Ruffling feathers about the bike industry battery farm. Business of Cycling Podcast

Not my normal content but here’s the footage from recording a stream of consciousness mind fart about need for the cycling industry – brands, media and shops – to pattern up and have a good honest look at themselves.
If you’d rather just listen then click here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-business-of-cycling/id1678035217?i=1000644469477

So guy Ken thank you so much for coming on today it’s great to see you uh you came onto my radar with um with an article you wrote on bik perfect.com where you are the uh the tech editor and the title of the article was is uh the mountain bike industry is

Dying Long Live mountain bike and I just I found it as a it was a really refreshing take because so much of cycling especially in media is just a veneer of uh you know marketing that’s happening for these Brands because the brands do fund a lot of the things that we do honestly

Absolutely and so there does have to be a very politically friendly uh brand friendly take on many things which you know it’s just the way it is it’s not unique to cycling at all but uh it was very very sorry to cut in I don’t want people misconstruing

That you know we’re brand friendly when the brand produces good product yes I guess I’m I’m coming from an editorial testing background primarily not a marketing background so yeah okay no I’m coming I’m very careful of avoiding getting picked up at any point okay no no no fair totally fair I

Am from the marketing side and uh and so you know like we said there are um there are generally um like in any any industry there are generally conservative takes on things but you came out and you were very honest about um what you see in the market and and so

That was kind of why I wanted to talk about that today um but maybe just to get started um maybe we can learn a little more about you where you’re from um where you grew up and and kind of how you got into the the industry okay uh it’s very much

Careering rather than career path uh I’m from the north of England uh up near actually where the 2019 Road worlds was if you remember that memorably drowned Edition in 2019 where the Dutch guys are Vanishing into bottomless puddles and the entire start Village sank into a swamp uh that

That’s Harriet that’s that’s where I live it’s normally it normally looks a little less like Shrek’s uh sort of ogre Palace and a bit more like kind of never Neverland it’s normally quite a posh place but it’s right on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales not far from the

Yorkshire Ms it’s an absolutely perfect spot for cycling uh but I actually grew up in York uh I was an archaeologist by trade so I’m professionally qualified to describe broken things covered in mud which is what I’ve ended up doing for like the past 27 years uh basically

Broke myself in some like conditions for about three years my mate who worked in a bike shop shout out to Russ Burton who also became a leading bike photographer in time uh visited me on site and kind of dropped the bombshell that he just

Went so is that all you do you just sit in a line all day scratching at the ground like chickens and suddenly this kind of passion for discovering UK’s past got put on a back burner and going to work at the Bike Warehouse for the bike shop

He managed seemed like a good idea to uh further my career in physiotherapy but that bench in the background which just get used to kind of family purposes is as far as I’ve ever got with that because I was working just so I work to sorry I’m I’m yeah right back in there

Refocus distributor I’m training as a physio I’m wear I’m wear working in the warehouse but I’m a passionate mountain biker I’m racing all the weekends and I’m actually reading the magazines and my lunch breaks so I’m doing a marketing newsletter already and the MD goes right can you start talking to the magazines

Cuz we had a they had a falling out over an early pan raser Tire we’re still still talking smoke Dart era here but the smoke hardcore didn’t go down so well which is fair enough it was a lousy Tire Paul Smith was right to call that

Out and but this was for a distributor you said yeah yes this is what what’s now zyro Fisher in the UK okay time I joined it was the death throws of Ron kitching which was a very very traditional you know my first days on site were digging nail and shoe plates

And leatherbound cycling Diaries out of tea chests it was a proper old school operation uh and it was a very small startup it’s now one of the biggest distributors in the UK but at the time it was very much you know just three just a handful of us literally working

You know trying to keep the place open getting fish and chips after work and but anyway I I kind of got moved up to marketing and sales which you know some people are comfortable with it you’ve made a great career with it I’m actually to be fair I like the marketing side

