BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news

British Cycling is organising mass participation rides on Bank Holiday Monday 30th August to tie in with the start of the five-day Tour of Britain. There's to be a 110km ride for keen amateurs, a shorter ride for those who want to avoid the steady climb up Holme Moss and a 5kms family ride on a traffic-free circuit in Manchester.

Later this year, the IMAX movie about Tyler Hamilton's struggle with pain at last year's Tour de France will project cycling onto large format screens around the world. Right now, Lance Armstrong makes a cameo appearance as the world's most inspirational athlete in 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story', a sports comedy movie starring Ben Stiller and currently showing in US theatres. In 2006, get set for a biopic on Mellow Johnny, starring Matt Damon and backed by the producer of The Bourne Supremacy, Seabiscuit, and the Indiana Jones movies

In May, BikeBiz.com carried the first news about the launch of 'passion brand' Rapha, a high-quality, non-lurid, retro-loving road-cycling clothing brand. Now, in a focus piece in Marketing magazine, Rapha founder Simon Mottram said his business model was consumer direct because bike shops are "not temples to retail excellence."

Tony Nunn worked for Mud Dock of Bristol for 10 years. His new business is a Tim Flooks-type tuning business but for Cannondale's Headshock and Lefty forks. Mainly public facing, Thumbprint Tuning will also service forks sent from bike shops.

In 2000, Sturmey Archer was owned by Derby Cycle Corp of the US. Debt-ridden Derby sold the land beneath Sturmey's factory and then sold the world-renowned engineering firm for thirty pounds to a flakey investment house. At the time, BikeBiz.com revealed that no pukka due diligence had been carried out and pushed for Derby's CEO to be sacked. He was, but by then Sturmey was long gone. The liquidation process has now completed and it's clear from the final accounts that Sturmey Archer could have continued trading...