that people are calling it bike aedon well from where I sit the past 25 years of tremendous growth and Innovation and cycling has outgrown what the market can even understand there are just way too many options out there and big bike has muddied the water so much that nobody wants to go swimming in the pond anymore but let's be honest I barely know how to fix bikes let alone large bicycle corporations I'm definitely not saying that I have the Magic Bullet that can restore the bicycle markets to order I do know what I'd like to see in the aftermath of this Awakening that we're seeing in the industry I really hope we begin to see a shift from the bicycle brand dealership model to one that allows local independently owned bike shops to decide if all of the corporate brand marketing is necessary to maintain their customer base if it were up to me which it's clearly not all of the big Brands would right siiz themselves by zooming out on the exclusively homogenized niche market they've all come to depend on and allow room for the millions of people out there just looking for a decent affordable bike without having to transform themselves into a fancy pants cyclist let's respect the freedom and Independence that bicycles bring into our lives and loosen our corporate grips and allow the local market to decide what's right for their communities when you try to be everything to everyone it becomes too much for anyone I feel like the big bike brands have made cycling into something that it's not riding a bike is supposed to just be fun and when you make it so specialized and complicated regular people aren't able to see it that way I firmly believe that with a little bit of help anyone can enjoy riding a bike again but when things get this complicated it makes it really difficult to sell that idea I really like the idea of right sizing things getting back to basics because biking should be fun I mean seriously what's not to love it really doesn't need to be this complicated [Music] [Applause] right [Applause] [Music]

Channel: BikeFarmer

Views: 75,257

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Id: csZETvuCCiM

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024