Sales not so much I come from I think what’s class as an artistic background where we don’t really talk about money so much which you know is probably the reason where I am where I am now but uh basically I’m sitting there not really wanting to be doing sales and ads

And haggling for stuff and NBR magazine is just being started up in the UK uh some head hunting’s gone on from mbuk the only thing missing from the puzzle is a fitness writer so I’m I was in famously described by a coach once as not a thoroughbread but a fast donkey

But I you know I keep I keep my uh I keep my you know my hand in with training with tech that kind of side of thing so I’ve always been interested in it and so I was like oh I know I’ve got someone I know who might be able to

Write you a piece for the magazine and it was brand Richards there’s a video up on my site actually a couple of weeks ago where I met him again he now runs a clothing company uh but he’s famous as a disruptor as an editor and as a bike

Designer for on onean and ragley and things like that uh but basically he said he went okay Telly mate he’s got till Thursday to write 3,000 words and I was like okay and then he rang back like 10 seconds later went it’s you isn’t it you little I like yeah he’s like right

You’re doing it and uh the goal for the first issue was for someone to get a feature into a tabloid newspaper what they call a red top over here in the UK okay for the launch issue to get them some extra kind of notoriety I mean this

Is the days of loaded magazine I don’t know if you’re familiar with that no Europe but it was it’s kind of the Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels guy Richie area of UK media Oasis you know blur we we think we’re strutting about like a bunch of peacocks throwing our you know

Tiny Island weight around thinking we know it all and that was very much the theme in magazine publishing at that time so I wrote a piece about fenile numbness and thrush and called it battered cods and cods in batter and we ran a big uh full page spread of fish

And chips that was such an English reference I apologize there but yeah if if you’re UK that’s that’s hilarious and it was enough for the Daily Mirror to pick it up and that was kind of 27 years ago and several million words several thousand tested bikes and other you know

Kit into a very much I mean so we’re starting then with a few websites existed a very few I mean we’ve been looking at it while I was at zyro producing like a dealer facing website but primarily I’m sending words down on hard copy on on floppy discs every month

And doing the captions on a fact sure and this was so this was like full-blown you know print era um oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and so we’re able but we’re able to today we can even Bridge it um because a lot of the younger writers obviously you

Know don’t know um but you’ve seen the whole curve basically from print to almost completely digital and and you’ve you’ve been and you’ve been able to keep um relevant through all of that which I imagine has not been easy it’s the boiling of frog analogy isn’t it if it happens slowly

You don’t notice kind to hang on in there I mean yeah I never got the hang of HDML I have no idea how Twitter worked or even if that’s now called X um but anyway yeah and link to be honest LinkedIn going on LinkedIn with that

Piece was a big change for me that was like you know standing outside the head Master’s office and seeing into the staff room from the kind of oh my God this is where the grownups hang out and talk business me it wasn’t meant as rage bait

But it seemed to have an effect but yeah I mean literally you know when I started suspension was Rubber alasas and then gradually people put added oil damping and things like that so I’ve just gradually had it stretch out you know you know I’ve I’ve some of

The bikes I’ve said of the best things in the world would now just have people lying on the floor howling with laughter you know like linkage white bikes like trk y bikes things like that people like oh my God you used to ride that I was

Like mate that was a pinnacle and so you know I would not like to be dropping straight into all these crazy kinetic algebra and stuff like that in one go that would be a that’s the deep end you know I’ve been lucky and in the same way

With I guess with tech on the publishing side you know I started using a GoPro just as the smallest easiest microphone I could grab for recording notes while I was riding because these thoughts are going through my head while I’m riding sure and then then I just started speaking them

Out loud because I’m riding in the woods on my own and actually in a weird way if I’m talking about the bike it cuts out a load of negative selft talk about my riding skills so if I’m going oh what’s the head angle on this chameleon rather

Than going oh F like why did you break going into that turn you idiot it’s just like yeah if I wasn’t talking about the bike this oh man it would be it would be a bike crash not a car crash but yeah it wouldn’t be pretty so it kind of evolved

