Kidsons Cycles has notched up 37 years, four owners and a brand new store, in a 91 year old building.

Bicycling Trade: Tell me a little about your background and how you came to be running Orbea Australia?

Bicycling Trade: Please start by talking about Wiggle and where you’re currently at.

Some people just seem to have a better eye for style, design and detail than others. Shayne and Philippa Hendren have now proved that three times in a row.

With over a century of Australian bicycle industry experience between them, Bikecorp’s part owners Geoff Ward, Geoff Haydon and Kevin Mitchell have well formed views on the current state and future direction of our industry.

What is one of Australia’s wealthiest and most successful businessmen doing mucking around with bicycles?

A confident and seemingly well researched, well funded entrepreneur is looking to revolutionise Australia’s bicycle hire industry.

The last time I interviewed Kevin Hancett, he was developing a unique clutch sleeve rear hub that promised to be smoother, quieter and most importantly, more energy efficient than the current ratchet system that is in virtually every rear free hub on the market today.

If you’ve been to any major mountain bike event in the past decade, chances are you’ll see Guy McCausland there, in front of his BikeBox trailer, always ready with a smile, handshake a chat.

Every company has its own personality, usually reflecting the values of its owners. Bikecorp is a great example of this. It is co-owned and run by three men who are very comfortable with each other’s company.

Australia’s cycling industry is full of all sorts of characters. Everyone is unique but some stories are a little bit more out of the ordinary than others.

Bicycling Trade: Tell us about your involvement with this project and with the sharks?

Various importers, often small and considered ‘fringe players’ by most bike shop owners, have been trying to sell electric bikes through Australia bike shops for the past 20 years or more.

Velocity Rims founder Tom Black was born in the USA, but loves Australia, where he lived for about 25 years. For most of that time, Velocity was one of the few bicycle industry manufacturers of any significant scale that was still based in Australia.

As their name correctly suggests, Giant Bicycles is one of the world’s largest and most successful bicycle companies. It’s also one of the few which is a publicly listed company, so its financial details are freely available. Giant’s recent numbers are certainly impressive.