How Whyte Bikes is engaging with a new audience while retaining its MTB roots

Whyte Bikes will always be synonymous with performance mountain bikes, but 2024 will see them engage with a wider audience. Rebecca Bland speaks to marketing director Matt Skinner about Whyte’s rebrand, new ranges and finding opportunity

This piece first appeared in the February edition of BikeBiz magazine – get your free subscription here

Whyte Bikes have been around for more than 20 years now, and are rare in that they stick to their roots. The roots in this case being engineering and pushing the boundaries of mountain bike design. Now, even with founder John Whyte no longer at the helm, the brand is continuing to impress and develop their bikes whilst maintaining the philosophy of being an “engineering-led brand.” 

We spoke to marketing director, Matt Skinner, about the company’s new look and where the recent changes are hoping to take them in 2024. 

“Whyte has always been engineering-led,” he added. “It’s always been performance led. It’s always been about not just doing what’s already there, but looking for new and better ways of doing it. John initiated that philosophy, and it’s still with us to this very day.”

In late 2023, however, Whyte debuted a new logo, and two entirely new ranges. The rebrand may come as no surprise for astute watchers of the market, as the brand received investment from Cairngorm Capital back in 2021. With this investment, comes the pressure to grow the company beyond its small team, with a relatively cult following, as Skinner explained. 

“I guess really as a brand, Whyte has been punching well above our weight for many years. We’ve always been a small team who did [an] incredible amount of work. But now with the new ownership or investment to kind of grow the brand, we definitely identified that need to develop the brand further.”

Just like many other bike brands saw a boom throughout Covid, Whyte is also recognising the challenges the industry is now facing. How they’re planning to tackle this lull, is by rationalising and prioritising their ranges. Not just for the sake of it, but to make things easier for shops and customers. 

“Historically, our range had grown quite a lot,” continued Skinner. “We had a lot of urban bikes, gravel bikes, kids bikes etc. And obviously as the whole industry saw through Covid, there was a massive boom, but now we’re in the doldrum following that. 

“Alongside this, the market’s also changed. So what was selling three, four years ago, isn’t anymore. Particularly with the popularity of electrification, we’re now seeing top-end, analogue bikes have kind of fallen away, and a threshold where electric is more dominant. 

“So we’ve taken that and taken the opportunity to rationalise our range. There’s no point having a bike on a shop floor that is not selling. That’s not helping the rider, because they’re not using it. It’s not helping the shop, because it’s just got money tied up in a bike that’s not going anywhere, and it’s not helping us as a brand.”

By rationalising their ranges, Whyte is focusing on not just rider trends, but creating bikes that will actually benefit riders. Whilst other companies churn out model year after model year bikes, Whyte has always been a bit of an anomaly, and only updating a bike when they felt it warranted a change that would benefit the rider – not just to follow a trend. 

In November, Whyte launched their newest ranges: the E-Lyte, a lightweight mid-motor electric mountain bike, and the RHeO 3, an urban and city hub-driven offering. They’re for two very different markets, but one thing that remains the same is the brand’s attention to detail and need to be different, as Skinner continued.

“With the E-Lyte range, we set out with a very clear mission to deliver the best bike in this category. It’s got to punch well above its weight, and deliver on energy density, on weight, performance and handling. And the same for the RHeO range. We applied our engineering know-how into the urban range, and gave the bikes all these subtle, nuanced changes that ultimately add up.

“It is kind of an application of marginal gains, but things like high-volume tyres, stretching the geometry out to give riders a sense of security, and dropper posts. And that’s key to anything we’ve ever done – and seeking performance and usability in every bike we make isn’t going away.”

Fans of the brand need not worry about Whyte’s new direction. Mountain bikes are and likely always will be the main focus of the brand. But what the company does want to achieve, is engaging with a wider audience, as Skinner explained. 

“We’ve had a bit of an awareness challenge. So unless you’re an enthusiast rider and typically an older enthusiast rider – because the heyday when we started was in the 90s – you’re not necessarily aware of us. 

“So we wanted to make sure that we can help build a brand that’s going to help us engage and reach more people. We are still fundamentally an engineering-led brand, and that’s not changing. But we also recognise if you have a cold, clinical kind of brand image, then that’s not necessarily going to help you engage with more people. 

“Whether they’re kind of bound by the transport and utility in the cities, or hardcore enthusiast mountain bikers who want to get out and race enduro or just go out on adventures. Whatever it might be, we need to bring our brand up to the same level as our product, ultimately to help give us a platform to be able to reach and engage with more people.”

The company’s injection of cash has recently seen investment into their engineering teams, quality control, product management, and all the things that make Whyte who they are – but now, bigger and better.

A big player, with a not-so-small team anymore.