From there so so you’ve written um mostly like it sounded like you started in cycling and you’ve been continuously writing in cycling because now like I said earlier you’re you’re the tech editor so you’re doing bike testing for um for bike perfect but you’ve been consistently in cycling um writing in

Some form or another for the last 27 years yeah uh first P first I had a feature well my mom’s dog because I was still working at zyro and they were pretty Keen on keeping all things in house so my mom’s dog Toby Williams I think wrote a catalog launch for bike 95

Or 96 than that’s chips chip andelle actually got me my first published work he deserves a shout out uh but then NB literally I thought it would be pin money while I finished my uh physio course right which is what I was planning to do but went from writing one

Fit to ride feature in the first issue to two features in the second and by the third one Brandt the editor had got bored of bike testing so it’s was like right we’re we’re riding a load of budget bikes from uh Glasgow up to Fort William up

The west highland way I’m border writing them come along write it we’ll see how you do and yeah that was five bikes on that one and been fulltime ever since that you know I never got time to work on the building site or take on my

Physio so yeah I lucked it out from there and along the way there’s been you know I mean like to say bike perfect is kind of current estery my effluent is flowing into but I’ve worked for NBR uh MBK W mountain bike maximum mountain bike a whole Tri magazines Road

Magazines like cycling plus so you know if if you can pedal it I’ve I’ve probably written on it and a few Associated books as well I’ve done like guide books for Rafer I’ve done some stuff for Brooks because they needed an eccentric Englishman to talk about Ecentric Englishman for a chapter and

Speaking of eccentric mountain bikers I wrote the i ghost wrote The Well co-wrote the Gary Fisher autobiography oh wow that that that was a ride that was super interesting but he is here he is a fascinating guy to spend time with and he cooks a good egg I tell you we spent

A week in newor like getting the things down P that boy a that boy Cooks a good egg and if he knows the t shfo Team including Yolanda neev are way up the road he can still haul that was a ferocious paceline to get to the hotel so he could meet

Everybody before they turned in yeah guys are Savage still yeah I had him on the show a couple months ago and I was amazed at his command of uh PR he has sensibility for PR that is just unbelievable on his it’s born into him I mean that comes from like his mom

Selling real estate his M his mom was in a uh worked for a magazine or something yeah yeah she well she was a realtor but she used to like provide copy to all the local magazines yeah so she was like yeah give them the story become the

Person they go to for the story and that’s just free PR yeah that’s exactly what he did with mountain bikes the shop when he was you know he just became that source and yeah it’s it’s demonetized what the key to that is I mean anybody can become the like you know Hired Gun

The key to that especially now is monetizing it sure sure because you do have to I mean we we don’t do this stuff for for free I mean we can’t unless you know unless you’ve got some personal wealth but uh but getting getting back to the

Um the I guess we can say that you’re one of the um most prolific uh writers in in the magazine or in the cycling industry and essentially your article I mean it reads like you know with with some with some Authority in a sense that it was your commentary it was sort of

Your it feels like you were just like look guys you guys made a mess here and you know I’m gonna talk about it and is that kind of how this article came about yeah yeah it was you know it was I just literally I mean it was it was one

Of those classic ones where he didn’t didn’t even it was pretty stream of Consciousness you know Friday morning okay let’s drop an opinion here and it just oh okay that was all in there right let’s go but it’s great that’s in the same way that if you’re reviewing a bike

Some bikes just like they just kind of turn to leave her out you know it’s like a fire escape the whole thing the whole bike just comes out hits the floor boom done that’s it that’s the bike done and that was kind I guess that was as close

As you’ll get to my thoughts and frustrations and just a feeling that you know if this was a van it needs a good hard boot to get the diesel filter cleared out because it’s just choking right now it is one one line here that I’ll read is the

