OPINION CHANGING TIMES
The kids’ market is ever-changing and the last couple of years have been no different. Karen Gee from Cycle Sprog shares her thoughts on the challenges and opportunities.
T
welve years ago I pressed “publish” on the Cycle Sprog website. Since then we’ve gone from being a small blog about riding with our
children to becoming the UK’s leading resource on family cycling. This makes us uniquely placed to identify the changing behaviour patterns of parents and grandparents interested in kids’ bikes and family cycling. It won’t surprise BikeBiz readers that the ‘new normal’ patterns in the children’s cycling market are quite different to those we could rely on pre-pandemic. Economic, political, social and meteorological influences are presenting both new challenges and exciting opportunities.
Cycle Sprog’s visitor numbers are trending upwards, with Q1 2024 views up 25% on the same period in 2023 despite the awful weather and some unhelpful changes to Google’s algorithm. We’ve identified two key reasons for this trend, which we expect to continue beyond 2024. Firstly, kids’ bikes purchased during lockdown are being outgrown by their first rider and younger sibling, but families are now dealing with the cost of living crisis when deciding whether to get the next size up. People are doing their own research and spending longer reading individual articles. We’re also seeing a surge in the availability of used kids’ bikes, as parents look to recoup the costs of these outgrown lockdown bikes, reflected in an increased search volume for brands and quality models only available second-hand.
The great thing about the kids’ bike market is new
customers are born every year, and our challenge is how to encourage parents and grandparents to invest in good quality kids’ bikes and discover the joy of cycling. It breaks my heart when I hear parents tell me that they’re not buying their child the next size bike “because they never ride it and hate cycling”. It’s usually because they’ve bought the cheapest possible bike-shaped toy, that’s heavy, difficult for a young child to manoeuvre and may even break after a few rides. Failing that, they’ve bought a decent bike that’s far too big so it “lasts longer”, but its size scares the child when they try to ride it.
34 | May 2024
That’s why at Cycle Sprog, we will never stop shouting about the benefits of well-built, correctly fitting kids’ bikes, and the joys of riding them.
The second trend we’re seeing is a demand for advice on carrying children by bike, with a marked growth in interest in family cargo bikes.
Whether it’s economic, environmental, time or health reasons causing people to reconsider their reliance on the car for local journeys, this is presenting a huge opportunity to reach a new audience.
This is particularly noticeable in areas where there has been an investment in infrastructure, training and advice to get started, or where initiatives such as bike buses, family cycling libraries and school streets are making riding a bike a viable choice. This is being facilitated by new cargo bikes and other equipment designed for families coming to market at a range of price points. For the first time in the 12 years I’ve been running Cycle Sprog, it feels as if the tide is turning. It makes me so happy that in many parts of the country, it’s no longer considered “weird” or “brave” to cycle your child to school. It’s something I loved doing with my kids, and knowing more families are getting to experience this is brilliant. However, this modal shift brings a desperate need not just for more investment in infrastructure but also for reliable and affordable support services such as insurance, servicing and repairs, security, storage, breakdown assistance, skills training and family-friendly accessories. It’s certainly going to be an exciting few years seeing how the cycling industry responds to these challenges and opportunities and I’m keen to discover what the next ‘new normal’ is going to be.
www.bikebiz.com
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