Editor's note: A version of this article ran in the June 1 issue of Bicycle Retailer & Industry News.
One of the most common statements I hear from retailers is something like "What this industry needs is a 'Got Milk'-style campaign to bring new riders into the activity." And on the surface, there's something to be said for that.
Never mind that 'Got Milk' is well-known in the advertising biz to have been a failure. But it's still held up as an exemplar of consumer branding, and it's the #1 idea folks in the industry turn to as model for outreach to everyday Americans.
Also never mind also that 'Got Milk' had a budget of over $100 million per year at its peak. Or that the campaign ran in various forms from 1994 until at least 2020. Or even that despite its high costs and managing a 90% rating in audience awareness, it only managed to increase milk consumption by only about 2%.
Nobody in the cycling industry has that kind of nine-figure money, and nobody in the cycling industry is willing to spend anywhere near that kind of money on a campaign with a 2% return rate. But for now, let's hold that thought (I'll be exploring that topic in depth next month) and take a look at what the industry is actually doing right now to reach out to new and returning riders and bring them into the activity we all know and love — of just riding bikes.
Notice I didn't use the word "cycling," which conjures up images of sport and competition, but instead I said "just riding bikes." Families getting out on bikes and having a good time together. I know, what a concept, right?
Who's doing what
"At this point I can't think of anything brands are doing that would attract new riders." —Rich Stianche, owner Dn'A Bikes, Tamaqua, Pa.
My colleague Marc Sani wrote an excellent column in the May issue of BRAIN about the existential need for the industry to bring more participants into riding bikes. I encourage you to read the entire column, but here's the Money Quote:
"At the risk of sounding too bold — or too crazy — all aspects of the industry need to gather and sort out a long-term strategy for ridership growth. Then fund that strategy properly; implement that strategy; and commit to a multi-year effort to maintain that strategy and change it as necessary."
I'll come back to Sani's notion at the end of this piece, but meanwhile let's take a look at what the industry is doing right now to reach out to beginning and returning riders.
Let's start with the leading national trade and advocacy organization for the U.S. bicycle industry, PeopleForBikes. I reached out to P4B president & CEO, Jenn Dice, about what her organization is doing to engage with new and returning riders. Here's what she told me: "PeopleForBikes believes that growing ridership starts with building the conditions that make riding safe, accessible, and worth coming back to," she said. "Our data shows that participation in the U.S. is growing, primarily driven by casual and infrequent riders [more about that month after next, btw —rv]. "That means our biggest opportunity is helping those people ride more often and stay engaged over time.
"Access remains the single biggest predictor of whether someone rides" she said, "so we focus on accelerating the construction of safe, connected places to ride that link people to everyday destinations. When protected bike lanes, off-street paths, and trail networks exist, participation follows."
Infrastructure alone isn't enough, Dice continues, so PeopleForBikes complements this work with efforts that help people take advantage of those investments.
"This includes convening the Youth Cycling Coalition to expand access to youth programs nationwide," she said, "as well as working with partners across the industry to connect resources with communities on the ground. All together, our goal is to build the conditions that grow participation and fuel stronger local economies, healthier people, and more vibrant communities."
So PeopleForBikes is actually doing quite a lot to bring just plain folks to bike riding, both through infrastructure development and by working with partners who engage directly with entry-level riders.
The bike brands themselves? Not so much.
It seems the Quadrumvirate has very little interest in beginning and returning riders. This is evidenced by two observations.
First, the Big Four are doing virtually nothing in terms of new rider outreach. And second, they offer only a token scattering of models in the critical $600–800 price range that new riders might be willing to shell out their hard-earned dollars for.
The reasons for this are both obvious and understandable. On a per-unit basis, bike brands make a whole order of magnitude more gross margin dollars on a new five or ten thousand dollar bike than a six or eight hundred dollar one. But that leaves plenty of blue ocean — which is to say, revenue dollars on the table — for competing second and third-tier brands.
