Today on the Merchant Center podcast episode number 10, we're gonna talk about why you need to understand the reality of market forces, competition, and customers before you decide to base your whole race business on another fad, and then we're gonna test what we've learned by looking at snowshoeing and fat biking. These are 2 of the latest off road sports to enter the market, and we'll see if they have what it takes to be worth your time to promote,
or maybe they're just more marketing spend. Are you ready? Let's roll. Thank you for joining me for the Merchant Center podcast. I'm your professional recognier, your teacher, your merchant of dirt, your host and owner of more shoes than my wife, Kyle Bondo. Okay. They're hiking boots, bike clips, and trail running shoes. But the count does not look good. Our website is merchants of dirt.com.
And if you're new to the Merchants of dirt podcast, welcome aboard. This is your personal trail guide with a complex world of recreational engineering to try to help you simplify the business of offering a great promotion. And make the art and science behind building and building out the races understandable. Along with me, is the wrecker of races and the collector of vintage hand grenades, my coast, Mister Murphy, together, we're on a mission to teach you how to build better races and a better racing business.
Have you ever just loved the sport? I mean, been a really big fan of a sport that nobody understands. For me, it's a venture racing. I love a venture racing. And if it's run well, it really makes you think strategically. And it's 1 of the few sports where slow and steady racers can actually beat the faster guys. I mean, be slow solely on better decisions and endurance. You can actually beat a faster team. Just by making smarter decisions.
That's where the strategic stuff comes from. It's full of complexity and drama and makes you really dig deep. Enforces you to learn a lot about yourself, about what you're capable of. But a promoter of event tracing also learns a lot about themselves when they build an adventure race. The time commitment alone to create, design, test, prep, run the thing and then tear it all down. I mean, of course, this size, usually for 12 hour or 24 hour of interraces, is enormous.
I mean, it literally is the race within the race. Promoters of adventure races are incredible people because to do all that takes a lot of endurance by itself. Unfortunately, all of the effort doesn't bring in a lot of wealth. Most adventure race only promoters don't make much on these kind of races. Some barely break even with many promoters disappearing after 2 or 3 years or starting.
So why did they do it? The short answer is because they love it. Just like the adventure racer in me loves event racing, race promoters who put on event races do it for the love of the sport. Even if if you make money doing it, many of enter race promoters believe in a sport in this sport,
and want it to become successful. I mean, often, it's because they love event erasing just as much as everyone else, but no 1 is putting on the races in their area. So they decide that they're gonna hold 1. And then they do too. And between racing in the races of other promoters, they're putting on, they're putting on races for those promoters. Venture racing is a close knit community. Most veteran event erasers know each other. And if they don't, it's 6 degrees of separation. I mean, that's that's the thing, you know, between you and 6 other event racers, you know Kevin Bacon. I get that right. Right? Maybe. Anyway, there is a moral to the story though. The moral to the adventure race Venture Race promoters
saga. And that moral is, you can be a fan of a French sport. Heck, you can be you can downright love a sport like no other, but make no mistake. It will not make you a bunch of money. And why is that? Why don't these races make a bunch of money? To answer that, you need to understand 3 things. And that's today's topic, which is market forces competition in customers, the trifecta of why things do and do not sell.
You could love a race discipline It could be the greatest challenge you've ever experienced and be the reason you started getting the race in the first place, but if nobody else wants to do it, you will never make any money building it. Period. You could find a way to build a niche and create a good following for your fringe ray discipline but it will take some serious dedication and time to establish it as a sport that people will want to participate in. Time you may have. Money you don't.
Case in point, I love another support called mountain bike reintering, which just happens to be the funnest part of Venturacing. This is a sport where the mountain bike course is determined by how you find a number of orienteering flags in order using only a map and a compass. Who doesn't love that? It's huge in Europe. It's a big part of a venture race in the United States. It's much safer than typical mountain bike racing course because you're not riding in packs.
Lot of times, you're just doing a lot of start and stopping. You're doing fast and slow and fast and slow. It also adds a nice balance to the Cross Country mountain bike racing experience. When your speed is determined by how fast you can make a route choice. Super fast riders, they can't navigate out of wet paper bag. And they happen to be slow in mountain bike orienteering
unless unless they've experienced and and practiced at this. While slow riders that make multiple route choices in in advance are actually the fast ones. In mountain bike orienteering, it is the speed you make a decision that makes you fast. How fast you can pedal the bike. So that's why he loved this sport. And I I wanna know Why is it not more popular in America? I mean, if I love it, other people gotta love it. Right?
