Although this piece isn’t really about major bike industry brands like Scott, this shift in their messaging from the 2009 (left) to 2010 VeloNews Buyer’s Guides is perhaps related.

At the time that the 2009 ad would have been due, Scott was just starting their sponsorship and might not have had a chance to do a photo shoot with the team now known as HTC-Columbia. Scott still chose a racing & performance theme for the ad. A year later, they kept an element of performance (lightweight) but went with comfort and a non-racer (i.e. a VeloNews reader), even after Columbia’s 86-win season.

COLUMN

This piece appears in the current issue of ROAD Magazine that’s been out for a couple of weeks. It was written in October 2009.

A business theorist named Peter Drucker once wrote that an enterprise has two essential functions: marketing and innovation. Until quite recently, this philosophy dominated the segment of the bike industry that focuses on road cyclists who could be described as “moderate-to-heavy users”. However, there now seems to be a backlash against the innovation part of Drucker’s dictum as newly influential players emphasize nostalgia rather than performance. But how far will this new aesthetic carry them?

The notion that serious cyclists want increasingly high-performance equipment underpins how high-end cycling products are developed and promoted. It’s an arms race to create the lightest, fastest, most aerodynamic merchandise and sign the most successful athletes to endorse it. We’ll call this the modernist approach. As a result of it, we see things like the massive reshuffling of teams and bike sponsors that took place last year (2008) and the deluge of slick time trial bikes that inundated us this year (2009).

Not surprisingly, the messages from these companies pretty much boil down to, “buy this and win.” There’s probably such an ad on the page opposite this column. Of course, the industry knows that the majority of serious cyclists don’t race, at least not formally. Nonetheless, the common assumption has been that these consumers desire the same qualities in their bikes, components, and accessories as professional racers do. But this assumption is eroding.

Welcome to postmodern road cycling.

This new aesthetic – shaped by Rapha, Embrocation Magazine, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, and others – is not a merely rejection of the ubiquitous modernist aesthetic. No one is advocating a return to toe clips and down tube shifters. Instead, the postmodern view of the sport filters the most evocative, iconic elements of cycling’s past through an artistic lens.

So, while cycling’s modernism lives in the present with the stars of today and looks to the features and technologies of tomorrow, postmodernism aims to be timeless. And it’s striking a chord.

I see two significant factors enabling this trend. First is the recognition that the modernist approach is disconnected from the ways in which most people actually ride. The values that it embodies – competition and technology – are still relevant. But perhaps more so are the things that modernism eschews – camaraderie and simplicity. It’s this emphasis that allows postmodernism to deemphasize Drucker-esque innovation.

At the same time, legitimate innovation in the road cycling market is harder and harder to achieve. After a flurry of advancements a few years ago, it’s now possible to buy an inexpensive, unbranded carbon frame from Asia that’s lighter and stiffer than pretty much every frame that was ever produced prior to around 2006. Consumers know this.

These factors open the door for postmodernism, which in turn opens doors for new definitions of what it means to be a serious cyclist, which in turn open doors for more people to become serious cyclists. Additionally, postmodernism has low barriers to entry. It takes a lot less money to shoot beautiful pictures of epic riding than it does to sponsor a ProTour team.

The sum of all these elements is a sense of nostalgia like the one that was famously described on Mad Men as, “a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone… It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” If it can maintain that feeling, cycling’s postmodern aesthetic has the potential to cause a significant shift in how the bike industry approaches both marketing and innovation.

Rapha promotional vehicle from the Tour of Britain

Postmodernism

A business theorist named Peter Drucker once wrote that an enterprise has two essential functions: marketing and innovation. Until quite recently, this philosophy dominated the segment of the bike industry that focuses on road cyclists who could be described as “moderate-to-heavy users”. However, there now seems to be a backlash against the innovation part of Drucker’s dictum as newly influential players emphasize nostalgia rather than performance. But how far will this new aesthetic carry them?

