Sustainability is a topic that will have a major impact on the bike industry in the coming years. Although mountain biking itself is already environmentally friendly today, there is still potential in terms of sustainability in the production and distribution of bikes. Together with partners from the industry we want to present ourselves with our RIDE GREEN project the complex topic of sustainability and have therefore developed a Workshop organised with the eco-professionals from the Cradle to Cradle NGO. The topic: What are the really important points if the bike industry wants to become more sustainable? We have prepared the contents of the two-day workshop in BIKE 7/21 - in stores from 1 June. But we can already reveal this much at this point: One of the key points revolves around the establishment of a circular economy.
What does a circular economy look like for bikes?
In such an economic system, bikes and parts would not be scrapped at the end of their life cycle, but returned to the manufacturer. The manufacturer checks the condition of the bike, recycles defective parts and refurbishes the rest so that it can be put back into circulation. Roughly speaking, the idea is to extend the service life of bikes and parts after their initial use via a structured second-hand market. Erik Bronsvoort has tried to do just that. He opened the "Circular Cycling" bike shop in Utrecht (Netherlands) in 2018. The concept: buy used bikes, dismantle them, refurbish them technically and visually and sell them again. However, the attempt to give bikes a second life on a grand scale has failed. Too many different standards for the add-on parts and too much time spent reconditioning the bikes have made the business unattractive under current conditions. But because Erik still believes in the benefits of a circular economy, he has written a book about his experiences. In the following Extract from the book he explains why the circular economy is a superior concept and why such a system is not feasible with current bikes.
Circular cycling: the attempt to give used bikes a second life
This text was translated from the book "Circular Revolution" and was originally written by Erik Bronsvoort. The Circular Cycling Shop mainly traded in racing bikes.
"In 2018, we (editor's note: Erik Bronsvoort and Matthijs Gerrits) opened Circular Cycling. A small shop in the city of Utrecht in the heart of the Netherlands. Our concept: We wanted to buy used bikes and parts and refurbish them to sell them again as so-called UpCycles. Put simply, we built new bikes from used parts. On the one hand, we wanted to earn money with this, but above all, we were interested in testing how circular business models could work for the bicycle industry.
A lot of planning and a sophisticated concept
We had invested a lot of time beforehand to find out how we could best set up a bike shop with our limited resources. We combined our experience with sustainability and the circular economy in the construction industry (editor's note: Erik previously worked in the construction industry) and our insider knowledge of the bicycle industry (editor's note: Matthijs was an IT manager at a cycling wholesaler) to find out how a circular business model with bicycles would work best. We read a lot of books and websites, took part in a CIRCO training on the circular economy and registered with the Climate-KIC initiative for sustainable start-ups.
During all these steps, we quickly realised that we had to focus on a specific market segment with our special business model. We therefore decided not to focus our range on "bike freaks" and performance-orientated bikers. Although both groups quickly established themselves as good suppliers of used bikes and parts, they placed a very high value on the latest technology. Used bikes were not an option for them. The good thing about the bike market: even without the hardcore bikers, the sales market is still huge. After all, most people ride their bikes for fun without being overly interested in the latest technology. These pleasure or everyday cyclists should become our target group.
We also realised this in the run-up to our shop opening: More and more cyclists are not only looking for sustainable products, but above all for reliable ones. In order to meet these needs, our bikes not only needed an attractive price, but also a comparable warranty promise to new bikes. Only then could our upcycled bikes compete with new bikes in a price range of around 1500 euros. And of course the marketing has to be right. The used UpCycles have to come with a good story so that buyers can rave about them on their next ride with the Kumples. We therefore gave each bike we sold a unique name and thus an identity. We wanted to promote an emotional bond between the rider and the UpCycle. So we had already given some thought beforehand to minimise the risk of our shop as much as possible.
Used bikes with a new bike feeling
Some bikers have simply given us the used frames and parts for the UpCycles or we have bought them from cyclists, shops and dealers. Almost every biker or bike shop has a box of parts that are too good to throw away but are somehow no longer needed. And these boxes were our goldmines. Some of the parts in them were new, some were used but in good condition. But some were also simply defective and therefore no longer usable. We took what we could get. Because getting used parts cheaply was an essential part of our business model. We also knew from the outset that the second major challenge was to keep labour costs low in order to ultimately make a profit with our business.
The remanufacturing process for bicycles
Our upcycling process was as follows: We took all the used bikes we received completely apart to check the individual components for quality. Disassembling a bike is done in no time and has two advantages. It makes quality control easier and, just as importantly, it allowed us to combine parts from different sources. It was extremely important to us that every bike we assembled would work so well that we would ride it ourselves. Each UpCycle also received an online bike passport. In addition to photos and a detailed description of all parts used on the bike (for easy replacement), we progonised the remaining lifespan of the bikes.
To guarantee ride quality and safety, every UpCycle was fitted with modern top-end tyres, new brake/shift cables, a new compact handlebar and new handlebar tape. All other parts, such as the drivetrain, were only replaced with new parts if we did not have any used alternatives with sufficient remaining service life available.