Well, think about it. Have you ever heard about a bike or interior before I start talking about it? Yeah. Exactly. Nobody knows anything about mountain bike touring touring, which is why it is still a niche sport. I mean, some more interiors do. But they don't like mountain bikes. Go figure. Most mountain bikers don't know anything about it. And if they did, a map in the compass is a huge barrier to a lot of them. This leads to venture racers, which are kind of the weird
mixed breed of that that whole gang. All venture razors have done some form of mount bike reintering with many of them supporting the growth mount bike reintering events, which is great. But there's only about 2000 event razors in the United States. Total, if all the event razors just in the state I lived in were to show up, in 1 of my mountain bike or enduring races, I would get a turn out of above. Yeah. You do the math. It would never be enough. There in lies the rub.
If I built the race promotion business slowly around a niche sport like mountbaker and tiering, I would go broken a year. How do I know? Because I've tried to do it, and it failed. America is not ready for mountain bike or endearing. It is not impossible to think that fringe race disciplines will never make money, but if the market is not there, well, market is not there. We take mountain bike Enduro racing, for instance. Enduro
racing started much the same way as most niche disciplines do. Few people knew about it and even fewer people were promoting it. It didn't make anyone any money in the beginning. But over time, in some promotional experiments and this is what this is. Mitch Racing, fringe racing is all experiment. Enduro started to take hold. Once customers, people with money, started to show an interest in the discipline,
that's when the race started the races started to materialize. The minute you can make money promoting these races is when all the promoters come out of the woodwork. But you're first starting a race promotion business? You don't have the luxury to conduct promotional experiments, do you? I mean promotional experiments take a long, long time, and some serious educate dedication.
Before they turn into something that makes money and that, my friend, is the wrong way to build a new race promotion company. When you're big and profitable, you can experiment with niche sports all you want. But when you're first starting out, you need to focus on keeping everything simple. I mean, that's the it's 1 of the principles of a powerful race. Start small. Stay simple.
So let's let's talk about these market forces and how they impact your discipline choice because they do impact what race disciplines you decide to do as a beginning race promoter. So what are market forces? I mean, the easy way to describe market force is to say, that there are economic factors affecting price, demand, and availability
of something that you wanna buy or sell. For example, right? Whatever sport you're thinking about starting with has a core discipline. And this core discipline is the key to directing your passions into something that you can make money doing. Remember my mountain bike touring touring example? I love mountain bike touring touring touring, but I know I cannot make a living from it, at least not right now.
There is no demand for the sport, and no demand means no matter how available I make it, it will take time before any significant number of racers will want it. That is difficult place to start as a race promotion business. The next market force you need to consider are competitors. Who are your competitors? Once you've established what market you're in, you need to know who else is in that market in that space. Who's promoting those race disciplines?
Especially in the area you wanna operate in. I mean, competitors a strange word word in the race promotion business. Most race promoters say they like friendly competition. They see competitors helping increase the demand of the sport by providing a variety of race options. The more races there are in that discipline of a particular area, the more demand that will be generated.
More demand means higher turnout, higher turnout, means more sold out races, more sold out races means more profit for them. In a way, race promoters see this kind of demand as the rising tide that lifts all boats. Unfortunately, where race promoters part ways is on that friendly part of the competition. It is when it comes to their perceived territory They don't like to share. They don't want any of their competitors
encroaching on the parks they use. The established trails and routes that they have created and definitely don't like them taking the dates that they reserved. That's the day in which I always have my classic mountain bike race. The trail run is always done on Memorial Day weekend. You can't hold a race the same day. Oh, well, I'll get my pitch forks and torches.
Yeah. They see more races as a good thing, so long as it happens someplace else. If you think that sounds illogical, you might also consider that many of your would be competitors also adhere to the unwritten code of the so called ethics that states, commandment number 1. Do not hold your event. On my established course. Commandment number 2. Do not hold your event on my established race date, and commandment number 3. If you do use my date, do not hold your race like mine, nearby, you
know, lightning and thunder and stuff. Right? Truthy told many race promoters will object to you setting up similar events near their territory and make the claim that becoming their competitor is somehow unethical. Oh, dare you compete with me. Do you not know who I am? Sure. If you went about copying everything they did right down to the same venues and race courses, that could be considered
a little a little shady. However, opening her race promotion business in the same area and making them have to work a little harder to attract customers, that's not unethical. That's called business. Can you name a business that does not have a competitor? Me neither. And although a race promoter cannot trademark their route and certainly cannot reserve exclusive uses of the date, they will try to convince you otherwise to shut you out of their territory.