Basic issue now is that the industry is doing a great impression of the supermarket turkey aisle an hour before closing on Christmas Eve over ordered overstocked and desperate to sell a fraction of true cost just to grab a bit of Reckless investment back stories of mill millions of unwanted and sometimes unpaid for

Bikes being held in warehouses and docks in the Far East at the start of the year are old news now the rumors are of containers worth of complete bikes just being landfilled or tipped into the sea because even if they ever sell it’ll be far less for the price of keeping them

In storage any longer this um this is not hyperbole I mean it’s uh yeah I mean if you go through sorry if you go through the comments under that under that piece I know it might not be directly under that piece because a lot of people shared it but there were

Numerous instan of people going oh yeah I’m on a NDA but I know there’s like a big company that just bulldozed a load of PNA into a field you know it’s happening and then you know how many you know it’s not just containers being lost overboard you know

I’m pretty sure we might see you know shops and warehouses Catching Fire things like that I think you know because people are desperate people are and I guess I think at that that time I kind of had quite a black and white view of kind of who the villains were and who

It’s all started but you realize that there’s such a pressure and such a tide surging behind people that pushes them forward you like oh well people over ordered it’s just like if you didn’t over ordered you weren’t even in the game you had to over order to have a

Voice to have a place in that vendor queue well if you just went well I only need what I normally let’s kick the small guy to the back of the line and again with investors as well this is something Sandy plenty brought out uh from Trailhead talking on another podcast

He’s just like unless you went oh yeah we’re gonna grow three times nobody was gonna lose out to the guy who’s saying we’re gonna grow four times you know it’s just yeah no that that is I want to talk about this for a second guy I want

To zero in on this because no one is talking about this um it’s the best example that I heard I heard it from XU Yang who is a uh a Taiwanese uh entrepreneur uh her grandfather started Kenda uh she was the owner of kenstone and she sold it in

21 and she was in the middle of all of this with kenstone at the time and she said that pelaton rolls in and they’re taking all of the saddle capacity from the entire bicycling Market pelaton yeah and it’s exactly what you said in a nutshell it’s like if you

Didn’t come in to get attention from these producers you weren’t getting anything and so it was more of like a God how would you how would you say it it was just like a game of chicken it was like who’s going to be the craziest yeah yeah yeah yeah

Yeah yeah it’s it’s just people shouting up you know it’s birds and beaks in nests it’s whoever squarks loudest gets the worm and so and so it and if you look at pelaton you’re like oh my God look at the size of that order look at

The size of you know they’re the guys with a studio next to Tesla you know this is our future this is what I’m retiring on hello helicopter I’m supplying pelaton now but I think if anyone who’s been in the distributor who’s you know and has seen

Like the big shops or something come in and go hey we’ll have three containers like yes we got the big contract you know we’ve got three containers ordered and then next month they go we’ll have three containers again but we’re running a promo this month on your gear so

Actually one of those containers is free and you’re like what what and you’re like do you want to sell us three do you want to still sell us two containers or you just happy shipping out those little cardboard boxes of you know 20 rear lights at a time you know like they got

You that’s where it happens it was an arms race and and so it was sort of a the the the supply chain and the nature of the of the market sort of cre and it sounds like if if we got another run on demand it would happen again um because

There really is no way around it um honestly like yeah yeah well I guess until it’s just the people who can’t put the chips on the table and no longer at the table right but that you have and you have Vegas and then you have like you know

Your hobby Gamers at home that’s why it’s saying you know it’s heading towards Automotive you know it’s funny already there consolidation yeah yeah we’re already there with tires you know yeah in a lot of instances bike tires are just a tiny amount of the you know look at Conti bike tires have been

Running for ages but only recently Conti have gone whoa we sell bike tires really you know and suddenly we’re part we’re now part of that big consideration for those big guys and that means big money big corporate strategy and a real change I guess and you know I guess

That’s what I was trying to call out in the piece and it’s not just industry it’s media as well because all editors are sat there just looking now going oh that you know that piece is doing well let’s do more of that sure even to the point where headlines are getting

