FEATURE
small piece of the market for the brand, but they often arrive without a clear path for the future and the availability of replacement parts. A lack of foresight and standardisation can leave everyone from eager consumers to busy mechanics, retailers and manufacturers in a tangled mess of confusion. What happens when a new standard of component is introduced and then disappears a few short years later, with little support from the aftermarket? The customer is left with a worn-out or broken component with no reliable way to find a replacement. It’s a frustrating scenario, and it’s one we see all too often. Let’s see if we can break it down… The desire to create something different is a product designer’s prerogative. There are many reasons a designer might entertain the idea of building something ‘new’ - performance gains, weight savings, aesthetics, functionality improvements - and these are all valid. There are other reasons too, like the desire to stamp their name on something iconic, to create a shift away from what’s always been done, to build products that keep buyers coming back to their brand, or to give a proverbial middle finger to the license fees and restrictions of using another brand’s designs. These are admirable, but generally self-serving, short-sighted, and not often in the best interest of the long-term end user. When product designers in the bike industry introduce something ‘new’, it usually results in stepping away from an established industry standard and is equal parts likely to succeed wildly, or fail spectacularly, neither of which will be known for a number of years. This is where the ‘Secret Sauce Conundrum’ enters the bike industry. Brands have a desire to keep customers returning to them. Their product designers, whether willing to admit it or not, have a role to play in acquiring market share and keeping it. In the same way that building a product that outperforms other products is desirable to a brand, to build a product that requires a customer to return to that brand to buy spares or upgrades is looked upon favourably too. This is where the desire to build something ‘new’ comes from; a desire to acquire customers and keep them coming back. But can you just change the way a component mounts or interacts with other components on a bike? The components on bikes of all types have been built
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around decades of interconnection and the understanding of widely accepted ‘standards’. It’s the reason we all still run 9/16” pedals, 22.2mm grips and 23.8mm bar clamps on our drop-bar shifters. To be successful in creating something new, it needs to have a certain amount of mass adoption, which helps it to become popular enough that OEM and Aftermarket manufacturers will take notice and produce supporting products, which then helps to gain popularity and allow your ‘new’ standard to become widely enough adopted to succeed. It’s a vicious circle. But how does this help brands acquire
BRANDS HAVE A DESIRE TO KEEP CUSTOMERS RETURNING TO THEM. THEIR PRODUCT DESIGNERS, WHETHER WILLING TO ADMIT IT OR NOT, HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN ACQUIRING MARKET SHARE AND KEEPING IT. IN THE
SAME WAY THAT BUILDING A PRODUCT THAT OUTPERFORMS OTHER PRODUCTS IS DESIRABLE TO A BRAND, TO BUILD A PRODUCT THAT
REQUIRES A CUSTOMER TO RETURN TO THAT BRAND TO BUY SPARES OR UPGRADES IS LOOKED UPON FAVOURABLY TOO.
customers and keep them coming back? It doesn’t. This kind of ‘new’ standard is reserved for a handful of the biggest and most influential names in the industry. Most brands are left stamping their names on ‘iconic’ seatpost shapes, ‘industry-changing’ headset sizes, ‘proprietary’ suspension pivot bolts and ‘ground- breaking’ chainring mounts. Those seatpost shapes, headset sizes, pivot bolts and chainring mounts become the ‘Secret Sauce’ that is a brand’s recipe for keeping customers coming back. The ‘Conundrum’ comes when mass-adoption enters the equation. Do you share your recipe with others to gain adoption? Can you make money from licensing your designs to gain adoption? Or do you retain your ‘Secret Sauce’ and your customer by keeping it a proprietary standard? Is there even enough money in selling
proprietary minor components to make it worthwhile, or is it more about not letting someone else sell to them? Are you missing an opportunity to sell standard parts to more riders? The end result of the ‘Secret Sauce Conundrum’ in the
bike industry, is that there are a whole bunch of ‘standards’ being created by brands in the hope they will keep end users coming back to them. The reality is that every one of these new standards actually dilutes their market, limits their opportunity to sell their products to new customers, adds to the existing confusion and leaves staff and riders frustrated. To make things worse, the added confusion around standards is what’s making it harder for any of them to stand out and succeed. Add to this the Marketing-Speak that is introduced with every new standard, and it’s no
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