cycle tramp wrote: 21 Apr 2026, 6:14pm
going back to your examples, the CEO of a development company doesn't need to know how to build a wall, but by virtue of living in a house knows what works and what won't on an instinctive level...
This is falling into the trap of not knowing what you don't know. The "unknown unknowns" if you will.
Yes, a person lives in a house - that doesn't mean they know about all house designs.... That's why you call in architects and builders.
cycle tramp wrote: 21 Apr 2026, 6:14pm
If you are a board member or a director and you haven't cycled in years.. how do you know your product is any good on an instinctive level?....
Because you employ the right people to design, build and test the product, you have sales people and sales figures that tell you how well the product is doing on a commercial level and you have customer (and probably industry / media) feedback about the product.
And talking of "all bikes", a brand like Trek, Specialized etc can have 50+ bikes ranging from kids bikes to MTBs to e-bikes to road bikes to leisure bikes. Are you suggesting that the CEO should have experience riding all of those?! Because that's one hell of a large market you're catering to
Shouldn't they? If you were a chairman of an umbrella company wouldn't you at least be interested in a selection of products you were making...
I'm not suggesting that they ride every model, but I am suggesting that they should at least ride a bike, at least be interested (and perhaps purchase other models for their friends and family to get other views)
(And if you were a particular type of CEO you may ride your competitors' bikes to know what you're up against)
One thing I've noticed is that people always tell higher management what they think higher management wants to hear...
Last edited by cycle tramp on 21 Apr 2026, 8:30pm, edited 1 time in total.
'Everybody is a genius - but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid' Albert Einstein
Cycle tramp, I think the quote in your sig line is appropriate here; a fish is good at being a fish, not at climbing a tree. Similarly a CEO needs to be good at directing the overall vision of a company, not at any individual operational area.
Bmblbzzz wrote: 22 Apr 2026, 11:54am
Cycle tramp, I think the quote in your sig line is appropriate here; a fish is good at being a fish, not at climbing a tree. Similarly a CEO needs to be good at directing the overall vision of a company, not at any individual operational area.
Sadly correct - I have seen companies run by well meaning enthusiasts which had great products fail because their skill sets did not include how to run a company! Competing at sports at a high level may not be the best qualification for running a successful business.
I'd expect a CEO to have good business acumen, be able to take strategic business decisions, look at (and understand) market trends, have a clear vision for the company in question and build a strong and resilient culture.
That should translate across any business.
Quite often, the people entrenched in a business are some of the key players in its downfall. Complacency, an idea that they've been there, done that, know what works, and a "we've always done it this way" mentality breed failure.
In fact, road cycling was stuck in much the same rut for decades. Riders went on to become coaches and Directeur Sportif so the culture and training that they had as riders translated down to the next tier (which is why doping was so entrenched for so long), mechanics were used to working on particular kit so anything new was rejected outright, race tactics were passed down from the "well we rode it like this so this is how it's going to work"
That was exacerbated by a culture of tradition and history and feting of the "old guard".
It wasn't until Sky came along with a different attitude that everyone else finally sat up and took note that maybe you could do things differently.
Now you can argue about doping and all the rest of it for ever but it was basically stagnant, it had had no new thoughts for decades. And it wasn't some ex-pro doing that - Dave Brailsford had raced a bit but he was mainly a consultant with a history in sales and with degrees in Sports Science and Business.
As has been said above - being a competent cyclist does not equate to running a cycling business.
Bmblbzzz wrote: 22 Apr 2026, 11:54am
Cycle tramp, I think the quote in your sig line is appropriate here; a fish is good at being a fish, not at climbing a tree. Similarly a CEO needs to be good at directing the overall vision of a company, not at any individual operational area.
This applies at all sorts of levels, down to small non-profit clubs. You don't want the best cyclist (or mountaineer, or runner etc.) to be club chair, you want whoever's best at running the club committee to be the chair.
Having said that, the chair ought to at least know what they're on about when dealing with whatever the club's basic purpose is, though I'd like to think that ought to be covered by being the best person to run the committee. If the treasurer, events team etc. spend meetings patiently explaining stuff to the chair they haven't got a clue about then that's not really a good way for a committee to be running...
