Electra is far from the first bicycle company that Trek has bought over the years. LeMond, Klein, Gary Fisher, Rolf, and Bontrager also come to mind in what is possibly not an exhaustive list. In these cases, the brands have been largely absorbed by Trek’s head office in Wisconsin, or in some cases since discontinued.
But from their initial moves, it looks like Trek is planning to do things differently with Electra. Rather than moving the company to cold, rural Waterloo Wisconsin, they’re building a hip new headquarters in the beach side town of Encinitas, California, just down the road from Arnette, Nixon and a string of other sun and surf lifestyle brands.
Encinitas is just north of San Diego, on the coastal side of the highway that heads up towards Los Angeles.
They’re also put an ‘outsider’ to Trek in charge. Kevin Cox, ‘just call me KC’, was already working for Electra at the time Trek took over, although not for long, as I discovered when I interviewed Kevin during Trek World.
Bicycling Trade: You’ve been with Electra…
Kevin Cox: Just two years. I started with the company in January 2012. I’d done a consulting job for their board of directors prior to that on their sales and marketing side.
But really I was brought on to help with the ‘beautification process’ because at that point in time, the investment company that had bought the company from the original founders… it was an equity firm and they were getting ready to transition out.
So I was brought on to help look for partners and see what might make sense and make sure the company was up and running smoothly.
BT: So did you approach Trek or did Trek approach you?
KC: We had intermediaries do all of that. But I was there when we came to the table.
BT: What were you doing prior to joining Electra?
KC: Prior to that I had founded a small boutique design company that was doing retail design, mostly in running stores, some cycling and some other related things.
BT: And cycling?
KC: I’m a cyclist. All through college I raced and post college I raced. But really I spent all of those years in high tech. I founded a high tech firm.
We were a hardware and software company. It was in a cloud computing area. Our clients were big ‘Fortune 10’ customers. My partners and I built that up to be a pretty good sized firm, 150 employees or so. We raised about 70 million dollars of venture capital financing, so it was the real deal. Then that company got acquired.
Then I decided I would do something that I was real passionate about. So I thought, ‘I’m going to get into the bike business!’
I did a stint at Giant Bicycles. I didn’t really know anything about them or the bike business but I thought that might be fun. I worked for them for about three years I guess and then I left there and founded this design firm. And that was how I connected with Electra. We did some design work for Electra. We designed a ‘store in store’ program for them.
Then I did some consulting, then they asked me to come on board and here we are.
BT: Let’s talk about your electric Electra, the Townie Go. That’s the first ebike for both Electra and for Trek Australia to be selling.
KC: We took our best-selling bike platform, that’s the Townie platform. That was the bike that really put us on the map with our patented ‘flat foot technology’ back in 2004. Then two years ago we took that platform and we like to say we strapped a rocket engine on it.
We worked with SRAM and their Ematic hub system.
We like it because it’s very simple. Our Electra customers don’t want a lot of telemetry. They don’t want speedometers and power boost meters. They don’t want to have to change its modes or anything. We call it the Townie Go because literally you just get on it and go.
For us the Townie Go is a ride extender. Your average Townie rider might ride their bike 10 kilometres. Go to the coffee shop and come back or run an errand to the store and come back.
What the Townie Go gives you is that same feel, that same ride, that same fun, but over 50 kilometres if you want to.
BT: How have sales been of the Go?
KC: Sales have been good. And they’ve been especially good now with our new Trek retailers coming on board. I think they have some different understanding of that product than maybe some of our original Electra dealers did. Right now we’re actually in sold out mode, so scrambling to build more, quickly.
BT: Can you tell me how many you need to build or how many you’ve sold to date?
KC: No… but containers and containers full for sure.
BT: Where has Australia sat in the Electra market in terms of size, up until now?
KC: In a word, small. Of course we had Southcott here and they did a great job with the tools that they had available to them. And I’ll be honest, the tools that we could supply were not very much.
Overall, some of our larger retailers in the USA are almost the size of what we were doing in Australia as a whole.
BT: How do you see that going forward with the change to Trek?
KC: Boom! I think our trajectory is going to change. We’re going to rapidly switch to ebike trajectory I think in Electra sales (referring to growth curve, not product mix). I think Australia is a market place that is very well aligned with the Electra vibe, spirit and product line.
I think the Trek retailers are real excited about the new Electra product line being available to them.
BT: Do you think that our compulsory helmet legislation will be a problem for that Electra ‘California beach cruiser’ image?
KC: I don’t think so because I think the people here are used to that. It’s not something that just changed since we’ve arrived. It’s been here forever. But I do think there may be some things in the future to help there. Whether we decide that’s a market that we want to get into. So we could do something that maybe fits with the spirit of the Electra brand and the Electra spirit, but that’s a ‘TBD’ (to be decided) I guess.
