Niche within a niche

[Asposium]

After having finished in the garden I was watching YouTube (?).

Discovered a new video from Bikepacking.com; always good for a watch.

Video mentioned that Specialized had dropped its ambassador program.

Off to the bikepacking.com website I went hunting for the article.

https://bikepacking.com/news/specialize ... r-program/

Reading the article got me thinking; we are a niche within a niche. (£)
Surely it was only a matter of time before we were left alone to quietly get on with things?

Discuss.

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(?) In reality I should be getting my arse in gear and go on the turbo trainer. Procrastinating seems more productive.
(£) “Normal” (@) people can only tolerate so many days without a shower or access to a toilet
(@) No one on this website qualifies as “normal” (&)
(&) Sorry about that

[woodsmith]

Specialized does appear to have acted in a bit of a crap fashion by ripping up the contracts at a time of year where next year's contracts with other brands have already been finalised. But it did seem like an odd situation where Specialised had was sponsoring these riders an not having what I would call a bikepacking bike in the line-up.

And on the other hand i just think " tough sh#t" now you have to pay for your own jollies like the rest of us.

Personally I find rider sponsorship of this kind counter productive in that I'm far less likely to buy that product because I view it as the rider being paid to use that shoe / tyre / water filter brand X because they're being paid to do so and not because its the best / most suitable available.

The bike is only one small component of bikepacking when when seen as a whole, (clothing, bags, camping gear, etc) so its understandable that they'd rather focus their advertising budget on the road / gravel race scene where its a larger component of the total entry cost.

Also I feel that bikepacking still has a DIY, grassroots, cottage industry, niche brand aspect to it that some big brands maybe are slightly at odds with. Has anyone ever bought and ridden a bike , bags and clothing from the same global brand? That would look wierd, right?

[jameso]

I think large bike brands generally struggle to market much outside of objective results ie technical detail and racing performance.
Generating consistent interest from bikepacking travel writing and photography is really hard, I think. I can think of a few who manage it but not many. Tbh I wasn't particularly aware of the Spesh ambassadors but I'm probably not a good guage of their impact.

Indirect marketing in this area should be relatively straightforward if you understand what the riding / scene is about. But for 95% of riders who bikepack it's something they do on bikes they already bought for other uses. A brand of spesh's size gets the sales from the primary use. QBP will market bikepacking as the main use and focus on it but they've always been into the niches, they're committed to that route.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Is it wrong that I don't care? I don't mean that to sound flippant but I genuinely don't. As already mentioned, I too am swayed little by 'ambassadors' and generally consider them part way between prostitute and mercenary.

I did think the other day how those of us who choose (to generally) ride a 'mountainbike' to bikepack are perhaps becoming a niche within a niche within a niche ... if you believe what 'they' show you that is

[fatbikephil]

I also don't care.....
Some of the folk interviewed in that article seemed to be saying that they'd had a good time of it for a few years and accepted they had to find some other way of funding their hobby. The only major grumble was that Spesh gave very little notice.

Haven't we done this before??

[riderdown]

Is it wrong that I don't care? I don't mean that to sound flippant but I genuinely don't. As already mentioned, I too am swayed little by 'ambassadors' and generally consider them part way between prostitute and mercenary.

Someone in "ambassador world" had a twitter bio that described themselves as a "audax celebrity"

[woodsmith]

Someone in "ambassador world" had a twitter bio that described themselves as a "audax celebrity"

That is so tragic its not even laughable.

[thenorthwind]

Someone in "ambassador world" had a twitter bio that described themselves as a "audax celebrity"

I really hope that's meant ironically. But still...

[voodoo_simon]

Would manufacturers be better at sponsoring events rather than individuals?

ie Crikey, how much 500 is so well known but doesn’t seem to cost them much as it’s now so popular (and no medals are given out) or the restrap solstice 100 etc Seems popular over the pond for Salsa (and others) to sponsor events and Montane (ok, not bike branded) to sponsor quite a few ultra events

[riderdown]

Would manufacturers be better at sponsoring events rather than individuals?

Probably, but marketing departments are run by people who like talking to people like them

Event organizers often don't have the "Instagram look"

[jameso]

Would manufacturers be better at sponsoring events rather than individuals?

I'd say so, though it might depend on how they support or sponsor it. Just adding your name to a list on an event homepage doesn't do much for a brand imo but it does if I know they're putting something in beyond a few grand to advertise. Eg komoot and Cafe du Cycliste donate a generous amount to Smart Shelter Foundation to be supporter sponsors of the Torino-Nice Rally - genuine goodwill as well as the branding. So it varies with the event types as well as the sponsorship arrangement. If sponsorship helps the social/riding scene then it seems like a good thing for a brand to put marketing £ into.

Event organizers often don't have the "Instagram look"

I can think of many who really do and a lot of events are built from the organiser's influence, but it's the event route or the participants that gets featured anyway.

[woodsmith]

Certainly branding attached to an event raises the profile of that brand far more than sponsorship of an individual. Indeed some events become synonymous with, even inseparable from certain brands. The RAC rally will forever be conected in my mind with Lombard but it was years and years of watching rallying before I even knew they were an insurance company. Similarly the world snooker championship will forever be prefixed by Embassy for me, yet I've been a lifelong non-smoker. I know who Red Bull and Komoot are, but they could bring peace in the Middle East and I still wouldn't use either of their crappy products.

[JohnClimber]

In more news from Spesh....

"lays off 8% of its staff, cites economy and industry changes"

Link below
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/spec ... socialflow

[yourguitarhero]

Yet.. https://off.road.cc/content/news/lauf-i ... dors-11673

[jameso]

^ when you have a fair bit of stock and/or sales are slow (I don't know about Lauf exactly but that's how it is for most brands at the moment) you're probably better off giving a few bikes away for marketing gain than hanging on to them waiting for sales at a discount.

[Lazarus]

Did they all get excited at the lockdown boom and think it would last for ever ?
I guess the inflation /energy prices robbed a lot of people of their disposal income as well so a bit of a perfect storm.

[JackT]

I know who Red Bull and Komoot are, but they could bring peace in the Middle East and I still wouldn't use either of their crappy products.

Too good. And so true.

[jameso]

Did they all get excited at the lockdown boom and think it would last for ever ?
I guess the inflation /energy prices robbed a lot of people of their disposal income as well so a bit of a perfect storm.

That's it. Covid demand 2-3x normal, large orders got placed and inflated some more to book stock/production runs into the future, leadtimes went to 4x normal at least, bikes started coming through as restrictions eased and people went back to whatever they did before. Then sales of everything drop due to reduced disposable income.
If a bike company isn't sat on an unusually high amount of stock at the moment they're doing well. e.g. Whyte bikes were in Evans at 50% off some time ago - suprising that they were in Evans to begin with and 50% off is a big discount. Whyte are a canny company though and prob wanted to get stock moving early.