BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
We’re not going to lie, we underestimated how big this show now is, so we’re going to do our best to squeeze as much in here as we can. Without further ado…
Courtesy of Velotech Services, Ceepo is now offering full builds to the trade. One of the brand’s latest offerings is the Mamba, a ‘do it all’ bike with a truncated airfoil shape that offers something for tri, time trials, sportives, road, etc. A clever seatpost can be reversed to change the rider position, depending on the type of the ride. The 950g frame hits £1,999 RRP.
Also from Velotech comes customisation from ROTOR Q rings. Customers can pick a UK flag, or a US, or Spanish, or one of many others, embossed with a new hard wearing material that is now in stock and ready to go. There’s even room for bespoke designs although minimum volumes are high.
See our Bike Place 2015 gallery here.
Furious Sports is a new distributor on us, carrying a couple of brands including Clear Protect. Basically a tape that can be wrapped around frames for protection, the brand offers a five-year guarantee against yellowing, cracking and delamination. The packs range from £10 to £40 and application sponges are supplied in the nifty little packs. Furious also carries Hirzl gloves, offering an unusual take on the sector. Boasting the likes of super comfy kangaroo leather and targeting the high-end, Hirzl advocates layering, with over gloves to keep pinkies extra warm on those numbing first few minutes of the ride. Then when things warm up a bit, the rider can nip the over gloves/mittens off.
Fresh from the USA, Pure Fix was formed four years ago and in June launched its European operation in Rotterdam. Since then it has picked up a whopping 180 dealers across Europe, but virtually none on these shores. As such the Bike Place marked Pure Fix’s UK show debut, with eye-catching glow in the dark models and retro-style rides to lure UK dealers in. The brand assured BikeBiz it holds a good stock of its bikes so availability is good, with no minimum orders. Prices are on the affordable side too, with many bikes around the £370 mark. If they’re familiar you might have spotted them at Eurobike, where they will be again for the fourth year in a row this August.
Another US firm at Silverstone was Edge Sports, which has been selling into Britain through Edge Sports UK for the past couple of years. The firm is keen to back the grassroots and is working with the Altura Nutcracker MTB team.
Edge Sports also carries other brands to dealers, including recent signing Juin Tech. Amongst the Juin Tech line-up is the R1 hydraulic cable pull disc brake set. Boasting a patented closed hydraulic mineral oil system, the nicely packaged kits come with cables, postmount adapters, bolts, torq screws and the full shebang, recommended for cyclocross and road users alike. Edge Sports also carries RWD product and Nuflex, the latter a brand providing cooling gels, warming gels and other similar products aimed at looking after the cyclist, rather than the bike.
There’s lots of new stuff from Oxford Products, which has high hopes for increasing its share of the P&A market, aiming for a similar share in the cycle industry as it enjoys in the motorcycle trade. Let’s start with the eye-catching Commuter X4 from Veglo, which we previewed back in March on BikeBiz.com. After approaching Oxford, the universal product is now at market, attaching to bags, backpacks and the backs of cyclists.
Oxford also has a new dry bag range. The sales rep we talked to reckoned he’d chucked one into a river to try out one of these 100 per cent waterproof bags (successfully). Oxford also showed off a new set of mudguards, complete with USB-rechargeable lights.
A word too on Oxford’s sub-brands: BMX P&A sales rocketed when Oxford switched its packaging to more apt designs rather than the basic Oxford Products packaging style. That principle has been applied to various corners of the ranges, now including an Oxford Pro line for more high-end products. Other Oxford titbits to look out for include fresh signing Taya Chain and a lock range currently in redevelopment.
Weldtite, appearing independently of its distributor partners, brought along its Pure, Tf2 and Dirt Wash ranges to put the lines under the noses of dealers, with samples on hand. Other brands using the show to get their brand out to potential shop partners included Wildoo, with a wide array of custom products, from bottles to jerseys and more.
Solo has gone, ahem, solo having split from Paligap. The IBD-focused brand promises high margins and next day deliveries from its Birmingham warehouse. Among the highlights is a hot property of a baselayer, which has been attracting attention at the show. The brand is a truly international affair: Products head to China for stitching, with fabrics arriving Italy, Switzerland and Merino from New Zealand and Australia. All delivered to you via Brum.
