News

Over the next few days BikeBiz will be reviewing bicycle portal sites. These are rich in community and content and often pay their way with commerce. www.bikemagic is the one best known to BikeBiz readers but the grand-daddy of them all is www.mtbreview.com, a four year old US site

Shaun Palmer and Steve Peat headline Swatch Biker X which, say the organisers, will be the biggest outdoor cycling weekend of the year.

Tradewinds thinks about scaling down its investment in capturing new IBD business

Yesterday the three-hour digital TV programme Simply Money went to town on bikes, thanks to the press release put out by Merlin of the charity Re-Cycle (which was carried on this site in March)

At last, here's a sensible and exclusive use of the auction site.

Raleigh has selected ACT Training Ltd to train Cyclelife staff.

WARNING: there's something about the soon-to-be-on-your-doormat BicycleBusiness that you need to know about...

Mark Todd, the former MD of Raleigh, has written a strange piece for www.bikemagic.com. Strange in that it's very, very trade oriented and probably not terribly relevant to consumers. It contains some useful background info on why Raleigh jettisoned its UK bike building prowess. But, Todd also warns of the dangers of an over-reliance on the Far East...

Bicycle web portals should check out madaboutbikes.com, launched yesterday. It's a brilliant mix of content, commerce and community. Despite the title it's aimed not at cyclists but at the new breed of motorbike and scooter owners.

As of this week X-lite will be handling all IBD accounts themselves. Raleigh P&A still have stock of the shiny bits and Muc Off but once this is depleted IBDs will need to deal directly with X-lite which is beefing up the B2B side of its website and seeking to appoint independent sales agents