Why? Because race promoters do not want competition ever, which is why you need to know who these people are. And what businesses they run before you select the area to set up shop in. It would be better for you to avoid competitors that sound like the ones I described above. Again, we go back to
the starting small and making it simple. You do not want to pick a fight with these guys right out of the gate. The time to pick a fight with them might come sometime later. But for now, stay away from the promoters that think they own everything. There is plenty of parks, plenty of private land in the United States for you to consider using for your 1st race. Consider exploring
those areas first. For now, they're getting too far into how to deal with competitors, you know, especially in your chosen market, all you really need to do is figure out who else is doing what you do in your area. Once you know who those people are and what businesses they're in, make a list of them. These are your competitors. If you're a mountain bike racer, you're doing mountain bike race promotion, And there are other people doing mountain bike race promotion? Those are your competitors. If you're a trail runner, you're doing trail races, and there are other people doing trail races, those are your competitors. Not difficult. Just make a list of them. Those are your competitors, and knowing them is important. So what's Marketforce number 3? Marketforce number 3?
Is the obvious 1. Customers. More importantly, potential customers. And your customer base Me customers are your goal without them. Your race will not make money. Period. No 1 shows up. It's not gonna happen. This means you need to pick a race discipline
that has the potential customer base in your area you want to work in. I know from earlier examples with the mountain bike or interior does not have a large enough customer base to be a good starting choice. 30 people every race. She's not gonna do it. Not unless I did 50 races a year. You know? Could that work? Sure. But that's what? 2 weeks off.
It's virtually an unknown sport right now, but I do know that there is a huge demand for the quarters of Flynn, now by racing. How do I know this? Research.
There's literally a race for every weekend on the calendar in the United States with most of them posting start listen results. Registration sites, forums, blogs, social media, and sports organization websites are all great sources of finding out what kind of events are happening in your area. But customer demand can really become a reality. If you can get your hands on your competitor's historical race results, With this data, you can find out what their turnout was year to year and analyze
any trends. Wouldn't that be nice? Although you may have seen the turnout numbers, the growing eyes, finding this kind of data strongly backs up your observations and helps support your entry into the market with real numbers, This is why it's hard to be the 1st in in a given market because you're the 1 establishing the market. You're the 1 finding customers
creating repeat business. Easy to be second because the first guy did it for you. The first 1 has to make all the rules, find all the customers, build the market share. The second 1 gets the benefit from the first one's efforts. Doesn't seem fair. Again, that's business. But the first 1 also gets to establish those rules and those customers, but they need that they have a lot of capital they gotta put in to do that. In the case of Race Motion, if you have a competitor that's already putting races on your area, you can use their results to establish customer trends and market demand for free Say that again. You can establish market, mark customer trends, and market demand for free. Knowing that, knowing that you can now look up the results from your competitor's races, it's now time to crunch some numbers. Make a chart, plot some points, and start to visualize the data by comparing apples to apples trailer runners, the trail runners, or mountain bikers, the mountain bikers, chances are the customer trend will appear right away, and you'll get an idea of just how big or small that particular competitor's market share really is and that discipline up or down, the data will not give you complete insight. It might show you races that have had less racers this year than last year or races that had an average turnout for several years, then a surge in registration of 1 particular race, making heads or tails of this data will Take you some time. Whether insurance, permits, illness, time off, competition, reputation, etcetera, are all just some of the dozens of reasons why your competitor data will not always be clear. But the point is not to hyperanalyze
your competitor's risk results is to understand the size of your potential customer base within that market. Why customers are attracted to 1 race or another is not as important, right, at least right now, as finding out if there are customers in the first place. All your research need to do is prove that customers actually exist in your chosen market area. And even better, we're willing to spend money on race If you're paying attention to these numbers and your competitors, the answer to this question is probably gonna be yes. There are customers who are willing to spend money on races in your area. Some analysis of your competitor's race turnouts should give you a ballpark of how large this customer's base is. And ultimately, this is your potential customer base. Now putting it all together. So how do you choose a discipline
after going through your market forces, making your competitors list, and finding out there are potential customers. By working through each of the process, you should end up with your race discipline choice that best fits the kind of race you want to build. This choice is essentially a to building the race promotion business that makes money. Hopefully, you have already determined what race discipline you want to promote based on the data you collected. But if not, please go back through this and write down each step and what it requires you to find. Once you've made your race discipline choice to base your race promotion business on, it will be time to start building
your 1st of many races. Alright. Now we have to apply this market force thinking to the real world. How do the concepts of markets competition and customers work when we investigate 2 different niche off road sports? Do they meet the test? Well, the recognier is always the 1 for teaching by example. So let's begin with our first off road racing French sport. And this is snowshoeing. Okay.
