Ray Keener, a long time bike industry sales consultant, wrote up his creative ideas for Commute By Bike on how bike retailers can capitalize on increased interest in bike commuting. Keener writes for BRaIN and runs the Bicycle Leadership Conference. Visit his website GrowthCycle. Ray also recently developed the Selling Coasting retail training tool. Selling…
Blog
Early Spring
We’re having an early spring here in Flagstaff. And with it we’re surging ahead with strong sales. It’s been awhile since I last posted and we’ve got quite a bit of news to report. First off, Jeff Hankens has joined the Wandertec team. Jeff was a great find for Wandertec, already having experience with bicycle…
Help Wanted
EDIT: This position has been filled. Thanks for your interest. I’m getting settled into the new shop nicely. The sign-cutting, CELLO bike trailer, shipping case-carving CNC machine, the shopbot, has been relocated to the new shop. I’ve been putting up some large pallet racks and I’m now shopping for shelves, bins, and racks for getting…
New Shop!
The shop expansion at Wandertec, Inc. has just been completed. The best part was when they fired up the furnace. I will be getting everything organized in the next few weeks including moving over the CNC machine, setting up inventory shelving, and moving over the sewing equipment. Once that is wrapped up, I will start…
New Shop on the Verge…
This week at Wandertec Bicycle Cargo Design: 1: Dug out from 2ft of snow. 2: Watched as the workshop is getting achingly close to completion. The shops is in a bit of chaos now as the buildings are being joined together. Once completed, I’ll be moving the ShopBot and sewing machines all into the same…
Carry Freedom's DIY Bamboo
Carry Freedom has offered up plans for building a bike cargo trailer with locally available materials. They offer their plans for no cost. Their goal is to encourage the use of bike cargo trailers. By making these plans available, those who cannot afford a manufactured bike cargo trailer are better enabled to build their own trailer.
Carry Freedom is particularly interested in evolving a good Do-It-Yourself design for use in 3rd World areas with poor transportation resources. Bike cargo trailers can be used as an essential transportation tool in poor, isolated areas. While bicycles can be found in these parts of the world, bike cargo trailers are often very hard to come by. A basic bike cargo trailer is essentially a simple devise from an engineering and manufacturing view point. It is the type of devise that can be built by its user much more easily than a bicycle itself.
Floats Away
This week: 1. Sold some demo CELLOS bike trailer shipping cases. 2. Worked on some ideas for updating the CELLO design for its next incarnation, hopefully sometime next year. 3. Picked up some pallet shelves for stacking bike cargo trailers on. 4. Wished I could have done more but time sometimes floats away.
Google Top 10 in the Top 3
This week at Wandertec: 1. Started the final cap-off to the BikeTrailerShop.com marketing campaign: My buddy Ben, my web-marketing guru, and I were discussing the success of the marketing campaign for BikeTrailerShop.com. We concluded that things were looking very good. The key components of the campaign are high results in Google Searches, a well constructed…
CELLO (BOB Case) Review
This review of the CELLO Bike Case for BOB Trailers was first posted by Colin Avolve on his blog, bikearchy. From the review:
BikeCastle
This week at Wandertec: 1. Started sewing the new Wandertec Woven Labels on the Wandertec CELLO bike trailer case, Wandertec SAX BOB Trailer cargo liner and Wandertec Cargo Net. 2. Ordered some Down Low Glow lights from Rock the Bike to sell with the Xtracycle and to figure out how to mount to our other…
Demo CELLOS
This Week at Wandertec:1. Watched the shop not being built(progress is to resume soon)2. Sold my Honda Element (CELLOmobile)3. Came up with a name for my new bicycle design, the Wandertec SanToor.4. Did away with the Wandertec Purchase page and pointed all sales to BikeTrailerShop.com.5. Listed Demo CELLOS for sale at the BikeTrailerShop.com.6. Was introduced…
Xtrarecycling
This past few weeks at Wandertec: 1. Watched my shop being built 2. Attended Interbike 3. Picked up some Wandertec woven labels 4. Rode in the Tour de Fat parade. 5. Unsuccessfully attempted to fight a bicycle traffic ticket The expansion of the Wandertec shop is starting pick up some steam. The framing and roof…
Xtracycle at Interbike
It appears that 2007 has been a good year for continued development in the realm of bike cargo trailers as evidenced by a variety of new products sprinkled around the wide expanse of Interbike.
