The Business of Cycling

Brett Sullivan is the VP of Merchandising at Backcountry and Competitive Cyclist, the largest cycling e-commerce business in the US. 

Brett started as a mechanic in their bike shop 14 years ago. We talk about what really drives demand today and why customers from paid ads are fragile. He explains how their Gearhead service turns first-time buyers into loyal ones, how they came through the post-COVID drop-off, and how the Amazon effect has changed what customers expect. We also discuss how he sees brands trying to break into the US, and what exactly what he looks for.

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Max Strandvitz became CEO of Mips just months before COVID hit — inheriting a company that had come close to bankruptcy multiple times before finding its footing. In this episode, he unpacks the philosophy that took Mips from survival mode to 11 consecutive quarters of growth in bike: structure, focus, and discipline. Max explains why Mips turns down far more opportunities than it pursues — including repeated offers to launch its own helmet brand — and draws a sharp line between real innovation and what he calls "renovation," arguing that consumers can always tell the difference. It's a candid look at what it actually takes to build a category-defining ingredient brand, one deliberate "no" at a time.

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Every time you snap a magnetic buckle on a bike helmet, a school backpack, or a water bottle cage, there's a good chance it's a Fidlock. What started as a teenager's scrapyard fix for a cello case has grown into a company with twelve hundred patents, a hundred and thirty employees, and products moving in the millions — from Nike gear to car interiors.

Joachim Fiedler joined me at Eurobike 2026 to talk about how Fidlock built one of the most quietly ubiquitous ingredient brands around: the patent-everything strategy, splitting the business between industrial components and consumer products like the Twist bottle line, and the deliberate "A surface, B surface" playbook for getting a brand noticed on someone else's product.

It's a conversation about betting everything on one core idea — and never quite letting go of it.

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In this special "best-of" episode, we revisit some of the most compelling conversations on branding from the past year. Featuring clips from Claire Deschamps (Assos), Hugo Davidson (Knog), Greg Shapleigh (Giro/Highbar), and Nikki Hawes (Whyte Bikes), this roundup dives into what actually makes a cycling brand resonate — from turning community into your most authentic storyteller, to standing out in a commoditized category through bold positioning, to the discipline of knowing whether an idea is a genuine strategy or just a fleeting opportunity. A recurring thread ties it all together: authenticity, focus, and staying true to your brand's core values are what separate brands that fade from brands that endure.

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I sat down with Chris Sugai, General Manager of Gates Corporation's Mobility Unit — and the founder of Niner Bikes, where he championed 29" wheels back when they were less than 1% of the market. Now he's doing it again, this time with belt drives.

We talked about:
The uncanny parallel between the resistance he faced pushing 29ers in the early 2000s and the skepticism belt drives face today — almost all of it from people who've never actually ridden
What it's like being an "ingredient brand" inside OEM partnerships, and why the real work happens in the trenches with frame and drivetrain manufacturers, not in front of the end consumer
Selling Niner after 20 years, the capital strain of growing a company at double-digit rates, and what it taught him
The transition from 40 years as an entrepreneur to being an employee at a 115-year-old, $3.5B public company — and why he actually prefers it
There's something great about hearing a founder talk candidly about giving up control, and what he gained in return.

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