BIG INTERVIEW
Islabikes helped develop the kids’ bike sector into a mature corner of the cycling trade
“We launched ours at £100, so double the most expensive comparable product. “We’ve created an understanding in the marketplace place that, if you can afford it, getting a decent bike for your child is a good thing to do, and it really makes a difference. “That perception change was initiated by the creation of Islabikes.” For a number of years, Islabikes was leading the charge alone in developing the kids market, and was also an early adopter of a direct-to-consumer business model in the bike industry, which is now commonplace across the trade. The difference between Islabikes and many of the competitor brands in children’s bikes at the time, is that Rowntree and her team were focused on the details, striving to understand how a child’s riding experience differs from an adults. Rowntree told BikeBiz: “I can literally talk to you for two hours non-stop about our four-year-old’s bike and all the details that cumulatively make it a different riding experience from anything else out there. “I wanted children to have a better experience of cycling, so they weren’t put off by awful bikes. “The mature market that we’ve got now is delivering that.”
Looking forward For the future of the kid’s market, and for the future of cycling more generally, Rowntree said: “There’s definitely a good case for encouraging children to cycle, and that
24 | May 2023
could be industry led. “If people have had a positive experience throughout childhood, a lot of them will come back [to cycling] at some point. “In terms of what those programmes look like, the huge barrier to children cycling, parents feeling comfortable about their children cycling, and adults cycling is the perception of safety.
“I feel that for the industry, lobbying for safe infrastructure is the hardest thing to do, but it’s also the thing that will have the biggest effect.” While trade body The Bicycle Association and charities
like Cycling UK are lobbying on behalf of the industry, Rowntree said that improving infrastructure to improve the perception of cycle safety is going to take more work: “It needs to be perceived as safe, and tackling that political monster needs to be done across multiple fronts.”
And finally, on what she wants to see for children’s
bikes, Rowntree said: “There are still improvements that can be made.
“It’s more refinements, but what are apparently fairly small changes on a bike when you’re four, or six, or eight, can have a much bigger effect on the rider experience than they would for an adult. “What I’d like to see across other brands is when they’re
attempting to make premium children’s ranges, is a better appreciation of the detail.”
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