… legitimate innovation in the road cycling market is harder and harder to achieve. After a flurry of advancements a few years ago, it’s now possible to buy an inexpensive, unbranded carbon frame from Asia that’s lighter and stiffer than pretty much every frame that was ever produced prior to around 2006. Consumers know this.

VDB

I think that VDB’s death tapped into many of the same emotions as this postmodern aesthetic. In some ways, he transports us back to the transition from pro cycling’s past to its present. Had his career stayed on track, he certainly would have followed his contemporaries into aero wheels, power meters, and the wind tunnel. He might even have adapted from the naked, unrepentant doping of his era to the more secretive cheating of today.

But it was never meant to be. Even as he hung around the fringes of the sport, VDB never truly joined pro cycling’s modern era. So our image of him remains that of his early years – brash, helmetless, smashing climbs in the big ring.

photo by n0seblunt

… no one should criticize Lance for not lining AEG’s or anyone else’s pockets. Lance does his thing; it’s up to others in the sport – teams and race organizers – to make the most of any opportunities that he presents. Unfortunately, many of the others seemed to be saying, “We sell exposure to sponsors. Lance brings more exposure, so we should be able to sell more of it.” But this traditional sponsorship model is crumbling. Between the recession and the new ways that people consume media and entertainment, exposure isn’t worth what it once was.

So, cycling needs to move from monetizing exposure to monetizing engagement. By that I mean two things. The first is building sponsorship value around strong relationships with fans, rather than around media impressions. The second is directly charging fans for the entertainment product they receive.

photo by mnorri

Also, here’s an excerpt from the column that will be out at Interbike:

So, getting back to the original question, how will people interpret the current sponsorship shuffle? Of course, lots of fans will say that it’s just about money, and there’s plenty of truth to that. It’s no secret that teams want to maximize revenue and sponsors have an incentive to sign whomever will help them move the most bikes. But this principle extends far beyond cycling and fans of all sports seem willing enough to accept it, albeit cynically at times.

But there are some cycling-specific implications as well. On the one hand, the realignment of teams and bikes suggests that all the bikes are good enough to win races at the highest levels of the sport. On the other hand, this undercuts each company’s ability to argue that their products are superior. That’s a mixed result for most of the brands involved, but it seems to me like one stands to benefit.

Here’s an excerpt from the next column, which will hit newsstands around September 1.

The sponsor’s choice is to stick with or walk away from the team as a whole. There is no middle ground, which makes a case like Ricco’s – where there’s no indication of systematic doping within the team – all the more difficult. Dropping the sponsorship is a clear statement against the cheater, but you can’t avoid some people interpreting it as a lack of confidence in the movement towards a clean sport. Continuing with the team avoids that portrayal, but it will always look to some like a gesture of leniency.

While the first is a debate of incentives, this one is more emotional. At its heart, it’s a question of loyalty to the community of people who love cycling. When a sponsor cuts ties with a team, is that a statement against individuals who violated the basic tenets of the community? Or is it a statement against the community itself? It’s difficult to separate the two.

On the surface, the trio of deals seems like an unquestionably auspicious sign for cycling. But ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford, a veteran chronicler of the sport and of Slipstream in particular, speculated that the team’s deal with GPS device maker Garmin and High Road’s deal with Columbia sportswear aren’t sufficient to run a Tour de France team. A statement from High Road owner Bob Stapleton seemed to confirm her hypothesis.

If it’s true, it could put smaller teams in a difficult position by setting a precedent that the title sponsorship of a competitive Tour de France team can be had for less than what it currently costs to run one. For a program without the backing of a billionaire like Stapleton or Slipstream’s Doug Ellis, the only choice would be to cut costs, with reduced salaries for riders being a likely result.

The issue hits newsstands on August 14. My past columns are archived here.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I suggested in the latest of my ROAD columns that, “instead of the gatekeeper to the Olympics being in charge of professional cycling, the people that run the Tour de France would be in charge of professional cycling.”