THE BIG INTERVIEW The
other side
From family business to high street giant, Russell Merry has seen all sides of the trade. The new MD for cycling at
Frasers Group, Evans Cycles’ parent company, sets out his vision for the future
Frasers Group MD for cycling, Russell Merry R
ussell Merry will be a familiar name to many in the bike trade. From his humble beginnings in the industry,
selling BMX bikes to his friends, Merry has seen many sides to the business, from a family-run distribution outfit all the way to the biggest chain in the country. Merry has recently been appointed as the managing
director for cycling at Frasers Group, the retail giant owned by British billionaire Mike Ashley, which now owns Evans Cycles, Sports Direct, and House of Fraser. As Merry settles into his new role, “gamekeeper turned
poacher” as he put it, he sat down with BikeBiz to explain his vision for the future of Evans and Frasers Group.
Bike people vs business people “If you’re run by too many bike people,” said Merry, speaking from his home in the south of England via video call, “who are often quite product driven, and get too excited by shiny and expensive product, they don’t always make any money - as we know, the bike industry has not historically been a place that’s too commercially successful. “However, if you listen too much to purely business people who don’t appreciate the idiosyncrasies of
26 | July 2022
the bike industry, you’re not successful either. So we’re trying to combine those two things, the people with retail skills from Sports Direct and the Frasers Group, combined with someone who understands the idiosyncrasies of the bike industry.”
Humble beginnings Merry’s first foray into the cycling industry came when he was still a youngster, after he asked his dad for a new BMX bike back in 1981. To raise money for the new bike, Merry and his dad
approached a BMX supplier and (dishonestly) claimed they were planning on opening a new bike shop. After picking up a selection of bikes at trade price, Merry and his dad proceeded to sell bikes to Merry’s friends in order to fund his own new BMX.
That was the humble beginnings of what would later become Hot Wheels Distribution. After temporarily leaving the company in the 1980s,
Merry returned to Hot Wheels in 1989, and along with his brother Neil set about expanding the BMX distributor until 2009, when the company was bought by Dorel Industries, then owner of Cannondale, GT and Mongoose.
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