Switched you go oh okay that headline worked really well on that piece so I’ll switch it to this piece you know or something similar to this piece oh look the numbers going up on that it’s so that’s not but that’s not new though Gary there’s nothing new about

That no but it’s it’s more obvious now it’s instant you see turning around it’s more yeah it’s more obvious it’s more um immediate but you know writing things you know for for clicks or for for headlines there’s nothing new about it uh the consolidation yeah I see what

You’re saying I mean it’s more so I guess in your in your opinion with consolidation like what brands have we’ll talk about brands that have the um the right to exist and which ones don’t is it more of like you’re going to have your your rocket ships that consolidate

And then you’re going to have your Niche Brands I mean I believe that that’ll still be that way or I mean what are you seeing or what do you think is going to happen uh what I would want to see and what I think we’ll see a wildly different things

Unfortunately uh I think I mean already you’re seeing it’s the smallest Brands without the fat on their bones who’ve always survived by being the mammals kind of running between the dinosaurs feet being the evolvers being the agile Brands true they’re the ones who are finding it really hard right

Now they’re the ones who I’m talking to a struggling then there’s this whole middle kind of adipose tissue fatty belt of just I don’t know whether they’re not really aware of what they’re doing or they’re just happy what they’re doing they’re kind of medium risk catalog AED

Design product for the most part maybe trading on a n on a name that you still have on this you know still have a sticker over on your toolbox from the 1990s you know they’ve done some great things in the past and they can pop those on their web pages and and and

Some of and I’m not saying there aren’t guys in those companies who are doing a really good really Innovative job with it’s media with it’s design there’s some real gems within that but it’s like you know they’re the they’re the N they’re the small nutritional nuggets within this big kind of

Monus slab of basically inert company who will kind of do okay product but mainly concentrate on selling it uh cheaper than the others you know and they’re gradually just kind of pushing it down and they’ll be the ones who are either dumping stuff now because they were quite late to realizing what

Trouble they were in or you they’re not really contributing that’s what I’m saying you know they they’re not doing a great deal of advocacy they’re not doing great deal of interesting marketing they’re not really promoting events as such there’ll be a few banners floating about but they’re they’re just kind of

Me they’re just kind of wandering along in the middle and and it’s the same it’s again it’s the same with media as well there’s just people kind of regurgitating stuff relying on SEO uh friendly headlines and listicles and you know close pass videos or you know that kind of lowest common denominator

Instant fix sugary content rather than like really investing in Deep dive journalism or really going the extra mile with content you know you’re seeing like lights reviews now this is a particular peeve of mine because I’ve spent many many years every winter every sorry summer getting every light you

Could possibly get sitting in a workshop all night with fans blowing on on those damn things and a stopwatch waiting for them all to just die and then recharging them because you can’t go off the first cycle and like running that three or four times I’ve got some fantastic shots

Uh of me doing that in the past were like like 50 lights on a workbench trying to get the workshop as cold as possible with as many fans and that stuff is a pain it is a major pain in the house especially when you know you

Are getting I mean to do to be a professional product tester now you are working as it’s an industrial process you know I’m kind of Infamous for riding with like one glove of one type on one hand one on another different shoes having more shoes in my backpack so I

Can swap around stuff like that just because You’ got to do all that compare and contrast stuff to make the turnover product fast enough that you can make a living from it right right and so I think what you’re saying if I can if I can try and distill it down

Is that you’ve you you’re seeing um a kind of a race to the bottom in terms of um the way that things are produced whether it be bikes whether it be products whether it be um you know kind of an optimization mindset uh out of necessity also uh but as well as

Journalism where you’re saying No this is a trade this is not just something that you go through the motions doing um to kind of margin off the back of it and and I can see you know how these companies it sort of goes kind of you know do you

Just kind of put the put the things in place and just try and get that little margin off the top of it or do you actually take a a real um genuine uh dive into the market and and dive in and be a real Tradesman and um I think in

