BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Back in February BikeBiz went out on a limb to post an exclusive story on the behind-the-scenes deal for Wiggle to acquire Chain Reaction Cycles. It led to we-don’t-comment-on-rumours statements from the parties concerned. The exclusive was written by executive editor Carlton Reid – BikeBiz took a lot of flak for running the story, but we were vindicated a week later when the official press release confirmed the details in our scoop.
Soon after we broke the story it was picked up by the BBC, the Financial Times, and other parts of the mass media, all crediting the original story on BikeBiz.com. And this link love is the reason the scoop was the most-read story on BikeBiz.com in 2016. It also generated more than 1,800 Facebook likes and trended on Twitter.
Reid said: "BikeBiz is in the business of hard news not speculation so when I first got wind that a deal was brewing I knew the official channels would not comment on the claims so I had to use other methods to firm up what had been the merest sniff of a rumour."
He added: "I was confident the facts were correct, but the deal was such a surprise, and so seismic for the global bicycle industry, that other trade journals didn’t run with the story immediately. It took a week for the story to be confirmed; that was a long week."
The January edition of BikeBiz magazine was printed over the Christmas holidays and has been mailed to bike shops and suppliers this week – it contains other hard-hitting stories and features.
