Had a chance to catch up with Santa Cruz marketing manager Scott Turner to discuss Western Spirit's new consumer event Outerbike.
He gave me such extensive commentary for my print story I wasn't able to squeeze it all in, so here's what he had to say in its entirety. At the very bottom he drops a bit of info that should amp up Santa Cruz retailers as well:
"As you know, we are huge fans of IB Outdoor Demo because it puts our show bikes where we think they belong, out on the trail," Turner said. "All our dealers get to check out and ride our new stuff and get a good feel of where the bikes all fit in the lineup.
"Last year right after we got back from Interbike, we took our demo bikes (all 80 of them) and organized our own one day consumer demo here at Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz and it was packed. Non stop all day. The value there is that when you produce a fairly high end (expensive) bike range, not many dealers want to demo them to consumers, and especially not every model in a full size range, so we took the opportunity to provide this service ourselves and we received a lot of valuable consumer feedback, which is different than dealer feedback.
"Since we already have the demo bikes from IBDD all built up, taking them straight on to the Outerbike event one week later seemed like a an extension of what we did last year in Santa Cruz. Pretty easy decision to be honest. Plus, we always love a good party.
"By the way, we are also going back indoors at IB this year," he added.
For full Outerbike story, be sure to read the March 1 issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.
