Tri bike distribution
It might come as a surprise, but it shouldn't: the preferences of those who're polled about intended sales of tri bikes closely tracks distribution and availability.
In a poll taken of Slowtwitch readers in March of 2009, 1115 readers responded when asked, "Which brand of bike do you intend to buy next?" By just over 2-to-1, readers chose Cervelo over the next most popular brands, Felt and Scott. Two hundred eighty one readers—a fourth of those polled—selected Cervelo.
But how does this track with the brand's distribution, specifically in North America, where 85 percent of Slowtwitch readers reside? A useful resource is the retailer database on Slowtwitch (a list of Slowtwitch databases sits above and to the right of where you're now reading). Bike store owners create and maintain their own profile on this database, and they check boxes next to bike brands, in such case they "…have six or more [SKUs] sitting on the floor during the season."
Of the 319 bike specialty retailers maintaining a profile on Slowtwitch (as of this writing), 133 identify themselves as Cervelo retailers. The second most frequently represented bike brand on dealers' showroom floors is Felt. Eighty-five of these 319 retailers were self-identified as Felt dealers and, predictably, this is the second most frequently desired, and sold, tri bike. Specialized came next with 75 retailers, followed by Kuota with 67. (Note: these brands have many, many more retailers than this; in the case of Specialized, we're saying that 75 out of the 319 tri-specialty bike retailers on the Slowtwitch database carry this brand.)
As noted, Felt's dealer numbers almost precisely track with the preferences evinced by Slowtwitch readers, 12 percent of whom said they intended to purchase Felt as their next bike. The same number of Slowtwitchers—12 percent—indicated they'll chose Scott when next they buy. Following Scott and Felt came Specialized and Kuota at 7 percent each, then Trek and Quintana Roo with 6 percent each. Five percent of respondents chose Cannondale and 2 percent chose Giant.
The trend is clear: when you see a lot of tri specific specialty retailers selling a brand, a greater number of readers want to buy that brand. When you see weak distribution, it is accompanied by a low number of those who say they intend to buy that brand of bike.
The notable exception to this trend is Scott, which would seem either underrepresented among the stores on the Slowtwitch database, or "over-desired" by Slowtwitch readers (we expect the problem is under-representation). The Scott case excepted, the number of dealers carrying these nine brands precisely matched, in order, the preferences of readers.
The surprise in the poll—it might seem a surprise until you ponder further—is the under-representation of Trek and Specialized relative to the size of these companies. It might seem intuitive that a retailer—even if it is predominantly a seller of Cervelo or Felt tri bikes—would carry Trek for its road, MTB, and other markets. Many tri-specific retailers would, in fact, like Specialized and Trek, both for their tri bikes and their road bikes, but are "frozen out" of carrying these and other bike lines by stores that are big customers for these flagship bike companies' mainstream bikes.
And this helps us drill down on causality: Is there a collective wisdom among bike shops, whereby the brands are represented in numbers approximating the interest in them? Or are brands sold in the numbers they are because customers, in the end, buy what their dealers stock? In all likelihood, it's neither.
Most likely, it's because the stores who self-identify as tri-specific shops tend not to be Trek, Specialized, Scott or Cannondale dealers because the full service "family" retailers who carry these brands in breadth freeze out the tri specialty retailers. The tri stores don't carry, for example, Trek's Equinox TTX nor Specialized's Transitions because they can't get the line. The local Trek and Specialized dealer very often doesn't stock these tri bikes either, because triathlon isn't part of its mission—it (rightly) leaves this business to the local tri-specific shop. Note, however, that this leaves no space on showroom floors for Equinoxes and Transitions.
Might the market one day see these big full service brands selling their tri bikes specifically and only through a set of tri-speciality retailers?
Let us consider the case of Penn Cycles, Trek's first ever customer. Trek's most esteemed award for retailers is named after this store's founder. It's a mega Trek store, yet, how many Equinox TTX bikes will this store sell? I can tell you how many they have in stock in their 7 stores: zero (I called today and checked). This is a great store, by any measure. But it's not a great store for triathlon, at least, not as of now (and Trek must be the first to admit this, if sales of its tri/tt bikes are a barometer). Would it not make sense to allow Gear West in the Twin Cities to sell Trek's timed race bikes (assuming Gear West would agree to the arrangement)?
Let's consider an analogous case in Northern California—another hotbed of tri bike sales—but let's pick on Specialized, Scott and Cannondale this time. Mike's Bikes in Northern California (six locations in the Bay Area and Sacto) is a huge seller of these brands. But, you won't find Transitions, Plasmas and Slices on the floor. How many of these tri/tt models would tri specialty powerhouse Front of the Pack (Palo Alto) sell?
Front of the Pack is a notable case in point. This dealer cannot sell Felt, Giant, Specialized, Cannondale, Look, or Scott, even though it would desire only those brands' tri/tt bikes, and even though few if any of the retailers "closing out" Front of the Pack floor in any fair quantity any of the tri bikes those brands make. So, what does Front of the Pack sell to triathletes? Cervelo, and a lot of it. When it's not a Cervelo, it's likely to sell a Kuota.
In each case a Slice, Transition, 596, Trinity Alliance, Plasma did not get sold to a Bay Area triathlete, because Front of the Pack can't floor them and Mike's Bikes won't floor them. Not that Mike's Bikes should floor them—it's not a tri shop. But you can see how these fine timed race bikes don't have much of a fighting chance in that metro area, and many towns like it.
Until the manufacturers require their large retailers to learn about and carry the timed race models they sell; and while these manufacturers allow their large family-based customers to call the territorial shots; expect the tri-specific shops like Front of the Pack to grow in tri bike sales, and the brands with distribution in these tri-specific shops to grow with them.
I suspect this is why, out of 319 self-identified tri specialty stores on our database, a surprisingly few sell Trek, Scott, Giant, Cannondale and Specialized. It's not that they don't want to sell these brands, it's that they can't sell these brands. But the stores that do sell these brands don't stock these brands' tri bikes. Neither Mike's Bikes nor Penn Cycles are on our retailer database, and that's appropriate—they're not tri specific in any way, even though they are great full-service shops.
Felt is the one top to bottom, left to right, full service bike brand that maintains a solid list of tri specialty store—this, because its success in triathlon predated its success in many of its other markets. But its growth as a full service brand will increasingly eat into its ability to maintain its list of boutique tri retailers.
Trek, Cannondale, Specialized, Scott, Giant, all must urge their large retailer customers to step up and learn triathlon, and to stock tri bikes. Or, they must announce that tri will be sold under a separate program, to a different dealer base. Otherwise, these large bike companies—all of whom make damned fine timed race machines—will probably continue to see their tri bike distribution hobbled through the paradigm described above.
