The Hindu Business Line : Pedalling to a new lifestyle

On any given Sunday of a month over the past few months, a gaggle of around 80 bleary-eyed cyclists gather together in a suburb of Chennai before the crack of dawn, at 4.30 a.m. They make a motley crowd, many of them women, young and old, fit cycling pros to middle-aged executives who haven’t cycled since their teens, people of all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life. Their mission is to cycle the 50 km stretch to the temple town of Mahabalipuram where, three hours later, they will congregate at a hotel for a hearty breakfast and recapitulate how they made it over the distance.

While the day after will spell aching thighs and calves, cycling enthusiasts keep coming back for more. What started off for a lark when Rohit Kuttappa of Chain Reaxion and his friends began cycling to Mahabalipuram, has, he says, snowballed into a resurgence of sorts of the joy of cycling. Connecting purely through Facebook, with no advertising to speak of, already over 600 cyclists have done the stretch over the past several months. Participants pay Chain Reaxion, which organises the rides, to cover costs towards cycle hire, for an ambulance that follows the cyclists, breakfast and for the bus that will bring them back to town.

Backing this cycling movement of sorts is bicycle major TI Cycles, which supplies the cycles to those riders who need it. D. Raghuram, President (Bicycles & Fitness), TI Cycles of India, Murugappa Group, recalls that fired by the enthusiasm displayed by Kuttapa, a student who also plays cricket for the Murugappa team, and his friends, TI staffers themselves did the stretch and found that apart from being a great talking point, it improved bonding and camaraderie. “Now, we are offering this as a special package for corporates where at the end of the ride we may have a yoga or meditation session or some motivational talk,” he says. And, Chain Reaxion itself is taking the event to Bangalore and Hyderabad shortly.

As Raghuram says, it’s no longer about selling a cycle for an industry whose growth has been fairly stagnant over the past few years. “The industry we reckon is registering 2-3 per cent growth; no one is really queuing up to buy cycles per se whether in the hinterland or urban. In fact, in urban areas it’s declining,” he explains.

From selling a product, the company is moving to selling cycling as part of one’s lifestyle on the fun, freedom and fitness platform. It’s informal events such as these and company-organised ‘bikeathons’ and the recently organised ‘BSA Hercules Cyclothon’ in Bangalore, where 6,200 people participated, which are expected to pedal up interest in cycling, and, consequently sales. “We feel that all the adults have some nostalgic memories of cycling in their younger days. The memories are good but they are not exercising that option, so we want to re-introduce people to that feeling and see if they want to take up cycling again,” he elaborates.

But, despite the stagnant sales in the industry, Raghuram takes heart from the fact that the specials category, which come with better features and styling and are sold at higher price points, unlike the standard segment, has been growing at 8-10 per cent. That’s the segment that TI, which is outpacing the market and holds a leadership position, wants to target aggressively. Says he: “We have seen this category showing promise so if we have to lure the urban adult we must provide bicycles that look good so that resistance in mindset at being seen on a cycle is overcome. We want to make it look contemporary and modern. We have topped it off with foreign brands (Cannondale and Bianchi) so that we have the whole range,” he explains.

Another factor which has put a spoke, literally, in the industry’s growth is that the age pool of people indulging in cycling is shrinking – from two years to 25 years to 2-14 years. The middle aged adult is someone who has grown up on cycles and TI wants to appeal to their sense of nostalgia in the present day and age of eco awareness and fitness. Also, make riding or owning a cycle a cool thing. To that end, TI has done several things: improved product design and enhanced product range to straddle price points upwards of Rs 5,000.

TI’s upmarket range, which includes iconic brands such as Hercules, BSA and Ladybird, is in the price bracket Rs 5,000 to Rs 12,000 while the imported ones such as Cannondale and Bianchi go from Rs 20,000 all the way up to Rs 2 lakh. “Now we straddle all segments – mass to premium. And, to deliver these products we have improved the buying experience for consumers. Now we have moved to residential areas, closer to consumers with good looking products and showrooms and making it enticing enough,” elaborates Raghuram.

Today’s youth aren’t going to be buying their cycles from a godown-like store like earlier. So, the emphasis is on improving the buying experience. “We are the only company with 360-odd branded stores (BSA Go) out of which 106 are exclusive today, with a plan to take the total to 450 by the year-end. The idea being, provide the consumer with value-added products in a store that is well appointed,” he explains. TI also offers lighter bikes, with gears and shocks to give a better riding experience. With neighbourhood cycle shops disappearing, TI now offers a toll-free number and doorstep service.

TI is clear that it has to do different things to promote cycling. One more effort is to tie up with 78 resorts around the country where guests can rent TI brands, Hercules or BSA bicycles, which are in the premium segment. This is to entice the city dweller to revisit the cycling experience. TI maintains the cycles through NGOs in the vicinity on a revenue share basis with the resorts. “It’s now a revenue model for us,” he adds.

It’s doing other things as well, like setting up a cycle track in partnership with the Tamil Nadu tourist department, near the famed lake in Ooty so that tourists can use the waiting time to go boating and use the track.

Branding consultant Harish Bijoor, who took part in the recent cyclothon in Bangalore, says cycles are really the things to have in today’s environment. “The cycle is green and it’s healthy. I do believe there is great potential for us to reinvent our lives, our health and our lifestyles. Bringing back the joy of bicycling into our lives is a great thing to do,” he says.

The efforts at getting into higher value products as well as the retail strategy of exclusive stores has paid off for TI Cycles, a division of Tube Investments of India Ltd. For the financial year March 2009, sales of the division were up 27 per cent to Rs 719 crore and it could improve margins through better productivity.

Profits too were up 33 per cent to Rs 29.17 crore. Raghuram is sanguine that this year too a similar growth cycle can be maintained by the company.

Related Stories:
TI cycles up the value chain
TI and the cycle of life
TI Cycles launches ebikes

More Stories on : Brands | Cycles & Accessories

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
‘Eco’ ing responsible tourism

Pumping up the cycle market

More buck for louder bang

‘Mallifying’ them with choice

Pedalling to a new lifestyle

When brands resurrect great men

Brand Mumbai: Grace under fire

Happiness is the key to success

New ‘rush hour of the gods’

Life, in four editions