Cycling generally um people are in it for that reason um you know because there’s we’re not in it for the money guy no we’re not in it for money evidently clear this year but I think maybe this has to do with the whipsaw of you know the money grab around covid

Probably exasperated it um media being um under pressure like as we all know um that they do have to optimize so I think these are probably natural occurrences that are happening and and I totally um agree with you that it’s really not fun to see and it’s you know it’s not good

For the industry as a whole sorry jump in I think rather than people like I don’t think there’s anyone making a conscious race for the bottom no I think there maybe were a few people who were just like right let’s Crush everyone on pricing and we know what

Happened to those guys at the end of last year true which is weird nobody ever really talks about like oh what happened with wigg and I love that well they were selling at a loss yeah and they were destroying and they were d and they were destroying uh brick and mortar

Like left and right like without like Without Pity like with no pity whatso no mercy they were just and no one really sat down and was like you know what those guys they they did fly too close to the Sun like no one’s really they I don’t think they got their comeuppance

Like in the media hardly at all no it’s weird it’s like Banks going down and going oh well a bank collapsed we better bail them out I mean in the UK govern just goes oh dear some of my banking FRS made a bit of a whoops we better bail

Them out with all that taxpayers money it’s like no these guys were trying to drive the market into the ground because they knew they they they could take the blow I think the analogy for most people is that the ship is overturning or Sinking and they’re desperately kind of

Clawing at the Sid trying to be trying to hit the water last but there are a few people consciously just going right I don’t want to get it taken down with this I’m jumping and I’m going to you know uh like white is a prime example I don’t

You might not know uh they’ve kind of re rebranded and they’ve massively cut back their product range okay so you know they had a fully comprehensive mountain bike range and they’ve just gone right what’s selling we’ve got a great ebike we can make a new lightweight eat bike

That’s the hot category we’ll put everything in those and we’ll just leave everything else you know we’ll leave all our possessions behind we’re not taking the picture of Grandma or the Potted Plant we’re just going with these and we’re going full effect they’re using that to get

Clearance to jump clear and to kind of Leap Frog the issues now and they’ve got new pricing and stuff like that Focus did it a couple years ago which is interesting for people looking at the paon Hub situation now where the news is Joe grainy you know is now no longer in

His chair at Santa Cruz as of yesterday but at Focus they went through a massive uh strategy uh range C essentially sure they’re just like why do we need a bik with every Shimano group set and every Shram group set which which Shimano group set sells the best which Shram

Group set sells the best it’s like well there you go well have that SLX one we’ll have this EXO one for example and we have two bikes there you go there’s one for the shiman customer one for the Sham customer so there was a now because right now the customer the big almost

One of the biggest issues this is wild this is a tangent for another time but the biggest issue I think now is the customer has too much choice right you look at what happened with orange people like oh don’t know what happened with orange I go on there as a bike tester

Someone who’s watched their range expand since you know since they were touching them a sale a sale B for wind surfs in a warehouse just up the road from me they had I think 36 different models bike great across ebikes you know everything from uh balance bikes right

Through to you know handmade monoco e bikes and downhill bikes you’re not just going I don’t know which bike I’m even looking at let alone where to start unraveling this and it’s the same and I think it’s the same with dealers it’s the same with media it’s the same with

Advertising there’s just so much it’s a it’s just to overwhelming we need that rendering down fat off it so we can see the muscle and we can see the bone and that that is probably u a symptom of the lack of real uh hard decision in a sense that like

Who are we what are we where it’s just easier to say okay let’s expand into these other categories I mean expanding into a new category especially for marketing is you know it’s a safe bet and it’s easy it’s like oh look what we’re doing now you know that’s instead

Of actually digging in and and actually really kind of finding um with a smaller range finding what you guys do better than someone else where it’s just easier to jump into another one so that’s that’s probably hey grael yeah well let’s leave gravel alone I mean we