I put the question to dealers on the Facebook Cycling Industry page, which I administer. They responded with a list of more than ten brands with robust lines of affordable bikes aimed at beginning and returning riders, including Batch, Jamis, Marin, Nukeproof (mostly UK & Belgium), Priority, Reid, Revere, SE, Tern, and the new X-LAB SP3 hybrid, among others.
And here's what just one of those brands is doing:
"SE Bikes has been amazing at bringing more and more new riders to riding a bike. The SE crew make kids want to ride because they make it feel cool. They think the bikes are awesome and compared to just about almost any other brand are affordable. Social media helps and SE uses it and it is extremely effective. The growth of SE along with the ridership has been nothing short of amazing."
That's Ron Lauber, CEO of the Lauber Cycling Group, a rep group including SE Products out of Saratoga, CA talking. So there is outreach definitely opportunity out there for brands that are interested in first-time riders.
Next we turn to bike shops themselves, and their involvement in community and local programs aimed at riders. It appears (based again on Facebook responses) that a good number of dealers are actively engaging with their local communities in this regard. Here are four of the responses:
"All I get from my vendors is more webinars about bikes that are out of reach of virtually every person interested in starting their cycling journey," said Ken Hill, owner of the Juneau Bike Doctor in Juneau, AK. "Like most shops, we have trade-in programs. We also do one-on-one bike educations sessions, which have been well received. We try to engage with our community outside of the cycling realm. It's been interesting and encouraging to see the response and support we get when we show up for other segments of the community, when we just show up. Most of the time, we're not even talking shop. I'm constantly hearing from people who just say thank you for being at this event or that. So many people feel unseen."
Rich Stianche, owner of Dn'A Bikes in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, agreed:
"At this point I can't think of anything brands are doing that would attract new riders," he said. "We have been doing community events, like guided bike rides around our local reservoir where we supply the bikes and invite people to enjoy a nice pedal in nature. One of the things we've done that has worked is to hold beginners days. We don't go anywhere and really just ride in a parking lot but we focus on riding a bike. We start the day by showing people how to get on a bike and then we move into all the different parts, what they're called and finally what they do. When people become comfortable with something they tend to be more open to trying it out. This is what the industry should be discussing, not having more webinars on bikes that I need an instructional video to operate. Bikes are supposed to be fun and somewhere a long the way a lot of people in our industry have forgotten that fact."
Andrew Feenstra, owner of Cyclesmith in Halifax/Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is just beginning his outreach efforts.
"Trying lots of stuff this year," he writes on Facebook. "Speaker series, femme clinics, trails repair clinics, learn to road ride, gravel backyard ultra, kids short track race series."
Kate Rockett, owner of Outback Bikes in Atlanta, takes things a step further.
She actually got bike riding accepted as one of the courses to satisfy the PE requirement at her son's high school.
"My son's school is in an area that has probably 150 miles of multi-use paths," she said. "We talked about it with the school administration for awhile and it became a full cycling program that encompasses rules of the road." Advocacy groups in Georgia come out and do presentations on bike laws on rainy days," she added.
"In addition to riding skills, we also do tech, so they learn the basics," Rockett said. There's ten students, we provide the bikes from our rental fleet so they learn the difference provided by a bike shop quality bike. Two of the kids ended up buying bikes from their local Trek dealer; two of the other kids bought the bikes from the program. They told their friends about it and know the friends know about it. They all went out riding with one of the teachers during spring break, so they're building community, too.
"A friend of mine, who's a League of American Bicyclists instructor volunteered to run the classes," she said. "We followed their program, and the kids all got Smart Cycling Youth Bike skills certificates. So this is all duplicatable from content provided by the LAB."
Rockett added that she had flyers made up and was circulating them to other schools in the area, looking to pick up more participating schools.
So at least some dealers are stepping up. Hopefully this piece will encourage more to join them.
But the real backbone of beginning and returning riders outreach needs to come from citizens groups around the country. This is where volunteer cyclists reach out to beginners with fun participation programs that actively drive new customers to bike shops to make purchases.
Let's look at just one of these programs. I talked with Clint Claasen, executive director of Clipped In For Life, based in Folsom, CA, near Sacramento. His group offers an extensive array of beginners' offerings, backed by a large cadre of involved volunteers.