What it really means to trade in used bikes
Every bike that left our shop felt like new. Former top models that were sold new for the price of a mid-range new car turned out to be excellent UpCycles. Even in used condition, they put a smile on the face of every bike connoisseur. But that didn't help us at the end of the day. As with any start-up, it took us a few attempts to find out what really works and what doesn't. And after two years, we realised that our beautiful UpCycle concept wasn't working for us economically.
This is why current bikes are not recyclable
1. it takes too long to recondition a used bike.
Our company was based on the idea that bicycles are good examples of products that can be easily disassembled and reassembled. The parts between different frames are interchangeable and spare parts are available for a long time. Although this all sounds ideal for our business model, in practice it was extremely difficult to maintain the value of a bicycle through maintenance, reuse and refurbishment:
- There is an increasing variety of "standards" for parts such as bottom brackets, thru axles, cassette bodies, shifters and brake pads. We found that reliable information about parts and their compatibility was difficult or impossible to find. Even on the websites of manufacturers who endeavoured to provide this type of information. This made it extremely difficult for us to recognise which parts were compatible.
- When a part needs to be replaced, the availability of certain parts on the second-hand market, in shops and even at dealers is very limited or sometimes simply non-existent. The best example: spare parts for older derailleur groupsets. You have to search for them for an extremely long time only to realise that they simply no longer exist.
- Integrating brake and shift cables into the frame and handlebars (especially on road bikes) makes a bike look cleaner and more aerodynamic, but doesn't really help to reduce the time it takes to build or maintain a bike. In fact, this extra effort means that even simple repairs sometimes take an extremely long time and make every mechanic swear a lot. Even with the right tools and tactics, these integrated trains remain a terror for garages.
- It seems that with every new standard, a new tool is needed. Sometimes the tool for a part is even more expensive than the part itself. This was a big problem for our small bike workshop. Every special tool not only cost money, but also time to obtain and understand. In practice, this repeatedly led to the wrong tools being used for certain jobs and parts being damaged as a result.
2. marketing of used bikes
If you are a start-up company with limited resources and want to launch a new product on the market, it will always be difficult to reach customers. We have realised that online advertising for a new market segment like refurbished bicycles is complicated. Hardly anyone uses keywords like "sustainable bike" or "refurbished bike" in online search engines. It was easy to top the Google rankings for these terms, but unfortunately they also generated hardly any additional traffic to our website. We therefore tested the search terms 'second hand' and 'discount bike'. These generated significantly more traffic to our website, but sales remained in the basement. It turned out that our UpCycles were not what people were looking for: They were either too expensive for a second-hand bike or too old for bikers looking for discontinued models from the current season. Compared to big brands, we had very limited marketing budgets and no social media channels with large numbers of followers. In short, it was extremely difficult to generate the necessary awareness for our product.
3. current design trends worsen the compatibility of bicycle parts
Despite these difficulties, our business grew slowly. When a major investment was needed to expand our company, we carefully re-examined the assumptions in our original business plan. One trend was developing faster and more extensively in the industry than we had originally expected: System integration. Handlebar-stem units, integrated seatposts and internally routed cables are now commonplace on new bikes. The introduction of disc brakes on road bikes, all the different thru-axles and the new 12-speed compatible freewheels have caused the standard variety on bikes to explode in recent years. Although we were confident that these details would not be too important for our target group, they still made life difficult for us. After all, our remanufactured bike business was based on the idea that bikes are made up of interchangeable parts. However, the way the industry is developing, this is becoming less and less the case. So we came to the conclusion that we would need an ever larger warehouse in the future in order to refurbish used bikes in such a way that they could be resold with a clear conscience. And at some point, that was no longer economically viable.
These were the main reasons why we decided to stop building our UpCycles. Current bikes are simply not made to be reconditioned and sold second-hand on a large scale. Our trial clearly showed that linear products are only partially suitable for circular business models. Nevertheless, there were also some positive aspects that we learnt during our time in our circular cycling bike shop.
- 1. road bikes and parts from model year 2005 onwards were very suitable for reconditioning. The quality was high, compact cranks in combination with 11-28 cassettes offered suitable gear ratios, and in combination with modern tyres and ergonomic handlebars, they not only looked new after reconditioning, they also felt like new.
- 2. many used bike parts that had been left to vegetate in boxes still had a considerable service life. After cleaning, they were very suitable for use on reconditioned bikes. On average, we were able to build an UpCycle from around 90 % recycled materials.
- 3. we received very positive press coverage. As soon as our concept was picked up by the media, we received an extremely high number of registrations for our newsletter. The amazing thing: The interest came from the bicycle industry as well as from ordinary people who had nothing to do with the industry.
- 4 Most of our customers specifically opted for our UpCycles. They saw it as an environmentally friendly alternative to a new bike.
- 5 We have not had a single warranty problem.
- 6 We learnt a lot, met lots of great people and had a lot of fun.