Can talk about fat bikes if you want to uh I’ll leave that to James Wang he’s he’s still the fat guy he’s the fat he’s the fat bite guy I love the fact that every every winter James is like Yay big tires again I’m like damn Colorado you

Have it nice but just to I mean flicking back right to the start when you said that kind of we almost have a more friendly and accepting relationship I think from a marketing and media point of view with the industry I think maybe that’s the issue you know maybe that’s it it’s a

Very tolerant issue because everybody knows everybody’s not in it for the money so everybody kind of isn’t cruel yeah there’s that or they just you know or in media you know there’s just so much pressure that um no one wants to take a risk yeah yeah really yeah but we but we all

Know I mean we could both sit here if we weren’t on mic or we were off record and go yeah these are the people who I know in my part of the industry who are just nice people but they’re not doing a great job If we’re honest I mean that’s a horribly arrogant

Thing for me and if I have no work from here on in then yeah fine that’s that’s proved that I’m one of them you know we all need to I think now is the time we all need to kind of stand up and be counted if we’re not adding something

Interesting to the pot just like boom yeah and that’s I guess I guess that’s the that’s the punch in the glove of the feature I guess it is it absolutely is and that’s and what you’re saying is is like you know now that there’s a culling of the

Herd happening uh it’s time to sort of have a come to Jesus moment and everybody really needs to kind of step back and say you know what are we what are we really doing here um because yeah it did sort of get out of control uh

Around covid um but yeah I don’t know I mean what are the next steps you think this is just going to be the natural uh progression of things that people have to do this because I mean in terms of media like where’s the bottom at for

Media um I’m not see and where is like where’s the bottom at for the market I don’t think we’ve seen it yet honestly no no well nobody has to do anything that’s the thing but I’ve spent most of I don’t know if I’m I bet a lot of

People have been doing the same you know I could have just gone into January and just gone oh my God I have a huge backload of products I’ll just Hammer through those as fast as I can get them out there you know okay so my rates have gone down again because nobody actually

Reads product reviews on websites anymore they’re kind of just there to make it look like we’re an authentic website you know people most people are there for the Black Friday deals for the listicles for you know the news that’s that’s the harsh truth if you can see

That in numbers that’s on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere you know and and you know my latest rates are literally half what they were in 2000 true and so I you know and for me that meant I had to sit down and go well I think I’ve still got

Value my conceit my arrogant conceit as the old man shouting at the sky going I’ve been testing mountain bikes for 27 years thinks I still have value the number of conversations I’m having the reaction on LinkedIn talking to guys talking to the people I know in the

Media I think I still have value or are they just being oh bless him I’ll bless him cares he’s still going you know am I the guy at the end of the marathon who have kept the last 100 of me of tape up on the one port L because you go well

He’s still going bless him you know I I think everybody needs to sit down and go you might think you have value but do you actually have value my job now is to go out and go okay I need to change the format on my YouTube because I’ve been

I’m I’m as guilty as anyone else I’ve been doing the same old thing for years on there my ride you know riding down hill talking about the bikes but we can’t do that anymore you know we’ve got to make ourselves stand out and in the same way with the websites I need to

Make sure that if people read a review that I’ve written they know it’s me they know it’s me and they know that because it’s authoritative because it’s experience because I have a lot of passion and knowledge of the product built over many many years because my

Biggest enemy is AI now true but on the other hand I think AI might be the Travis Bickle Taxi Driver scenario we all need you know it might be the rain that washes the streets glean because if you if your work if you can’t tell your

Work from AI then yeah what are you doing here yeah what are you doing here that’s your fault exactly yeah and also if I just sit here go it’s not fair I should be paid better than this it’s just like well no you have a value the

Market decides if it’s not worth paying you more than that it’s not worth paying you more than that we can all sit here and go I demand this as my day rate but at the end of the day you know videographers are up against the kid in