Bmblbzzz wrote: 22 Apr 2026, 11:54am
Cycle tramp, I think the quote in your sig line is appropriate here; a fish is good at being a fish, not at climbing a tree. Similarly a CEO needs to be good at directing the overall vision of a company, not at any individual operational area.
Sadly correct - I have seen companies run by well meaning enthusiasts which had great products fail because their skill sets did not include how to run a company! Competing at sports at a high level may not be the best qualification for running a successful business.
That's true, but equally having an interest in whatever you're selling and being good at running a business isn't mutually exclusive either...
..definitely not on the same scale as trek or specialised, are Jones Bikes ( https://www.jonesbikes.com/ ) Thorn ( https://thorncycles.co.uk/ ) and Rivendell ( https://www.rivbike.com/ ) All of which produce bicycles in at a scale far smaller than trek or specialised, and without the same marketing budget and yet have produced quality products which are known (to a lesser or greater extent depending on which sub-section of cycling your interest occupies). Each one of these companies is operated by a strong individual whose has an interest in riding and building bikes...
..which suggests that perhaps the business model of producing a new range of bikes every year may not be the way forward for the cycle industry...
'Everybody is a genius - but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid' Albert Einstein
There’s no single “correct business model” for bike making, or for much else come to that.
Both “stack ‘em high, and sell ‘em cheap”, and “make niche things, for niche a market, and sell ‘em expensive” can be viable, as can several other general classes of business model. And, some of it is down to the personality of the the person behind it all, who may wish to be “a personality”, or an anonymous super-apparatchik, for instance, or to grow the thing relentlessly, or keep it to a size where they personally have close control.
In a sane firm, it’s a combo of ideas from design and marketing, and others too.
As an engineer, I feel free to state that, if left to their own devices, engineers will design things that are truly wonderful examples of engineering, often with no reference to cost of production, or whether anyone will actually want what they’ve designed!
Moulton bikes might be seen an example of the triumph of engineering over mass marketability.
In my past life writing about cars I did write press information stuff for various new Fords. I was pretty amazed that the new Mondeo was the first Ford Europe car in which the production engineers had been involved in the vehicle development. Before that, a new car was designed and developed then the production side got, essentially, told to build it.
cycle tramp wrote: 22 Apr 2026, 5:17pm
..which suggests that perhaps the business model of producing a new range of bikes every year may not be the way forward for the cycle industry...
Thankfully a lot of the cycle industry moved away from that model quite a while ago, preferring to trickle new stock in "as and when".
Obviously that's tied into product development cycles, groupset manufacturers (Shimano usually working on a 4 (sometimes 5) year lifecycle and known buying peaks and troughs in the industry.
But the old practice of getting in a shiny new model in February only to be selling it off at half price in November was terrible. Partly that was just the whole industry (including shops) pandering to the "we've always done it this way" which goes back to my previous point about traditionalism and refusing to think outside the box.
I only got back into cycling after retirement so I've tended to be a one-bike man as I, essentially, do one type of riding and that is solo leisure rides with the occasional modest sportive or audax thrown in and a credit card tour once a year.
Trouble is that my ideal 'one-bike' has been shifting as I get older. My excellent Kinesis 4S (sturdy, reliable, fun) barely scraped 28mm tyres under any mudguards and working the rim brake levers from the hoods is near impossible with weakening hands.
My dalliance with a +1 bike, an Airnimal Joey folder to keep on our canal boat hasn't been too successful. It's too heavy and clumsy to be a good folder (I should have got a Brompton probably but was swayed by the "proper bike" elements of the 26" wheel Joey).
But why would I want to ride a "proper bike" Joey when I have a sweet titanium Enigma Etape Disc?
The increasingly clear issue with the Etape is that while I can ride 75+ miles and be flattered by its lively feel , I can feel battered as well by our awful country roads. And even in flattish Suffolk I can struggle a bit despite 46/30 and 11-34 gears. I have become anxious about its disc/QR wheel design too.
My "one-bike" wont be an e-one but I'm not sure what it should be. Enjoyable, tolerably comfortable, geared for an old codger to get up a stiff climb without needing resuscitation. And affordable!
As well as no rack lugs, could it take full mudguards if required?
Front suspension - not really needed unless on trails.
Nice enough bike but too MTB orientated……unless your ‘one bike’ was just for day rides off road.
