Five minutes with: BBB Cycling

BBB Cycling has been serving bike shops and cyclists for quarter of a century. Managing director, Rick de Jong updates BikeBiz with the latest goings on at the Dutch brand

This piece first appeared in the December edition of BikeBiz magazine – get your free subscription here

Can you give us a little background on the brand?

BBB Cycling is a Dutch brand selling cycling clothing, accessories and parts. The company was founded in 1998 by two former professional cyclists, Chris Koppert and Frank Moons.

Being cyclists themselves, they knew exactly the wants and needs of demanding cyclists. Over the years, we have broadened our expertise and developed a deep understanding of the cycling industry.

We commit ourselves to high quality products that just work, designing all products in-house so we can test them extensively.

We are known for having a diverse offering that includes cycling essentials, such as helmets, apparel, lights, pumps, tools, saddles, and handlebars.

This collection caters to the needs of road and gravel cyclists, mountain bikers and urban commuters, ensuring that every rider finds the perfect gear to enhance their ride.

Our global reach shows the trust and confidence that is placed in our brand. With distribution in over 40 countries, we have established a strong presence in the international cycling market.

We are proud of this achievement and it serves as proof of the quality and reliability of our products.

What area of the market do you target?

When we started, we realised that there was a strong desire from dealers to be able to buy a wide spectrum of products that represent great value for money.

It’s an attractive proposition to be able to buy from one party that has everything, rather than buying from 30 different brands, all selling one type of product.

We now have over 1,500 products in around 20 different categories, serving everyone from beginners looking for a great, fair priced product to advanced cyclists looking for performance items.

Many cyclists in different disciplines own a BBB Cycling product, sometimes in plain sight, sometimes in the background, but they are definitely an indispensable part of every ride.

By targeting this broad market, we strive to make a positive impact on the cycling community as a whole. We want to inspire riders of all levels to push their boundaries, pursue their passions, and experience the joy of cycling with confidence.

What makes your products unique?

When we design a product, we keep the following brand characteristics in mind: smart, functional, fair price and sustainable.

When we say smart, we mean that our products are well thought through and innovative but not over-engineered. A smart solution that our competitors may not have thought of, such as our Signal rear light.

An innovative product where the entire light acts as a button when pushed against the seat post for ease of use.

Functionality is of course essential when designing a product, but our products should never be boring. Since our product designers are all cyclists, they are always testing the function of our products extensively.

Our products have to be problem solvers, just work and last too.

The third pillar is fair price, products need to be affordable but never cheap. By a fair price we mean that the best materials are used, they are sustainable and a fair wage is always paid resulting in a fair price for our products.

Last but not least, sustainability has become a key part of our culture. When we design a product, one of the first questions we ask is, can we make it sustainable?

This could be done by reducing the size of the packaging, using recycled or bio-based materials and offering replacement parts. This isn’t just limited to our product team, but extends to our suppliers, with us pushing them to look for innovative ways to produce products more sustainably.

What sort of feedback have you received from the industry?

The cycling industry has recently seen some turbulent years and now times are again challenging.

We have always seen our clients as our partners and endeavour to work together and help each other where possible.

In my opinion this vision – and living up to it – is what sets us apart from competitors and we are happy to receive that feedback from the industry as well.

Over the past year our products have won a Red Dot Award and several IF Design awards, a clear sign that the wider industry recognises our investment and expertise in design.

All of which is a direct result of our our product design team and product lab in our office in the Hague

Finally, with sales shifting online and the number of competitors rising, the need to become a recognized brand has grown.

While a good quality product will always be our strongest asset, developing and sharing our brand story has helped us take a step forward.

Sharing our story has further strengthened our position in the industry and the challenge now is to reach more cyclists around the world as well, who might even be using our products already.

What are your plans for the future?

In the UK we will focus on strengthening our relationships with our retail partners through our UK distributor Windwave.

Listening to our partners and trying to service them best is a key element in our strategy and we hope this will have a continued positive influence on our market position.

Sustainability will continue to be at the core of our business and strongly integrated in product development. We track our carbon footprint closely and have been operating CO2 neutral since 2018.

We will continue to expand the scope of our efforts including developments in aspects like sustainable materials, circular design principles, repair and packaging – amongst others.

For all categories, we have identified the aspects that will have the biggest positive impact and are setting long term ambitions to speed up the transition. We work closely with our suppliers, who are setting huge steps on this theme as well.

In the past 25 years, our ambition to be part of customers’ ride with smart, functional and fair priced products has led us to where we are now.

These values still stand and with a great crew at the office and close relationship with our distributors, dealers and suppliers, we are ready to face the future.