The warehouse with a drone or the last room marketing with an iPhone who’s actually got a really good eye sure and you know it’s it’s changed and we need to keep agile we need to keep tight we need to keep interesting no there are no Laurels to

Rest on anymore no and I think that’s a good thing I mean i’ I guess is you know we’re both Freelancers so we’re painfully aware of this we know how many plates we’ve probably got spinning if you know if you panned out it wouldn’t just be nice

House plants and calm Serenity that’ be a I’m I’m I’m imagining there’s a whole ton of stuff going on behind you that you’ll be getting into the rest of today to really move things along of course you have to yeah exactly you have to and I think there needs to be a realization

That every level whether you’re a retailer whether you’re a distributor whether you’re a bite brand everybody needs to just go stand in the mirror for a bit and not say I am a wonderful worthwhile person I will contribute something great to the day love yourself I think you just need to have a

Good hard look and go oh oh I’m I’m carrying a bit of spare here you know maybe I’m not in as great shape as I want you just run up those stairs and see what it feels like and hopefully hopefully the people who I want to I

Don’t care I don’t care who it is I know everybody in the industry and the real danger is is you gravitate towards the small Brands the ones who are really invested and obviously invested you know way you’ve got the CEO on screen going hey you know we’re really passionate

About this I don’t think he’s any less passionate by the than the guy at Shram who sits there and works that Tee profile that makes power train and tea type work perfectly I know those guys too and those guys are no less invested in how much you know in their job in their

Passion but everybody needs to I mean we are so lucky to work in a passion industry yeah we are dear Lord we that is and we we shouldn’t abuse it by just kind of you know the recorded clap in the audience we should get up there and

Actually not if you’re not brighte eyed if you’re not really find something else yeah find something else yeah so yeah know this is this kind of puts a bow on all this um the the the the no the notion that um you know things have gotten people have gotten a bit laxed uh

Because of potentially um I don’t know if it was the interest rates I don’t know if it was the The Venture Capital money that came in the private Equity money that came in I don’t know if it was people veiling it as optimization um or uh like we talked about

Um you know line extensions instead of innovation um but yeah no I I appreciate the um the cander guy and uh and um I think we should we should put a a part two to this another day because I think this is uh this is just kind of a moment

In time um I think today is J January 26th um I’ve heard some small positive kind of blips coming out of the US um but uh two 2023 was bad was really bad and um I hope that the next time we talk whether it be in three months or

Six months that we’ll have a little bit better news but um but I like I said I’m glad we got to get on I’m glad we got to talk about this and uh definitely to be continued in the meantime um do you want to um let people know where they can find

You uh yeah okay well look thanks thanks M for the opportunity I agree uh a lot of the conversations I’ve had this month have been really positive there’s green shoots uh right across the industry whether that’s if that is small vendors or whether that’s the major players and

There’s kind of I feel like there’s there’s bulbs growing as well there’s some thundering going on I’m going to more press launches again there’s more bikes popping up from my side which I think you know if you can’t if you spread that out across the industry I

Think you’d be seeing that as there’s Now growth there’s a movement forwards you know so as much as stuff might be being buried in fields there’s also shoots coming up that’s my real hope and yeah thanks thanks the opportunity to talk as I warned you at the start you

Know I’ve got an ebo motor for a mouth but like the side Poole breaks to stop that mouth from carrying on so thanks to everybody listening for their patience uh yeah you can find me at Guy TV on Instagram YouTube guyes TV and then if

You want to see me uh in words at your leisure I write for bik perfect.com website it’s Global website and NBR in the UK and you’ll find my you’ll find stuff everywhere if you really want to go down that but yeah that that’s my primary sources

Gu if it’s got gu TV on it that’s me and uh what do you say in LinkedIn available to hire all Freelancers right but yeah I mean just available let’s talk I think that’s the thing we all need to do now let’s let’s get if you’ve got a passion

For doing interesting stuff like you said it’s not just a stelvio hairpin we need something different to that thanks G okay thanks very what