There has never been a better time for a Reformation of the bicycle industry.
This is so booooooooooooooring!
I admit that the theme of sustainability is not as sexy as it was a few years ago (everyone just wants to talk about AI now), but I believe it is the right thing to do (especially for businesses) and that the theme will endure. Indeed, the big three (Trek, Giant and Specialized) have all introduced sustainability reports over the past few years. John Burke at Trek has produced by far the most coherent and accessible report which suggests that more bicycle companies are going to have to follow suit if they want to remain relevant in the market and even compliant with future emission regulations.
No more platitudes please
I am also just done with describing A-D framesets in terms of the painfully generic and profoundly superficial platitudes thought up by marketing agencies and promoted on Instagram about performance (This is the fastest bike. End of discussion.), construction (We use the best carbon layup in the world to build a frame that meets the requirements of your specific genetic makeup), pricing (It is the best price anywhere guaranteed!), story (We set out to redefine the bicycle). A-D framesets are all of those things and more and consumers will buy them for their own reasons (The color is beautiful. Fred picked up the phone to answer questions. The frameset is affordable. Fred helped me sell all my old cycling gear. I rode an A-D when I was a kid!).
Out of touch
What is frustrating to me is that the industry is so profoundly out of touch with its own surroundings. Very few companies are doing anything different or original except of course complaining or pontificating about why the industry is suffering from all of its obvious problems. It seems the only thing most bike companies have done is to offer consumer financing on their websites. Great job guys. There is an oversupply of bikes worldwide and you are offering the customer a bike that comes with debt.
Taking action
A-D Bikes is really the only bike company with an internal deproduction division. What is deproduction? It is essentially a production line in reverse. We take used and unused bikes apart and sell what has value and recycle everything else. The deproduction division is Frame and Wheel, which is the ebay selling service for cyclists and bike shops that I have been running for over ten years. All this time I was a deproduction service and I didn’t know it. Unsurprisingly, deproduction is a feature of the automobile industry and and automobile manufacturers are investing in their own deproduction facilities or forming strong ties with third party companies that specialize in this activity.
You Talk the Talk. Do you Walk the Walk?
The deproduction division has allowed me to resell, reuse and recycle every A-D framesets I sell and every bit of cycling gear customers have asked me to sell on their behalf. I have been able to turn a customer’s old cycling gear into cash so that they can buy an A-D or just buy something else. I have been able to take the parts off of used or lightly used bikes and use them to build up A-D framesets, creating huge savings for customers and extending the product lives of components. I have been able to buy back A-D framesets from existing customers and resell them in the secondary market, generating cash for them, cash for me and adding a new A-D rider to the road. I have the infrastructure and the expertise to offer the A-D Bikes Sustainability Program and the A-D Bikes Buyback Program. I can Walk the Walk and not just Talk the Talk.