So that everyone is on the same page. Let's first define what snowshoe racing is. Now, according to Jim Morrison at the smithsonian.com, wrote an article called the History of Snow Shoe Racing. And many of us think of snowshoeing as the traditional web tennis racket. You know, the tennis racket thing looking to boot attachment created by American Indians so you can go on the snow elves sinking into it. Right? The American Indians in Snowshoot tribes, each have their own design.
So 1 would have a bare paws shape, Snowshoot would just shorten wide to go into the forest. Another would have a canoe shaped snow shoes, a long and thin, good for cross country travel. There's even something called the Michigan snow shoe, which is the Hurons. Is the classic snow shoe with the tennis racket shape that we always see like in the cartoons. It allows hunters to carry heavy loads.
So Morrison points out, that the 4 Runner does no shoe racing associations were no shoe reconnearing or reconnearing recreation cult clubs. They began in Canada, the Northeastern United States, in late evenings, century. So there's no shootings been around for a while. These outings were in places included Montreal and Northern England Towns, and these were pretty big major events. Now we're talking about stuff in the in Canada and Northern United States where it snows all the time.
Which makes sense to have snow shoes there. Then someone, of course, challenges someone to a race in their snow shoes and boom. Snow shoe racing is born. Kinda like with any other sports is 2 people going, I bet you I can go faster than you can in x. Snowshoeing, not unlike any other sport. So now according to a couple hours of some research online, now this is not exhaustive research at the least. This is just
let me see let me see what I can find about snowshooting in a couple hours. And so I started asking our first market question, is there a market for Snow Sheer Racing? He's pretty straightforward. Well, according to our friend, Mister Morrison, if this missoni again, in the United States, a season can begin with the the race in the Sierra Nevada Mountains
It's like we're about Truckie, California. It's like Tahoe in December. It ends in March in the National Snoshe Championship, so places like Wisconsin. We're talking snowshoe racing all across the United States. Meanwhile, in in Europe, they have races like the loss Let me say this right. The La Colasplanda
snusier race. That sounds like a really nice race. That's in that's in the dolomites. That's Italy. Right? If 5000 people can be competing there. Imagine that. This is a a 10 kilometer event. Or they even have like Olympic marathoners on the podium. That's a big deal. To the rise of no show raising parallels with the popularity in snowshoeing. I mean, according to Outdoor Industry Foundation, over 3,000,000 Americans are
trails into the winter wonderland on snow shoes. This is, of course, data from 2009. That was a 17% increase over 2008. Oh, 7 years ago, does the desk still hold up? Well, the closest I could find was the outdoor recreation economy 2012 report. Now, and then I'll have these these links in the show notes you wanna find out yourself. The report stated that Americans spend nearly as much unsnocher sports That's $53,000,000,000 as it do on Internet access, which is like $54,000,000,000.
Yeah. Just just 54,000,000,000, no big deal. Right? This is a snow sports in general. This is like skiing and and snowboarding. Right? Not just snowshoeing. So okay. I need a little more a little more refinement. So 1 of the other industry associate members, the SIA, which is the Snow Sports Industries of America. They've completed a Snow Sports participation study 2014. Okay. That's 2 years ago. So what does that say? They see the growth in the retail sales of snow shoes from 2008, 2011
was up hey. Okay. That kinda matches with Mister Morrison's report. Right? But in 2012, the gross the gross started to decline. There's, like, a 10% gap of decline going into 2014. So Mister Morrison's article in 2011 is correct. Only in 2012, the snow shoe industry starts to show a decline in sales. So is the snow shoe the snow sports business that makes $53,000,000,000 a year is the whole thing in decline?
I mean, there could be a risk. Right? You don't you don't wanna start a race promotion business based on a a fad or a fringe sport that no one's really interested in anymore. That could be that could be painful to your bottom line. Could also be due to seasonally warm winters lack of snow. You ever thought about that? I mean, I don't wanna go out there with with global climate trends and, you know, where which states get snow wind and average snowfall
here versus there? Because that would be insane. But if you're a snow sports person, that matters to you. So is the lack of snow a result of the decline? Nope. People don't buy snow shoes if it doesn't snow. Right? Or is the industry declining? These are all good points. I don't know the answer to it. This is why we have to do research to find out. And if you're into this sport, you probably know the answer to that.
