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Upgrade Bikes has been appointed the exclusive distributor of SixSixOne for the UK.
The distributor will offer the ever-expanding SixSixOne product lineup, featuring a range of protection, helmets, goggles, gloves, body supports and casual apparel.
Dealers can now pre-order the next generation of MTB protection via the Upgrade B2B site, with stock scheduled to be available for delivery in August.
“We couldn’t be happier to be starting this new partnership with the extremely experienced and knowledgeable team at Upgrade Bikes,” said Tim Lake, international sales manager. “We wanted a distribution partner who not only offers an exceptional sales service and support, but also has their finger on the pulse when it comes to supporting the IBD network that helped SixSixOne pioneer the protection market in the early 2000s and Upgrade was the obvious solution. I’m excited to work with the team to get the formidable SixSixOne Icon logo back on riders across the UK.”
Rory Hitchens, senior brand manager at Upgrade Bikes, added: “We are very pleased and excited to be welcomed into the SixSixOne family of global distributors and looking forward to bringing this prestigious brand back to a wide dealer audience, it’s a fantastic fit with our DMR brand and sits very well with our core roots of mountain biking within the company.
“We look forward to helping many of our dealers, make great business with SixSixOne in the coming months and into the long term future.”
SixSixOne is a protection brand that has been around since 1999, ensuring riders are covered from head to toe when pushing their limits out on the trails. With this new distribution partnership, the brand is aiming to ‘reignite fire’ in the UK market.
“We appreciate that bricks and mortar stores and local stores play a really important part in the whole retail environment, and it was something that we just haven’t been present in for probably the past five years and consequently, we’d lost a lot of ground in the UK,” says SixSixOne’s Andy Gowan.
“We’ve been hunting for the ideal people to give us that extra bricks and mortar representation, while still covering the whole retail environment. We want to be present everywhere that people potentially are going to buy stuff and Upgrade was a really good target for us to go after because it didn’t have any conflict with our brand at all.”
“The company’s 25 and a bit years old and we’ve never actually done any protection, which, when you consider the strength of the house brand DMR, is a bit odd in a way because the two go so well together,” says Upgrade’s Hitchens. “DMR has products to make you ride fast, and SixSixOne has the protection to keep you safe while doing it.
“Gloves are popular with cyclists, especially mountain bikers. We’ve never done apparel which would include, in a loose sense, protection, but protection, since SixSixOne started, is its own category.”
Read our full interview with Gowan and Hitchens in the upcoming July edition of BikeBiz.
Read the June issue of BikeBiz below:
