DISTRIBUTOR
The company then started manufacturing in-house in its main office/warehouse facility using the 12-year-old wheel building robot, but with the addition of a state of the art lacing machine. “It was something we’d never dreamt of doing,” continued Elliot. “We were really lucky that we had a wheel builder working for us anyway, a very experienced, good wheel builder. We beat some of the competition to it and from there we’ve grown it out of the building, we had to buy another building last year.” The company purchased a new building off-site – a 3,500 square foot dedicated facility for wheel building, and within its first two months this was full to the rafters with componentry, machinery and built wheels.
“Since manufacturing our wheels, we have taken sales of this sector up over 150% whilst experiencing continued growth,” said Elliot. “We now have a brand new wheel building robot which offers automatic tightening, truing and stabilisation of every wheel to precise tolerances.”
Key components
The company is targeting the replacement wheel market and workshop and service is a key component to the business, continued Elliot. “We see this is a natural growth area for the IBD. Our wheels are manufactured and priced to help replace the everyday wheel through repairs or upgrades. “During the first three years of our manufacturing, we
have brought a higher end specification wheel to market which is using better quality stainless steel spokes and sealed hubs. All of our wheels are branded all the way through with KX, from the hub, the rim and through to the coloured hang tags to give a more professional finish.” The reaction from the market has been excellent, said Elliot, with ‘astonishing’ retention from customers using its wheels by coming back and reordering. “[It’s] a huge compliment to the team we have here who have not only got the project off the ground but have maintained and improved standards in the short space of us manufacturing.” During my visit I even got to see how a KX wheel is built – giving me a full picture of how the build goes and the machinery used. Elliot continued: “People who buy the wheels, rebuy them. All our wheels are produced consistently to a high standard, and finished with a coloured hang tag. The feedback we get is very good on presentation, and also the wheel build as well. “It’s also trying to work out the flows of popularity, because we’ve been out of stock for so long, actually trying to predict what we need right now with this current climate is really tough. We’re still being quite reactive.” Like most in the cycling industry, Bob Elliot & Co has
seen a fair share of challenges with KX Wheels since manufacturing began a few years ago. “Manufacturing was brand new to us, that was something we had to research quite a lot,” said Elliot. “It’s quite daunting really, we had nobody to lean on.”
‘WE WILL CONTINUE TO FOCUS HEAVILY ON WORKSHOP AND SERVICE FOR NOW, AND THE YEARS AHEAD AS WE SEE THIS IS AN ASSET NOT ONLY FOR THE IBD BUT ALSO FOR ONLINE PLATFORMS AS WELL’
30 | November 2022
www.bikebiz.com
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