So you would certainly need to find the data from the last 2 years to make a solid measurement. However, it does appear that there's still a market. There's no chewing. Seems that way to be? Okay. So they're clearly our competitors. I mean, the United States the United States has in the United States, the United States has the Snow Shoe Association, the United States Snow Shoe Association. The USSR.
It's the government body for Snow Shu racing that shows that dozens of races are being held almost
all most of the entire regions of the country, including snow or no snow races in places like Flagstaff, Arizona. Okay? Flagstaff, Arizona. Have you been there? You get snow every now and then? And what happens if it doesn't snow? Well, they have things called no snow. That's kinda cool. Me these races Of course, is a vary from 10 kilometers to the, you know, the 5 k, 10 k, to a half or full marathons.
So some of the bigger events include the Granite States no shoe series, This is a big deal. This is held in New Hampshire, and it runs from January to March, so 3 months of snowshoeing. This series started 2009 with just 3 races. Now it's 9 races, 2017, 9 races. 1 from 3 to 9 in 8 years. Not bad. Not bad at all. They claim That snow shoe racing is 1 of the fastest growing winter sports in Northeast. They would know. They went from 3 to 9. Apparently, they're seeing the growth.
At least they're seeing it in New Hampshire. Right? With each of these races averaging between 50 to 200 snow shoe racers each, that's also not bad. Additionally, the race promoters are using snowshoe racing to augment their trail racing. Now here's an interesting idea. I mean, the parallels are obvious. Snowshoe racing occurs in the same trails. The trail races are on. So from December to April, they're doing snow shoe racing. And for April to December, they're doing trail running.
Look at that. It's pretty good. You put that feather in your head and think about that for a load of time. Right? What about customers? Well, the Granite snow the Granite State snow sure series, like we said, like I said, averages between 50 to 200 snow shoe racers each. Each race that shows some pretty good demand. Of course, this is New Hampshire. Hampshire is not very big. People live far away in certain places.
So there's definitely a demand. The private 50, the 200 razors showing up for a race in the snow in New Hampshire. That's pretty good. I wonder what their trail run rate numbers are at. It might be something pretty sure just to find out. Right? Maybe trail runners are the gateway drug to maybe trail running is a gateway drug? There's no showing. Maybe it's no showing. The gateway drug is rail running.
Because something interesting to find out, wouldn't it? Okay? Foover thought. Okay? What about where you live? I mean, Virginia where I live, not exactly a snowy place. At least it's not snow you can depend on for a race. If I had to put a race here all about snow, chances are mother nature not gonna give to me, just the way it works around here. That's where the media helps us out. Right? Because if you take a look at the magazines, even the snow share racers, you discover
now this is not exact this is off of list. Right? But you get some quick research and you find out that there are there's no shoe stuff for all over the United States, all over Europe. So even if there is no snow, What little snow there is or maybe even artificial snow? Hey, there's an idea. Right? How much does it cost you artificial snow? What about ski lodges?
You start to start thinking outside the box and these friendly stuff, well, runner's world has an article, the 12 snow shoe races, you must run this winter. Okay? These are the 12 you must run. What are the other ones? Okay. That's pretty good deal. Outside magazine, has snow shoe running 101. Everything you need to get started at the winter's most underrated endurance sport. So already, they're also putting out the best snow shoes of 2016.
That's this year. 2016. Right? Best new shoes. Trailer Runner magazine. Trailer magazine. If you're a trail runner, you know Trailer Runner magazine. Right? How in the world do you train for a snow shoe marathon? I mean, they say a snow shoe racing is growing fast. Here's how trail runners should train for these challenges Challenging, but fun events. So even Trailrunner magazine is getting in on the gig. They see the connection.
In fact, I think I remember a winter series. From Trailer World magazine that had the buyer's guide for snow shoes. And somebody's snow shoes look cool. I mean, they're not tennis racquets anymore. They look like mini snowboards with claws and teeth and buckles makes you wanna go buy them. I mean, it's no shoes. There's no shoeing even has their own magazine. It's snowshumag.com.