"I've been a bike racer, got a pro license back in 2010," Claasen said. "My wife was very involved and we took over the Sacramento Cyclocross series in 2014. We started our groms program for middle schoolers in 2015. But we kept getting asked for younger and younger categories and we gradually phased them in too, and over the years, groms became elementary school only and short track mountain bike style.
"[We get] over 100 kids on Thursday nights for six weeks in the spring and again in the fall. First grade and under is the largest class; we'll get forty kids lining up at the start line. The courses are very short, quarter or half a mile, so parents and grandparents can see all over the course. It teaches kids that they can do hard things. Kids pedal when they can, get off when they have to and try to push themselves. For some of them, it's the first hard thing they've ever done, and it's an opportunity for adults to give their kids courage.
"We also had the opportunity to take over a middle schoolers' MTB ride program," he continues. "We took it over in 2021 with planned rides and insurance, and we now have 90 middle schoolers and more than 50 parents and club members in seven different ride groups based on skill level and fitness, led by other mountain bikers, aimed at building skills and teaching those kids how to ride. They'll ride 3-6 miles with the most advanced groups riding 8-12 miles. 70-80% of them just love being on the bike and don't have their parents able to show them. It's all analog, no e-bikes allowed, and they develop friendships and are they feel empowered. And now they can get out and show their parents."
But wait, as we say in the ad biz. There's more:
"Grip Academy is an after-school youth cycling program for kids in 8th grade and under to progress their bike skills," Claasen said. "It's based on a martial arts style of teaching, beginning with basic balancing, in-line and turning skills. Then they get grips on their handlebars in different colors. It doesn't matter their economic background or age, and the Brown and Black grips lead the younger ones in things like traffic safety and bike maintenance.
"Another entry point is parents who ride and have taught their kids to ride want to get their kids riding too, and they hear about the races and sign their kids up for a groms' program. Finally, we offer a Youth Summer Camp riding program that gets up to 150 underprivileged kids out, and they end up with a proper donated mountain bike, helmet tool and lock, and we teach them how to use all those things."
As Claasen said, "There's different entry points for different people. In our culture there is a check box for parents that their kids know how to ride a bike. We have a fleet of balance bikes from Stryder that let parents learn to use a balance bake and once they're ready to pedal, we guide the parents through the process of buying a bike and involve local bike shops. The local Trek shop supports our efforts with trade-in programs and when they get bicycles in good condition, they donate them to us for use as loaner bikes. If kids can't afford a bike we donate one to them, if not we steer them to local bike shops and steer the kids to Grip Academy."
But Claasen's CIFL group is just one of hundreds of citizen bike organizations operating in the USA as we go to press. In a text message, the NBDA's Megan Schmidt recommended regional groups like Dope Pedalers in Atlanta, or Give Up in Pittsburgh. Both are affiliated with Coffee Outside rides, which are "post-Critical Mass" era progressive riding clubs inviting alt-bike riders, traditional road tourers, and many newcomers with accessible recurring weekly rides.
But there's no way to telling how many of these groups are actually reaching out to beginning and returning riders. Dozens? Hundreds? As I say, there's to mechanism in place to let us know for sure.
What's needed to move the industry forward
"All aspects of the industry need to gather and sort out a long-term strategy for ridership growth." —Marc Sani, BRAIN editorial, May, 2026.
So PeopleForBikes has some programs aimed at bringing new and returning riders into the activity. One bike brand has such programs. At least some bike shops do. And an unknown number of community organizations also reach out to first-time riders.
But faced with the reality of declining sales, reduced dealer margins, and an uncertain future for the entire specialty retail channel, that's just not enough. If the industry wants to survive and prosper, it has to do more.
As suggested way back at the beginning of this piece, the industry has to get together to make it happen. To re-quote Marc Sani, "All aspects of the industry need to gather and sort out a long-term strategy for ridership growth."
I agree with him 100%.
Fortunately, there's a model for this kind of successful, industry-wide campaign that already exists in the outdoor industry. And I'Il be discussing that program in detail in Part Two of this piece next month.
