Kadisco: Cycling, Marketing, Sponsorship, Social Media

Gone from performance cycling, adidas goes fixed-gear

Posted on 19. May, 2009 by Josh in Bike industry, Trends

The sneaker world has been abuzz this week with news of a limited-edition adidas fixed gear shoe, which is an interesting development given adidas’ departure from the cycling business at the end of last year. Granted, adidas Performance and adidas Originals are very different brands and separate parts of the company. But symbolically, it’s an intriguing statement for the bike industry.

Performance: adidas cycling

adidas kicks have graced the feet of cycling stars from Eddy Merckx to Jan Ullrich to Thor Hushovd. For much of that time, adidas cycling apparel was also on the market. But, for the foreseeable future, 2008’s will be the last crop of three-striped cycling good we see.

The backstory is that adidas acquired Mavic’s parent company, Salomon Group, in 1997 and put the adidas cycling line under Mavic’s control in 2003. Salomon Group was sold to a Finnish holding company in 2005, after which Mavic continued to design and produce adidas cycling products under a licensing agreement. Mavic declined to renew that agreement beyond 2008 and launched their own softgoods line this year. I have a fresh and crispy pair of Mavic Zxelliums, and they’re excellent.

Although it appears to have been Mavic’s call to make the split, adidas has gone quietly from the performance cycling business. Meanwhile…

Lifestyle: The Complete Ride

The Complete Ride is adidas’ Zeitfrei model with a pedal-gripping tread pattern and a stiffened sole. It was created as a collaboration among adidas, German sneaker shop Solebox, and streetwear blog Hypebeast. Bianchi was also involved but my sense is that they just kicked in a couple custom-painted frames for the photo shoot. Both Hikmet from Solebox and Eugene from Hypebeast have admitted that they don’t really ride, so I guess the design inspiration must have come from adidas.

The yellow/grey one is the Hypebeast version; it comes with “a cycling cap, messenger bag and canvas carry-all” and will be available exclusively through Hypebeast’s online store. The red/black Solebox colorway is exclusive to their store in Berlin and comes with a pump.

Takeaway

Here’s a graph of Google search trends that I used for a MASH-related presentation last year:

Clearly, there’s a fixed-gear bandwagon to be jumped on, but it may be a lot bigger than many in the cycling industry realize. But relevance requires a different outlook than what we’re used to. A design by a cultural influencer who doesn’t ride wouldn’t be the way to a launch a racing shoe, but the relationship between style and functionality is vastly different between performance cycling and lifestyle cycling. I’ll have a post on this theme later in the week.

(Eddy Merckx ad via Bobke Strut)