Yeah. Go figure it really catchy. Right? So with all the very basic amount of research that we determine, 3 things. Right? 1, there is a market for snowshoes and snowshoe racing. I mean, the sales part might be declining but we know that the racing part is still very active. 2, we know that there are competitors
who are promoting races, and we know there's a governing association. So at least they've got rules, and they've got officials, so they've got some sort of semblance of governance. Right? And we know that there's a national championships up here. In fact, I did a quick search just a few minutes ago and found out that there's a 2017 World Stohshoe Championships that's gonna take place in the Anuradhi
in Northern New York in February. World championshipers no shoes. Believe that? Okay. And 3, there is a growing customer base of races that are interested in reading about snooze your race. They're paying registration fees and showing up to races. And based on this research and this research alone, you might conclude that no issue raised promotion might be good for your business. Unless you live in Florida, but even the no shoe race
could be interesting, but it might be too fringe for the ever lades. I mean, there's a there's there's rides and no no snow off road events. Believe it or not, go over reckoner.com,
I have an article that I wrote way back called the no snow byathlon. I have this fixation with the Olympics, the byathlon. It's the only sport, the for winter sports. The only sport the United States has never meddled in. Never meddled in. You believe that? It's got guns in it, and we've never meddled in it. Yeah. I know. Every time I hear it, I go, I can't believe we don't meddle in this. Yeah. It's crazy. So I wrote an article about what what they're gonna take. Well, discover something called the no snow byathlon because that sounds like a lot of fun. Shoot a bow, shoot a gun, run a circle, and come back. That sounds like a blast. So for the most part, no snows, no chewing, and byathons are both French sports. However, if you live in an area that gets reasonable snowfall for part of the year, you could safely assume that you could build a following based off snow share racing. Just remember the principles, start small,
stay simple, and do more research. This is just tiny bit of research. And that's all there is. Understand the basic market forces that are involved in something like snow shoe racing. The fringe sports snow shoe racing.
So let's try a tougher 1. What are the market forces lurking around when we start talking about the fat bike craze? So like before, let's define what fat bike and fat bike racing is. Fat bike racing is simply mountain bike racing. It's a mountain bike with really big tires. How big? Easily 3 inches to 5 inches wide. Although they can be wider in some cases. They're like motorcycle tires in some cases, which is crazy. Most fat bike riders like the tire dimensions
being wide because they're grippy and requires less handling skills for nor than a normal mountain bike needs. So they can break and corner and climb much easier than their skin and their cousins. So in addition to better trail handling, they can handle snow and ice far better than average bikes. Some riders find the handling in just about any terrain to be so stable that they'll wear flip flops. They'll go without helmets.
So just think mountain bike with really big tires. Right? You probably seen them. I probably go, what the heck is that? They look like if they have motorcycle, like, the old BMX motorcycle on their on their tires. Okay? So what are the market then what's the market for fat bikes? Well, it kinda depends whether you ask. This is an interesting sport because there is a lot more mountain. Fat bike culture, you'll find online,
than fat bike racing. I mean, there is fat bike racing out there, but there's a lot of fat bike culture. And it's kind of this like duality thing between mountain bikers fat bike, brown bikers, and fat bike culture, mountain bikers. It's an interesting kind of mix of people. Almost like the the same way, like, sulfur's and snowboarders. Fatbike is kinda like the mountain bike version of that. Right? Well, most mountain bike most mountain bike are gonna tell you that
it's more popular than ever. I mean, it was invented back in the eighties and You have desert guys out in New Mexico, and then you'll have I did a bike racers in Alaska. Fat biking has evolved. To become 1 of the fastest growing trends in cycling. And according to fatbike.com, yeah, fatbike.com, fatdashbike.com. In their article titled Global Fat Bike Day in the art of bicycle chillification. Yeah. Pretty cool. Including the fat bikes have experienced
a large amount of worldwide growth over the last 5 years. I mean, yet, every fat bike article is telling you that the fat bike is growing. And for everyone that is telling you that there is another side from another blog called bikeradar.com. They put out articles like the 1 they recently posted called the Death of Fat Bike's question mark. I mean, with the subcut title, kind of sort of not really, it's a bit complicated.
Okay. In that article, I thought that Russia each Hopefully, I'm saying his name right, Russell EACH, had written what amounts to clickbait since the last line his article reads, So it's clear as mud, that fat bikes, days are numbered. Well, actually, they probably aren't.
