Coverage in London also seems to be non-existent. Condor cycles in London sell a lot of high end bikes (Serotta, Merlin, Litespeed, Colnago, Ferrari, etc) to the banker/lawyer/stockbroker set. Don’t let that put you off as they’re also the couriers’ favourite through low prices and good service. They’d be a good place to start.
…and if you could have a word with BCF too. Yes, they’re a bunch of amateurish prcks and half the reason cycling struggles so badly but they do control brisht cycling.
was this intended as a PM?
no - more of an open letter of thanks with a bit of a personal rant against BCF. The gearsandtears.com bit may not be justified but as I’ve personally not seen a powercranks demo in the UK I’d guess they’re not working very hard. Hence the Condor cycles bike shop recommendation - a high end bike/tri shop would probably atract more customers.
The UK market place is very fickle, if loads of club mates haven’t tried them and thought they were the dogs whats its no one buys them, I have had a set for over a year, people see you with them , ask what they are then take the P**s.
I remember getting into a chat with the guy from Gearsandtears selling them at the Triathlon Cycle Running show, he only had a small stand, but this cost over a £1000.
I have a very good friend who owns a Tri shop in Bath, asked if he sold them answer was, no pretty expensive and there isn’t much profit, ended up buying from Gearsandtears.
For info BCF put all their tech money for stuff like this into SRMs
Hence the need for more demo’s at more events - piggybacking/sharing booths would be a better idea than trying to go it alone. Especially if booths at the TCR show are that expensive. Any idea how London cycle show/triathlon/skate week/etc compare?
Anyway, the more people that actually try them the more people will be convinced and buy them if they can afford them.
people taking the piss without using them just reinforces my opinion that they must be fools.
I am led to believe that the booths at the London show were more expensive ( is London after all) as for IMUK if its anything like previous years if you are not Tri UK you don’t get a look in.
I used Gearsandtears to try before I bought, made sure they were what I was after, initially looked at buying direct but would not have saved anything due to import duty VAT delivery etc.
They are going back on my bike after HIMUK, time to kill the hip flexors again
I have weak hip flexors so always feel the burn for the first week or so that I am using them
whereas mine are so new and untried that I’m still in the phase where I can just about pedal for 5 minutes and then coast to recover, pedal for 5 and coast, repeat until too tired to repeat
.
Thanks for the feedback. I think we are getting another major UK player on board soon, if not already. Andrew Weber does most of this stuff for us.
We don’t have much control over this stuff as we can’t be everywhere and it depends upon the motivation of the local guy, be it bikeshop or coach or whatever, to sell these things. Most bike shops just passively sit around and wait for the customer to come in and ask for them. Further, most don’t understand them or see the benefit. The people who do the best job of selling these things for us are the coaches. We might get out of the bike shop sales business if they don’t pick things up as they do little or nothing to sell them but we make much less profit on each sale.
I will put Andrew on this and see what we can do about increasing our presence over there.
Thanks for the feedback. I think we are getting another major UK player on board soon, if not already. Andrew Weber does most of this stuff for us.
We don’t have much control over this stuff as we can’t be everywhere and it depends upon the motivation of the local guy, be it bikeshop or coach or whatever, to sell these things. Most bike shops just passively sit around and wait for the customer to come in and ask for them. Further, most don’t understand them or see the benefit. The people who do the best job of selling these things for us are the coaches. We might get out of the bike shop sales business if they don’t pick things up as they do little or nothing to sell them but we make much less profit on each sale.
I will put Andrew on this and see what we can do about increasing our presence over there.
Thanks again for the nice thoughts and ideas.
Frank
sweet - if you need a London volunteer to help demo the things send me an e-mail or PM. I’ll probably regret it but it should silence some of the fools (and sell powercranks too). Hopefully, I’ll also be more help than hindrance too.