OPINION
The Kids’ Bike Market Is More Valuable Than You Might Think
By Kevin Williams, Co-founder of Shyre Bikes I
came into this industry eighteen months ago with no trade background, no wholesale contacts, and no distribution network. What I did have was fifteen years of operational experience in social housing, a scaled
food delivery business behind me, and a genuine outsider’s perspective on how a market works – or doesn’t.
I’m sharing that not to position myself as someone with all the answers, but because I think the view from outside a sector is sometimes the most honest one available. And from where I’m standing, the kids’ bike market is one of the most commercially compelling opportunities in cycling – with a depth to it that I’m not sure gets talked about enough.
What brought us here Before Shyre Bikes, I built and scaled Zoom Food – a food delivery app that grew to hundreds of thousands of orders across Shropshire and into Wales. It taught me a great deal about operational efficiency, customer acquisition, and the realities of scaling quickly. It also taught me something more uncomfortable: I was building something that made it easier for people to stay indoors and stay sedentary. That sat uneasily with me for a long time.
My wife Michelle and I started buying and reselling kids’ bikes from brands that were no longer trading, passing the savings on to local families and learning the market from the ground up. What began as a simple operation quickly revealed something we couldn’t ignore. Parents were underserved. The buying experience was often confusing, after-sales support was patchy, and the connection between a brand and the families buying from it felt transactional rather than relational. We saw a different way to do it, and Shyre Bikes was built
around that vision. Eighteen months later, we’ve sold 1,500 bikes – direct to consumer, without a significant marketing budget and without established retail distribution. I mention that figure not to boast, but because I think it raises a question worth sitting with: what does it tell us about unmet demand in this segment when a brand new entrant with none of the traditional advantages can find that kind of traction, that quickly?
Kev holding bikes in the square 22 | May 2026
Experience first – always The thing that has shaped Shyre more than anything else is a commitment to being an experience-first brand. And crucially, that means living the values we promote, not just marketing them. Michelle and I take our family on cycling holidays. We ride trails together. We go to events. We put our kids on bikes, and we go and explore – because that’s genuinely who we are, and it informs every decision we make about the brand. When we talk about getting families outside, about the mental and physical benefits of cycling together, about building habits that last a lifetime – we’re not writing copy. We’re describing our own lives. That authenticity is hard to manufacture, and I think families sense it immediately. They’re not buying a bike from a catalogue. They’re buying into a community of people who actually ride, who understand what it means
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