Goodwin Russell. But his article did raise some good questions about the market of fat bikes. Each was looking at a survey done by a bicycle retailer, of about 300 bicycle shops that that was done back in February 2016 that showed fat bike sales the winter of 2015 2016 season or about 51% not as good as expected. These are the retailers saying, not like as expected. These retailers also reported the fat bike sales had declined by 24%. Since the start of 2016 and they had an inventory of a 107%.
That does not sound good like good news for VAD bike sales overall. Does it? So each site's the reason is there's this is, like, any disruption of an equipment market. There's a new technology out there. And it's called the plus size bike. I Could you not? The plus size bike. What's the plus size bike? Well, you have regular mountain bikes. Right? And then you'll have fat bikes. K? Regular mountain bikes, between, what, 1.5 and 2, maybe 22.5 inch sized tires. This is the width of the tire,
the wheel. It will be tire, the rubber part of the tire. Right? Fat bikes or you're measuring in a 3 inches to 5 inches. Go. So spread your hand way out wide. That's about a fat bike tire. Just about just before your hand goes perfectly flat, kind of curl the tips. That's about the side of the fat bike tire. Right? They're about 5 inches or so. Plus bikes, sit in that 2.83.0 inch range.
That's it. They're the in betweeners, and now they're cutting down on fat bike sales. Why? Well, the riders rarely don't want super big tires on their fat bikes. So are they really fat bikers? Well, I imagine if I go and ask my fat bike friends, they'll probably give a dirty look to the plus bike. This is the same people who look at full suspension.
Now we need full suspension for. Harkdale does everything. Right? Or the people that look at the 29er when the 26 inch tires were just fine. Why don't we get 29 inch for? And then the guys who came up at 27.5 in between, oh, that's just a weird fad. That'll go away. Man, man, it did. Does the plus bike here to stay? Or will the fat bike went out? Who's to say? Right? It could be a bad sign for fat bikes overall, maybe. So how about competitors. So there is a market.
So we established the reason market. There are bikes. There are lots of bikes out there. Fairly there's lots of bikes to say. And I'm saying with a with a inventory 107% this Christmas, man, that bike's probably gonna be on sale. I bet you coming in January February. Gonna be a lot of nice fat bikes for sale for good prices. I mean, Surrey makes a really good fat bike. Anyway, I digress. So how about competitors?
Are there a race promoters racing fat bikes? Well, there are fat bike racing all over the United States and Europe. I mean, there are races like the Great Lakes Fatbike series. This is the sport's largest fat bike series in the United States. Additionally, fat bikes have their own national championship that's backed by USA Cycling. So if USA Cycling's backing Fat Bikes, that's some relevance there.
It sounds like good growth, you know, especially for a fat bike racing. Right? What about customers? I mean, fat bikes seem to be more of the culture choice than a racing choice. As you start to go out there and you find those, events like the global fat bike day. Global fat bike day seemed more about chilling out and drinking a beer, than it did about racing. Okay. Cool. So is the advent of words that accompany Fabry culture like chillification?
What we're looking for in fat bikes? Does that mean racing? Maybe not so much? Well, if you look at the Great Lakes Fatbike series again, you find that they host 200 riders in some of the races. And here is here is a big deal in racing. So to pay attention to this partner here, when it comes to fat bikes, With a great lakes fat bike series, what I found was that there was a good 20% of the fat bike runners were women
That's something you don't see every day. Go to your average mountain bike race and see how many women are racing there. Is it 20% of the race? Maybe, maybe not. Put that in your feather. Right? There's feather in your hat. Right? So what other kind of stuff is out there? Well, magazine continuously publishes articles on fat bikes. Outside the magazine seems to love fat bikes,
why? Because they see fat bikes not just a racing tool, They see it as the travel tool. There's a there's a article series about going across the Mojave Desert. There's a guy who riding against them in Mongolia. There's people going through all sorts of, like, a really rough terrain. So they're publishing articles like how fat bikes become the hottest trend in cycling. And they have the best fat bikes in 2016. They talk about this crop of impressive newcomers in the fat bike technology.
So there's new bikes being made, there's new technology out there. Now, again, this is very basic of mental model research. But what have we discovered? About fat bikes. Kinda use the same thing with snowshoeing. Well, what difference about fat bikes? Well, 1, there is a market for fat bikes and fat bike racing. I mean, the sales are declining, just like snowshoes, But we know there's there's racing, this part is still active, and we know that sales are declining,
maybe because everyone's got a fat bike, maybe they're waiting for the next thing, next big thing to come out. Maybe they're wondering what's gonna happen with bad bikes. Maybe they're looking forward to more people getting into it. Maybe people are just waiting around to see, is it a fad? Should I buy 1? I don't know if they're riding a fat bike. They're kinda fun. They are really hard to to to make the fall off. Why tires do matter?
