Building Bowhead

In our final episode of this limited series, we turn the floor over to member questions. Thank you to everyone who became members throughout this series. Every single one of you helps make us produce more content like this. If you're not a member, you can join here: https://escapecollective.com/join/You can listen another podcast you'll enjoy about 'Why are modern bikes so expensive' podcast here: https://escapecollective.com/why-are-modern-bikes-so-expensive/

In EP3, we heard about what much of the bike industry experienced during that dramatic slowdown of bike sales, and what resulted. In this episode, EP4, we'll hear about some of the learnings and takeaways from the past three years, and put forward some tough questions for the bike industry to ask itself.

This is the third episode in our series that takes a deep dive into what the bike industry experienced during the covid boom and how it got into the trouble it’s in now.In Episode 2, we heard from various industry professionals about the early warning signals that told them that this bubble was about to burst, and some of the reckless behaviour and pressure that was being put onto various parts of the supply chain by some big brands. But it’s not so clear-cut. We’re also beginning to hear some finger-pointing in all directions and I supposed the fragmented nature of the bike industry makes it really easy for things to slip through the cracks and in hindsight, it was perhaps a recipe for disaster.In reference to the postmortem of Wiggle/CRC and the interview with Jake Dudek done in this episode, you can read his post on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/postmortem-signa-sports-united-jacob-dudek-xau9f/In this episode entitled ‘The Famine’, we zoom into the timeframe when demand came to an abrupt halt and what the bike industry was left with.

In episode one we heard about the unexpected windfall that the cycling industry saw at the start of the pandemic and how many needed to react. Of course that didn’t last forever, and in this episode I’ve titled ‘the storm clouds’ we talk about the early signs that this new demand was coming to an abrupt halt, and the types of behaviour that was happening and the causes of that behaviour that led to the catastrophe that the industry would later see.

In this 4 part series, I wanted to explore the events that took place that led the bike industry to the troubling point it’s at now. I spoke to over a dozen industry professionals from all parts of the supply chain. From well run bike shops, forecasting analysts, distributors, the biggest bike brands in the world, and manufacturers. It’s well known that the bicycle industry went through an unprecedented boom during the pandemic from 2020 - 2022. Jump ahead to 2024 and much of the bike industry is in trouble. New demand has come to an abrupt halt. New entrants into the bicycle market have not stayed as the industry had hoped.We’re seeing massive inventory overruns at bike shops. Big bike brands are taking on extra warehousing space. Businesses such as Niner, Orange, Wiggle/CRC, have gone into bankruptcy. Otherwise profitable big brands have taken on debt to keep afloat. There are brands out there who are doing well, but they’re the exception rather than the norm. In general , I don’t think many would disagree that the situation in major cycling markets, aside from China,  is pretty dire.The episode is this first of four. We’re going to bring you on a journey through the COVID feast, the storm clouds, the famine, and the lessons learned in hindsight.In this episode, The Feast, we speak to a bike shop owner, a demand forecasting analyst for a distributor, company CEOs, and a manufacturer to hear about what they experienced during the initial stages of the pandemic in early 2020. 

There’s an undeniable truth that an overnight success takes about 10 years, not a single night. Almost no one comes up with a winning business idea all at once. And if you’re not Peter and Tom Marchment or those around them who created the aftermarket wheel brand Hunt, you might be mistaken that they came out of nowhere. Tom and Peter are brothers who grew up riding in a small fishing village on the Isle of Man and like most of us at the beginning, cycling was a way to get around and a source of freedom. That progressed to mountain biking and then cross-country racing then road racing and time trialling - as you do in the UK.   At University Peter got some background in materials sciences while Tom took a degree in ergonomics, which is human psychology and physiology applied to design, which he admits that he really didn’t like. Their paths diverged after university when Tom started working in a bike shop where he got some cycling industry experience, while Peter went to work at a bank. Peter and Tom have been slowly putting the building blocks of their steadfast aftermarket wheelset business together for nearly a decade now, all starting with an online store called The InnerTube Shop back in 2013. Here’s Peter and Tom Marchment who started InnerTube Shop telling about how it all began.

DeFeet is mostly thought about as a sock brand, and that’s largely the case, even though they also make arm warmers, gloves and base layers. After 31 years of being in the trade, they’re the longest-standing business dedicated to socks in the cycling market that I’m aware of. Back in the 90’s socks may have been the least interesting, and most neglected piece of apparel in a cyclist's wardrobe, or any athlete’s for that matter. They were just flimsy tubes of cotton or wool that covered the feet. It was a thankless job nobody gave much thought to. What it took to change that was a man by the name of Shane Cooper, who had a unique set of skills, hobbies and passions that all came together to change the game in socks. 

Bowhead is a business that’s only about 5 years old, but it’s been twenty years in the making. It’s a brand many of you probably haven’t heard of before, and despite this I truly hope that you do listen to this episode, because this one is one of the most inspiring stories that I’ve come across while making this podcast. Christian Bagg has been a lifelong adrenaline junkie who loved mountain biking and snowboarding. Christian broke his back in 1996 while snowboarding. His life changed forever because of this, but that didn’t hold him back from living his life to the fullest. He quickly adapted by racing wheelchairs, cross country and downhill skiing.A machinist by trade, Christian couldn’t help thinking about how his adaptive equipment for these sports that he loved kept failing him and how he could make it better. Jump ahead to now, 2023, Christian’s company Bowhead has the most innovative adaptive mountain bikes the world has ever seen and has given other people with disabilities a new level of passion they couldn’t enjoy before.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past decade, MAAP has risen to become one of the most successful and highly regarded apparel brands in the market. Born in the age of Instagram brands in 2014, there was an explosion of these micro-brands with a design-led ethos popping up all over the place. Cycling apparel was going through a big change at this time. People were loving untraditional and playful kits and they were beginning to become a fashion statement just as much as they were a technical product. The barrier to entry for apparel was getting fairly low at this time as custom kit were accessible to anyone, and social media was a new way of gaining a following and building a brand. I’ve known the co-founders of MAAP, Jarrad Lawrie and Ollie Cousins since before the inception of the brand. Since their early days we’ve done many kit collaborations together and I’ve had enormous respect and admiration for what they’ve built.While all of us reside in the city of Melbourne, Australia and see each other from time to time and we have many mutual friends, I actually don’t know their founding story in detail until now. I've wanted to do this episode for a long time now and I’m glad I finally got the chance to sit down with Jarrad and Ollie to share their remarkable journey.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This month we’ve got a different episode for you. For a long time now I've been asked to share the origin story of CyclingTips in this podcast, but I always knew there was more to come in this journey. But now that the story is complete, I figured this is a good time to tell it.Instead of this being a monologue, I asked Mitch Docker (from the Life in the Peloton podcast) to host this episode. Mitch's journey with Life in the Peloton is similar to my own in many ways, and I'm enjoying seeing him take his own path and making a success out of it.It's hard to say if CyclingTips was a success or not. It depends on how you measure it. Like countless other media brands, CyclingTips is no longer in existence. But at one time it was a daily destination for cycling enthusiasts around the globe, and had a strong place within the cycling community that we were proud of.The version of CyclingTips that died a quick death was a very popular one. Each year millions of people visited the site. There were thousands of paying members. We ran events. We supported local events whenever we could. We contributed to charitable and social causes. We tried to give a voice to those who didn’t have one. We weren’t the biggest, but we liked to think that we made an impact in our little corner of the world.From the outside it might have looked like a straightforward path, but as you'll hear it was anything but... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.