MONTREAL, Quebec (BRAIN)—Kempter Marketing Inc (KMI) has entered into a long term deal with Lapierre bikes to be the exclusive Canadian distributors of the France based bike brand.
“Lapierre has the best technology and the best quality in the industry, an unbeatable combination,” said Paul Harris, president of Kempter Marketing. France's Lapierre, established in 1946, is one of Europe's largest suppliers to independent bicycle dealers, producing over 90,000 bikes a year.
KMI was already very impressed with their line up, but a trip to Dijon, France, in April was all that was needed to see why Lapierre is one of Europe’s leading bike brands.
“I have visited many leading edge manufacturing plants including the world’s best-in-class manufacturers and I can tell you that this plant is at the top of their game," Harris said .
Florian Robin, Lapierre's international sales manager, was kind enough to take KMI on a full tour of the assembly factory, riding local trails on 2010 bikes and, of course, testing some famous Bourgogne wines.
“Our meetings have been very productive and we look forward to a very strong and long partnership in the future," Florian said.
KMI will be using Peter Appleton as its mountain bike national sales director. Appleton is former Elite DH mountain bike racer with nine years sales experience with three years as Commencal's national sales director.
“They have an incredible mountain bike line up, from World Cup winning DH bikes, full carbon 5-inch trail bikes to sub 20 pound cross-country racers, their attention to detail is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, you can see the influence of mountain bike god Nico Voullioz (10 time DH World Champ and Lapierre consultant)," Appleton said.
Ray Deslaurier will take on the position of road bike national sales director and use his racing and sales manager background to inject enthusiasm into dealers nationwide.
“Lapierre offers a complete line of road bikes that combine the ride and handling qualities that have made French bikes sought after by passionate cyclists all over the world with unbeatable value for the money,” Deslaurier said.