So 2, we know that there are competitors who are promoting races. We know that there's a governing association. You say cycling is backing fat bike championships. And we know there's a national championship every year. And I did another quick search. I found out there's the 2017 World Fatbike championships. It's gonna take place in Crested Butte, Colorado in January. So worldwide fat bike is here. So number 3, however, The customer base is more culture riders and races.
Is it could have an impact? I mean, they're interested in reading about fat bike, but it's unclear whether or not they're interested in paying registration fees and showing up to races. I found some fat bike races that didn't have a lot of people in them. But is that just because it's too new? In my own experience, it has been that fat bike riders are kind of small right now, not a lot of them. Some of these guys are pretty bold, and it it spans races, genders, age groups,
especially when it comes to mountain bike racing. In mountain bike racing, we ran an experiment this year in the summertime if we opened a fat bike category in 1 of our local series. And the most I ever had in 1 of the given races
was 4 Fatbike riders, the Star Line. Does that mean that fat bike racing is not a good fringe market to invest your money, your time and money into? In this case, the jury is still out of that bikes. And when you discover a race discipline where you have to use the words like the jury is still out, you need to steer your away from that until the stability can be observed. Fat bikes might be a balanced machine,
but as a racing discipline, it needs some time to grow. This is the power of doing a little targeted research using market forces thinking as your guide. I mean, as the buzz around each friend sports,
reach fringe sport. You focus on dwindles. You'll see some of your customers gravitate towards the next buzz, and they'll forget about the other thing. So they'll declare and then some will declare that their special off road sport is not dying. You have to see the bigger picture even though the sales are falling or leveling off. And 1 day, they will announce that that, like like I heard the other day. Pavement is dead.
Really, Pavement's dead. And next, they'll be saying trail running has run its course. Total pun intended. Right? But sometimes, it's the international market that still has the potential to grow a sport. And what we thought was the United States suddenly comes back to life. This could be said about surfing, backpacking, hunting. I mean, all off road sports that were just now finding their new value in the market again.
You will be successful in your race promotion efforts by keeping a constant eye on the market forces that impact your discipline And when the time comes, when your fringe off road sports starts to explode in popularity. And that's when you'll be right there with a race promotion offering before anybody else because you'll be watching the market, and you'll know when the time comes, to not treat it like fringe anymore.
Do not assume your passion for building a certain kind of race will be carried by those whom you want to race in it. What you think is not always what the market thinks, but do not think that your love for a French sport will always steer you wrong either. Your passion is your advantage. It's a great advantage to have. It will help You keep going when the building of races becomes hard, and it will from time to time. Your passion could be just a thing
and inspires others to find the same joy in your French sports you do. Think about it. Inspiring others in weird sports describes about every famous sports success story there is. You can be the catalyst that gets a race discipline from out of the shadows in the mainstream. We just asked the race promoters were the first to pitch the 100 mile trail run or the challenging mountain bike riders to do
5 downhill events in 1 day. They could have easily quit, especially only 10 right racers showed up to their 1st race. How disappointing would that be? And they didn't have big turnouts at the beginning. Hundred miles is a long ways. 5 downhill rides in 1 day. That's a lot of riding. But it was their passion, just like yours. That helped them discover what kind of market interest their French sport actually had. No 1 really knows until you. You create something that others
can experience for your first time. And who knows? If they like it, it could ask for more. That could be just the 1 thing that pushes your race business from a hobby that you do in your past time, to a race promotion business, you do full time. And now you know.
Okay. It's December last month of the year. Do you have a strategy for picking your next race dates? You even started planning your race dates for next year? If you're thinking you need to pull out your calendar and pin and start making some some guesses right now, stop. Don't do it until you listen to the next step so merch is your podcast. And we're gonna talk about how your business strategy greatly impacts your race, date choices. You're not gonna wanna miss this episode.
Thank you so much for listening to The Merchants Group podcast. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me on Twitter. I have at merchants of dirt, no spaces. And if you wanna subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode, merchants of dirt.com is high you do it. 1 click gets you every single episode for free. If you got an Android, iPhone, whoever gets your podcast, 1 click gets it for view. Thank you for helping me build the Merchant Center community and for telling your friends how they can build better races too. And I'll see you on the next episode of the Merchant Center guests.