Xtracycle had a booth at Interbike after being absent in recent years. They had plenty of reason to be there as they were debuting a range of exciting new accessories for their Xtracycle FreeRadical.
At the top of the list was their long anticipated kickstand. It took a while but it was worth the wait. The new kickstand appears to give very solid support to the Xtracycle. This will be great for loading and unloading as well as using the Xtracycle as a seat, table, handing out pamphlets, blending or anything else that a mobile platform is useful for. The kickstand folds back and is held up and out of the way with a built-in ratching system.
Something like a bakfeits
Several people asked about Dutch-style long cargo bikes at Interbike. An American derivative of this is the Zigo Leader shown here. The child sits in front of the adult in a detachable carrier that doubles as a jogging stroller. This is a pre-production model you’re looking at, and Zigo is still working on getting dealers…
Commuting with kids
When my children were smaller I sometimes had to transport them from work to home by bike. When they were both smaller, they both fit in the trailer. When their combined weight exceeded 100 pounds, though, we moved up to the “bike train” — my bike towing a trailer bike which towed the child trailer….
Breaking Ground
This week at Wandertec: 1. Watched the new shop construction begin. 2. Shopped for a multi website platform. 3. Listed Ortlieb Pannier Accessories on the Bike Trailer Shop. After months of making arrangements and waiting around, the Wandertec shop expansion is finally underway. I’m hoping to have it closed in and the heating system operational…
CELLOing to EuroBike
This Past Few Weeks at Wandertec:1. Added loads of info and options into the Bike Cargo Trailers at the BikeTrailerShop.com.2. Purchased a Toyota Corolla for the business.3. Sent Joe and John of VooDoo Cycles off with some demo CELLOs on their trip to EuroBike.4. Ordered a bunch of 20″ tires and bike trailer tubes to…
Interesting BOB Uses Part 2
A couple of months ago I posted Interesting BOB Uses Part 1. This post had an alternative energy theme
For this go around I’ll explore the realm of home & garden, Home Depot meets your BOB Trailer.
This is about the coolest lawnmower you’ll ever see anywhere.
Wandertec SAX – BOB Cargo Liner
This week at Wandertec:1. Designed & listed a new adapter that makes Ortlieb rear panniers fit much better when used together with a BOB Trailer.2. Listed the Wandertec SAX on the BikeTrailerShop.com.3. Worked on sourcing Wandertec woven labels for branding the SAX.4. Ordered a sizable load of trailers including 10 Carry Freedom Large Y-Frames to…
Business Platforms
This week at Wandertec: 1. Finalized the design of the Wandertec Sax 2. Got interviewed by a journalist for the Chicago Tribune for a possible story about Bike Cargo Trailers and their use in Chicago. 3. Worked on designing some packaging using Adobe Illustrator for the Wandertec mLite. 4. Listed some the Ultimate5 Plus Handelbar…
The Perfect Cargo Machine
The perfect bike cargo trailer would be light and strong. It would have lights and a kickstand incorporated into it. You would barely notice its affect on your bike as you pulled it. It would work on road and off and have smooth suspending properties to keep your load from getting jostled. It would work great for both large and small loads. It would go on and off your bike with quick/secure ease. It would collapse down neatly out of the way and transform into a carrying case for your bike when you were traveling like the CELLO bike case.
Monsoonal Rains
This week at Wandertec: 1.Pressed forward on the BOB Liner (Wandertec SAX) design. 2.Set up a new CELL Phone & Land Line for clearer phone time. 3.Cut a large batch of sign blanks for Signarama on the ShopBot. The long awaited monsoonal rains came yesterday into Flagstaff. With our on going drought like condition, this…
Gone Fishing
How many Blogs begin something like “It’s been awhile since I last posted”? This Month at Wandertec: 1. Set up an ad in the new publication Practical Pedal. 2. Signed a contract for the Wandertec Shop Expansion. 3. Worked on the design for the long awaited BOB Trailer Liner. 4. Recieved confirmation that the Wandertec…
Business Building
Its been another record breaking sales month at the BikeTrailerShop.com. My only question now is when do the sales slow down. My guess is that they’ll remain strong through the summer and taper off in September. I’ve been learning the hard way about getting a bigger shop building put up quickly. I found a contractor…