BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news

The May market analysis from Jay Townley for the National Bicycle Dealer's Association of America shows that consumer confidence is still below par in the US. As usual, the breakdown of sales in each bike category is well worth downloading. The file is available as a PDF

Hein Verbruggen of the UCI is an inveterate reformer. But his dictats have not always gone down well in the industry, especially when his back-to-the-basics campaign to prevent technological advances on racing bikes have impacted on sales of high-margin kit. However, in a recent meeting in Switzerland, representatives from Euro bike trade orgs COLIBI and COLIPED met with Verbruggen and UCI tech officials to "open up direct communication."

This is a personal victory for Two-Niner stalwart, Gary Fisher. He has long been lobbying for race recognition of the larger wheel size and presented his case in person to the UCI's governing body.

If so, you'll get free entry to Cycle 2003. The Procycling stand at the show will be dominated by a certain red Alfa Romeo but the great man himself will not be in it, hence the need for a stand-in (or should that be 'stand-up' because the Leblanc lookalike needs to poke his head through the Alfa's trademark cut-away roof)

Sort of. The scheduled run of TV ads in July will continue with the shot-in-America chimps-on-bikes footage but the company has promised not to air the ads again, and will not use chimps in any future advertising campaigns