TRENDSPOTTING
Clearly, these metrics are, currently, not going in the right direction.
What does that mean for the cycling industry? The next generation of riders - people who we depend upon for the long-term viability of our industry - is a rapidly shrinking section of society. Where the figures for Gen Z (individuals born
approximately between 1997 and 2012) are already high for inactivity, Gen Alpha (those born from 2010 to 2024), if following the current trend, is going heavily in the wrong direction - a trajectory that represents an existential threat to the cycling industry. Beyond the cycling industry, the bigger picture is inactivity directly affecting children’s well-being, their health, and how they spend their hours of play. And it’s also having a massive impact on adults: The impact on workplace health.
What role can the WFSGI play in positively addressing this worryingly negative societal trend? One of the beauties of the WFSGI is that 25 percent of our membership are cycling brands, including the likes of Specialized, BMC, Cervelo, Canyon, Giant. We can get companies who are typically competing against each other, to sit together at the table and talk about the issues that they need support on. These issues span regulatory, trade, international sports, ESG and global physical activity. So where issues arise that they cannot solve on their own, and they need to have that collective voice, working together we can facilitate this. Often it’s ‘long journey’ projects. We’re in a really unique position to enable organisations who are direct competitors, such as Shimano and SRAM, to sit around the table and actually discuss big-picture challenges to find collaborative solutions. It’s quite rare.
Given the WFSGI name, is this just about sporting goods, products aimed at sporting activity? So, yes, the sports side is important, but if you look into the mission statements or the vision of nearly all of our cycling brands, the wording is different for each of them, but in general what is common is getting more people to cycle.
How do we get more people cycling? Naturally, they’re going to use that sports-brand- generated marketing momentum, which is inspirational and aspirational, featuring the likes of Tom Pidcock or Sophie Capewell, as a focal point for inspiring people, making people want to cycle. I think we are seeing a shift in terms of what brands are doing with the products that they’re bringing to the market, but also how they’re marketing them. Now there’s a lot more interest from the general consumer in terms of gravel adventures - lifestyle-based fun - not necessarily entering an event because they want to win it, but just to participate and to be more active and spend time with their family, their friends, making bicycles adaptable to take their children to the shops, for general, daily, travel.
So I think they [sports brands] have a very important
role to play, whilst also acknowledging that they have to balance out the sports marketing side of things with more general marketing to the masses. Ultimately, we - the cycling industry - need more people
to ride. The critical word there is ‘people’ because they’re a new audience - a massive majority of the UK population - who are not currently regular bike riders, much less calling themselves cyclists.
How can we get more people active, and using a bike? I think the e-bike has a massive part to play here. The tech and the innovation side of the e-bike drive
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