Overnight Success

The cycling industry is still dealing with the fallout from the post-COVID boom and bust. In this final episode of our industry series, Wade Wallace and Suvi Loponen put members’ questions to former bike shop owner Ellory Slater and Madison CEO Dominic Langan. They tackle why the industry has been so slow to recover, the loss of the middle market, the rise of Chinese brands, direct-to-consumer sales, warranty costs, mobile servicing, financing and the future of bike shops. Along the way, they question some of the assumptions shaping the industry and ask what brands and retailers need to do differently as the market settles.

Shift Cycling Culture has spent seven years working to make the cycling industry take sustainability seriously. Founders Lian van Leeuwen and Erik Bronsvoort, and executive director Sandra Brandt, join Suvi Loponen to talk about where Shift came from, why the industry so often stays silent on sustainability, what pro racing could do better, and what it would actually take to change things.

You can find out more about Shift’s work and sign up for their courses here.

Episode 4 of this special industry series looks ahead at the future of the cycling industry after years of volatility. We draw on dozens of interviews with distributors, brand leaders, retailers, and skeptics to explore where growth might come from, who won’t survive, and how pricing, Chinese brands, regulation, and community will reshape the landscape. It’s a candid, sometimes uncomfortable, but ultimately optimistic look at what’s next for the bike world.

Note that this episode is cut off part way through and the full audio is available to our Escape Collective members who fund our work. If you'd like to become a member, please go to https://escapecollective.com/overnightsuccess to receive a 50% discount on your membership for a limited time while this series is running. 

Last but not least, we'll be doing a Q&A episode. Please submit your questions here: https://escapecollective.com/hello/

They seemed to arrive overnight: Chinese bike brands turning up in the WorldTour peloton, in your local shop, and all over your feed. But almost no one inside the industry thinks it was sudden at all. Most of the bikes we ride have been built in Asia for decades, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before those factories started putting their own names on the down tube.

This episode digs into why these brands are expanding now, and the competition this poses for many Western brands who are already struggling. We cover China's national strategy behind the rise, the role COVID played as an accelerator, government subsidies, the domestic price war, and aspects of vertical integration.

To become a member so you can listen to this full episode, head over to www.escapecollective.com/overnightsuccess

In episode one of this series — 'False Dawn' — we looked at the mistaken optimism the bike industry faced when the world opened up after the pandemic.

The more you dig into this story, the clearer it becomes that the boom and bust was only the surface. Underneath it, something more fundamental had already changed.

In this episode — which we're calling 'The Ground Shifted' — we hear from people who work at various levels of the supply chain about how the customer has changed, how the selling landscape has been redrawn, how private equity saw opportunity and moved in, and all the unexpected forces that have held back recovery — layered on top of structural problems that were already there long before COVID ever arrived.

Please note that this is a preview and the full version of the series can be accessed by becoming an Escape Collective member. You can find out more about how to join here: http://www.escapecollective.com/OvernightSuccess

In our last Industry Special series, we asked how the bike industry got itself into such deep trouble. What we found was a supply chain riddled with problems, a leadership culture built on false optimism, and an industry that mistook a pandemic bump for a permanent new normal. They called it the bike gold rush. Sadly it came to an abrupt end. 

Since that time, businesses have gone bankrupt. Shops have closed. Thousands of employees have been laid off. 

So the question has changed. We know how the industry got into trouble. Now we're asking something harder: why can't it get out?

Over the past few months, my colleague Suvi Loponen and I have spoken to leaders and employees across the industry to find out if this is something far more systemic than COVID ever was.

The following 4 episodes after this one will be exclusive for our members. If you want become a member, go to www.escapecollective.com/overnightsuccess to sign up for a limited time offer.

In January 2025, I sat down with Rapha's newly appointed CEO, Fran Millar, after she'd been in the job for about three months. Founder and previous CEO Simon Mottram stepped away from the business in 2021 and hired William Kim as his successor. Kim was brought in as an outsider with impressive experience in luxury fashion and retail – Burberry, Gucci, Abercrombie & Fitch. Unfortunately he lasted less than a year, and after Kim stepped away in 2022, Rapha internally promoted François Convercey and Daniel Blumire as co-CEOs. Blumire left the business shortly after, and the sole leadership position was left to Convercey until Fran Millar was appointed in August 2024.

In that period of multiple leadership changes, Rapha faced increased competition, a pandemic, and what many would say was a loss of focus while trying to expand and appeal to a larger market – all while being newly owned by the Walton Brothers' investment fund RZC.

It's been roughly a year and a half since I first spoke with Fran about her vision for Rapha's future. In this interview, we check in on what she's been able to do, what's been more challenging than she anticipated, and where her focus lays now.

In this episode we take a deep dive into Rose Bikes - a 120 year old bicycle brand that many of you may not have heard of, and that's about to change. Rose Bikes is a German  company that sells direct to consumer, similar to Canyon. Founded in 1907 as a small family workshop, it evolved into one of Europe’s early adopters of the D2C model. 

Thank you to my colleague Suvi Loponen for doing this interview. You'll be hearing more from Suvi on this channel much more in the future, so stay tuned! 

If you like this podcast and want to hear more, please support our work by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/join/

In this episode we take a deep dive into Rose Bikes - a 120 year old bicycle brand that many of you may not have heard of, and that's about to change. Rose Bikes is a German  company that sells direct to consumer, similar to Canyon. Founded in 1907 as a small family workshop, it evolved into one of Europe’s early adopters of the D2C model. 

Thank you to my colleague Suvi Loponen for doing this interview. You'll be hearing more from Suvi on this channel much more in the future, so stay tuned! 

If you like this podcast and want to hear more, please support our work by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/join/

In this episode, we are going deep inside the founding story of Cannondale, which has arguably been one of the most innovative bike companies in the world to this day.

The founder who is the main character in this story is Joe Montgomery. But he wasn’t a hardcore cyclist as you might expect. He was an entrepreneur who liked building things, hired his customer, and figuring it out as he went. Sadly, Joe passed away peacefully on January 2, 2026. 

Telling Cannondale's origin story in this episode is Joe's son, Scott Montgomery. Scott lived and breathed Cannondale for most of his career, is synonymous with leadership of his father, and is more than able to do the story justice. 

If you like this podcast and want to hear more, please support our work by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/join/